"Anybody heard of 'the Highland Clearances'? Wonder why we're pissed off? "

Indeed. My family included a lot of the ones being cleared. They ended up moving to Liverpool where they did rather well (...perhaps a slight exaggeration... they did ok ish) for themselves. Funnily enough, they make up most of my "English side" of the family. My "Scottish side" included a few who did the clearing :p

@Timur. Yes, I've heard of the Highland Clearances. A disgusting episode which set a sad precedent for the treatment of Native Americans, Australian Aborigines, Maoris, and so on...

In reply to someone earlier in this thread who mentioned that Scots genes are all over the world. Why? Apart from wars we were conscripted into by the English, it's basically down to 'the Highland Clearances'. (Yes, I did mention them before.)
In the late 1800's, the English landowners realised that they could make more money by having sheep on their land rather than crofters, small tenant farmers, people. So they kicked them out. Not just sending a legal notice, oh no. They sent a bunch of heavies to every croft and, if necessary, burned the house down. In one famous documented case, a bed-bound grandmother was burned to death in her family home by such animals.
Where could the people go? The east coast of Scotland had good fishing, so many went there. However, the fishing could only support a finite number. Where did the rest go?
Americay, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the colonies. Engineers, sheep-shaggers and such.
Why is the NYPD made up of Irishmen? (They were screwed, as well, by the potato famine, exacerbated by England.)
I'd say Celtic genes (knowing Celtic proclivities) are in every single corner of the world, even in that place in North Borneo no-one can even pronounce and whose inhabitants have never been met by 'civilised man'. Bet the first one you meet is going to be named Mac or Jock or Paddy or Jones the Bard or Maggie or Caitlin. Certainly not Elizabeth or William or Harold or Nigel or any other poncy English names.
As a Scot, I'd like to state that we are still extremely pissed off about everything England has managed to do to us. And we support our neighbours in oppression.

@YadHoGrojaUL: (rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?)
Glad you've heard, seriously.
I also feel for those other groups who don't have the power/money to fight back in the conventional way (apart from a casino or two). Their ancestors may be dead, but they're still here and can do something. (The people / the ancestors? - you choose.)

Scotland isn't a nation. Nations are modern industrial inventions, and since the modern era Scotland has been an inviolable and integrated part of the British nation, and has been since 1745. For example in 1820 the working class of both England and Scotland initiated a general strike, and the workers in Glasgow invoked the Magna Carta & the English Bill of Rights. This would have been impossible had Scotland been some kind of oppressed nation.

It's also hard to argue Scotland was a backward or peripheral part of the British economy when it led the nation in coal and other non-agricultural production in the 1700s and onward. There were more Scots employed in heavy industry than in the other parts of Britain, which is never a characteristic of a peripheral "colonized" portion of an economy.

Putin, Putin, Putin. Which planet are you from? Where did you get this information from?
Eg 1: (and I quote) "... the workers in Glasgow invoked the Magna Carta ..."
I can't even comment on that because I keep doubling up with laughter.

You're going to tell me next that the Highland Clearances were a care programme for poor, downtrodden, small, white, stupid, woolly things that are worth more than a person's life/livelihood.

@airborne: You started this sh*t. Where the h*ll are you?

"In 2014 are you going to vote for Union or Independence? I guess it shouldn't be my business but being part Scottish I have been interested in this issue."
Just to remind you of the question.
Now you have some really heavy-duty Scots to whom to talk. Ask away.

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-C-E ya bass!

Honestly, I would be a Unionist. Scotland has been lost as an independent nation for over 300 years and there has been only a few serious attempts (mainly based on radical nationalists) to achieve independence. Scottish culture not only survived but thrived, Scottish economy been doing well within the UK (slightly less than the national average of the UK I believe) I would find it awkard for Scotland to win by a close margin. If something like 30-49% vote union then the country will be off to a bad start. I very much detest Alyn Smith assertion that Scotland would achieve independence only to lose it to the control of Brussels. My personal opinion would be to achieve more automony and more political rights for the Scots. Then again, I do very much remember how long it took the English to give back our bloody Stone of Scone and other blunders the English had ruling over Scotland.

I would also hate to see a Scottish Republican Army too on our soil. I heard stories of the Troubles and I'm disturbed at the chance that may happen to my native land. I would support the SNP if they would drop their notion that the free Scots would need the Euro and the European Union.

"Putin, Putin, Putin. Which planet are you from? Where did you get this information from?
Eg 1: (and I quote) "... the workers in Glasgow invoked the Magna Carta ...""

Laugh away.

http://www.electricscotland.com/history/1820/appendix3.htm

"You're going to tell me next that the Highland Clearances were a care programme for poor, downtrodden, small, white, stupid, woolly things that are worth more than a person's life/livelihood."

The English peasants suffered the same thing hundreds of years earlier during the enclosures. This disruption of the feudal clan system occurred throughout Europe, and can't very well be called 'colonialism'. Interestingly, these evicted Highlanders would become the shock troops of the British Empire, helping to establish settler colonies throughout the world. They were part of the imperial project, not victims of it.

@Putin33 Ah, another interesting perspective on things. One of these days, I would like to have a discussion with you over some shashlyk about politics. Through I don't think you live near St. Petersburg?

Нет, я живу в США.

Oh? Really I thought you live in Russia or a CIS state, my apologizes

He's Serbian but he's ashamed of it.

Sorry, I vaguely recall Timur writing glowing reports about the wonderful Mongol Empire. Kinda weird to be complaining about being the industrial heartland of the world's largest modern empire...

Also, during the Highland evictions, the Lowlanders didn't much care for the Highlanders, so how on earth was there a Scottish nation if the two regions of Scotland liked each other less than the Lowlanders liked the English.

Sorry, didn't quite catch your drift on the first point. First sentence ok. Second difficult to fathom: "the world's largest modern empire..."?

The Lowlanders are considered English, especially the Edinburghers, but we don't feel animosity, merely pity.
Unfortunately, this is what happened the last time round: Scotland ruled by Edinburgh loons hand in glove with England. Doesn't bode well.

Putin33 is against Scottish nationalism because he knows Labour can never form a government without the Scottish seats. It's more important to him that the Conservatives are out of power than the people of Scotland have self-determination. For the record, I think Scottish independence is absurd, but I won't presume to question it's nationhood or the right of the Scots to decide their own futures. If they want it and do it peacefully and legally who is anyone else to stop them from going their own way?

See, this is why we shouldn't have states. Some Scots are obviously unhappy with the involuntary association of the land which they've inhabited their whole lives with the United Kingdom. Why don't we just abolish states and allow those Scots who do feel a "national identity" with one another to make voluntary associations and contracts with one another, and allow those Scots who feel a "national identity" with the English to make the same with the English?

It would be nice to run naked through the woods and eat chocolate all day while riding unicorns, but it can't happen. States are here to stay just as much as flush toilets are.

Haha says you, I'm about to strip down and go for a ride through campus on Puff the Magic Dragon, get on my level

Even when Invictus agrees, he has to post with his obligatory personal attacks and claims to moral superiority over me. By his amazing logic, shouldn't I also oppose Quebec nationalism, since my primary concern is the electoral fortunes of center-left parties and Canada losing Quebecois MPs would assure it has a much more rightwing future? Why would I care so much about who gets to rule England when an independent Scotland would bring into the world a virtually Tory-free country with access to North Sea oil? No longer would the Scots have to suffer under Tory misrule.

Or couldn't it be that Quebec is on one hand an oppressed nation whereas Scotland is nothing of the sort and Invictus is just being obnoxious as per usual?

"First sentence ok. Second difficult to fathom: "the world's largest modern empire..."?"

Yes, Britain was the world's largest modern empire. Why is that difficult to fathom?

"The Lowlanders are considered English, especially the Edinburghers, but we don't feel animosity, merely pity."

So you don't even consider the more populated region of Scotland to be Scottish??

" If they want it and do it peacefully and legally who is anyone else to stop them from going their own way?"

Funny you don't share that opinion about South Ossetia, but rather vigorously defended Georgia's brutal crackdown in defense of their 'territorial integrity' there. By if I say black, you say white. Guaranteed.

Grey.

Thought you might be talking about China.
"industrial heartland" - sadly, no longer. Maggie successfully screwed that in the 80"s, with malice aforethought.

"the more populated region", especially Edinburgh, is full of English or anglophiles.
The less populated regions, eg Skye, is where they buy their holiday homes.
A good part of Scotland has been bought up by foreigners.
Many Scots have, like myself, chosen to depart to distant lands.
Not sure if there are any Scots left in Scotland any more.