Charlie Stross Unintentionally Explains Why Scottish Independence Is a Bad Idea
13th June 2014
Tyler Cowan sees deeper than most.
Stross is a smart guy and I am an admirer of his writing. But my view remains pretty straightforward: when dislike of the policy choices of the electorate leads to a serious movement for secession, something has gone deeply wrong with the preconditions for democratic attachment.
Stross is a smart guy, but, like many ‘smart guys’ (especially those who make their living from ‘the arts’), he’s pretty much clueless when it comes to political (and, in these degenerate modern times, that includes economic) questions. The impression I get is that the reason Scots want their independence is that they don’t think that the current England-dominated regime in London is socialist enough; I’d be in favor of giving them independence and then seeing how long it takes them to wake up when there isn’t a robust English economy propping up their dream welfare state.
The fact that Stross sees ‘dark forces of reaction cropping up across Europe’ is precisely because of the policies that he, politically, favors — an all-encompassing welfare state, confiscatory levels of taxation in the pursuit of ‘equality’, and an open-door policy toward immigration that is greasing the skids for Britain to become Just Another Failed Muslim State. When decrying ‘reaction’, it is always a good idea to think ‘reaction against what?’ and consider that perhaps said ‘reaction’ might be justified. This ‘reaction’ isn’t coming from the ruling class — they’re doing very well off of socialist-state cronyism, as did people like Putin back in the day — but rather people who are expected to pay for all of this idealistic clap-trap. Look at who is supporting the BNP and UKIP; it isn’t David Cameron and his Old Etonians, nor the red-diaper babies like the Millibands. John Derbyshire, Patron Saint of Dyspepsia, has been vox clamantis in deserto for years on behalf of these squeezees, to little effect.