"Next week Scotland will hold a referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom. And polling suggests that support for independence has surged over the past few months, largely because pro-independence campaigners have managed to reduce the 'fear factor' — that is, concern about the economic risks of going it alone. At this point the outcome looks like a tossup.Well, I have a message for the Scots: Be afraid, be very afraid..."Paul Krugman, Scotland, What the HeckKinnoch: With respect, Mr. Gandhi, without British administration, this country would be reduced to chaos.Gandhi: Mr. Kinnoch, I beg you to accept that there is no people on Earth who would not prefer their own bad government to the good government of an alien power.Brigadier: My dear sir! India *is* British. We're hardly an alien power![silence]
You just can't make this stuff up.
There is nothing less attractive than a liberal in service to power.
Have a pleasant evening.
Yes, this is a fictionalized account of a speech from William Wallace before the Battle of Stirling. So is the famous St. Crispin's Day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V. The sentiments expressed in both are consistent with those struggles.
What is not a fiction is the fire that can burn in men's hearts, the preference for self-rule that they have, the yearning to be free that rises up against continuing repression and the overbearing dominance of distant rulers who do not have the best interests and well-being of their homes and families in mind.
Men often will sell other men's liberty, and gladly. But not everyone is willing to sell their children's freedom for money.
There is always a risk in change. It is a difficult thing to birth a new nation and to forge it in liberty.
But there is an even greater risk for those who resist peaceful changes to the very end, who make meaningful reform impossible. Freedom is resilient. Eventually the fire in men's hearts bursts forth, and the walls of repression, and even the far flung parapets of empires, can fall.
This is one of the great lessons of history.
The calculating economist says 'be afraid.' But the great people of Scotland, and the ghosts of their fathers and mothers say, 'be free.'
