American insists Scotland is not a country

[Scotsgait]

Originally Posted by Scotsgait

Why am I not surprised that my submission to his blog yesterday morning has been ignored ? It was a link reporting that the Scottish Parliament backs the dotSCO campaign

Gosh ! It's suddenly appeared.

Surely not a coincidence ?

[kathyv]

Originally Posted by quizmasterchris

Most AMERICANS have no idea about the Bear Flag or Green Mountain republics, and a lot of non-Texans don't know about Texas.

What do you base this statement upon?

[quizmasterchris]

I think I made it very clear, if you read any of my posts - are you actually doing that? - that because you left an anonymous comment on my blog that came in the same time as those of a person who has been sockpuppeting the thread on and off for a year that I did not approve it.

It's fine and dandy that at some point in the future Scotland will get its own domain (England, Wales and NI presumably still won't have them, since no one in those places seems enraged that people like me say they aren't countries) in the future.

Perhaps in the future Scotland will be a country again too.

Are we seriously going to question that most Americans aren't aware of the Green Mountain and Bear Flag republics? Most Americans according to surveys and polling have a great deal of difficulty locating even major events in American history to the correct half-century. Most Americans have an atrocious knowledge of MAJOR events in American history, let alone MINOR events.

In fact there's this study, one of many:

"According to Still At Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now, a report released February 26 by Common Core, an organization that promotes core curricula including liberal arts and sciences in American schools, high school seniors are getting a 'D' in history: a survey group of 1,200 seventeen-year-olds answered just 67% of thirty-three basic history questions correctly (to say nothing of more esoteric topics and events).

Read more at Suite101: Survey: U.S. Students Fail History: Many High School Seniors Don't Know Basic Historical Dates or Events http://americanaffairs.suite101.com/article.cfm/us_students_get_a_d_in_history#ixzz0kwRgTr65"

Another example:

"The survey shows that almost half the kids polled don't know the purpose of the Declaration of Independence. And about 1 in 6 parents don't know that the document declared the American colonies free from British rule. The survey also shows that only about 1 in 8 children can correctly identify the nation's founding fathers, that only about half know that "the shot heard round the world" started the Revolution, and that a third don't know that the "Redcoats" were British soldiers who fought in the Revolution - and not in either the Civil War or World War I."

Link: Survey shows some kids, parents lack fundamental knowledge of american history - Parent News

But you think most Americans know about the Green Mountain Republic - seriously?

Is anyone going to deal with ANY of the salient points about the actual topic that was started here discussing my statement that Scotland is not a country?

[Duthill]

Originally Posted by quizmasterchris

If you look above, a poster arguing with the other American in this thread SPECIFICALLY stated that states were not independent before being states, which is 100% wrong, both in the case of the original 13 and in the case of the other 4 I keep mentioning. No one corrected that, so it's safe to assume you all found that to be a reasonable argument.

Most AMERICANS have no idea about the Bear Flag or Green Mountain republics, and a lot of non-Texans don't know about Texas.

If that is the case , post a reply to the other poster . Don't include the rest of us in your insult .

This thread is about the status of Scotland .
Stop rabbiting on about the USA . The whys and wherefores of the structure of the 'States' has nothing to do with this issue .

[Duthill]

Originally Posted by quizmasterchris

Is anyone going to deal with ANY of the salient points about the actual topic that was started here discussing my statement that Scotland is not a country?

Why should we ?

You are not Scottish , you are not of Scottish ancestry ,
in fact , by your own admission , you have connection to Scotland at all.
You are not even British .
Be told by Scottish folk , that Scotland is a country , and accept it .
Beyond that , it is none of your business .

[ebag]

I haven't read all of this thread so I may be repeating what someone else has said. I apologise it this is the case. Scotland has it's own legal and education systems,postal service and banknotes. It has it's own flag and royal standard which the British Monarch uses when there. So how anyone can say Scotland is not a country is beyond comprehension.
As an aside the said British Monarch has a title that is only correct for England and Wales. She is not the second Elizabeth of Scotland nor the Commonwealth.
The clauses of the Act of Union quote give only credence to the posters arguement. The Act states that Scotland will keep those things that I stated above, thus Scotand kept those things vital to its autonomy. The Act also states that if a certain number, can't remember at this minute how many, Scots MPs in the Westminster Parliament wish to secede from the Union the Union will no longer exist.
To my mind this does not suggest that the parties to the Union, Scotland and England/Wales, became states of a Union but that the countries agreed to a partnership which could be dissolved very easily.
One last point, Northern Ireland is not included. It is a completely separate issue.

[quizmasterchris]

Duthill - The only reason I'm on this thread is that the users of this forum linked to my blog and began insulting me for 'not knowing what I'm talking about.'

I think I've reviewed - especially in the original post a year ago - many of the same things that you listed which Scotland has. Although I didn't list banknotes, as countries have control over their own choice of currency, and Scotland does not have that (i.e. you can't decide to switch to the euro aside from rest of the UK).

It was other regular posters on this forum who introduced the topic of the states, specicifcally for comparison purposes, which makes perfect sense and is an apt discussion. At least one got something wrong about the states that seems rather relevant.

There are actually 12 varieties of US banknote originating from 12 Federal Reserve banks, and although they have only very minor differences in appearance as a result, there wouldn't be anything barring the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from doing graphically diverse regional ones.

Many of the world's provinces (and colonies) have their own educational systems and postal systems and so forth, and as I've repeatedly pointed out the devolved parliaments of the UK function much the same, if not exactly the same, as state legislatures in the US owing to the Tenth Amendment.

In fact you could NEVER constitutionally have a state legislature suspended by the federal govt here, which suggests that US states are a step closer on that front to being countries than Northern Ireland is.

Speaking of:

If N. Ireland isn't a "country", then any dictionary claiming that the UK is "four countries" has to be objectively wrong, which should make people question using the dictionary for this purpose.

And if Northern Ireland is a 'different situation' from Scotland - and I agree it is, and have been arguing that for months - why would you use the same name of a political unit for that as Scotland? Each of the 4 areas have very different relationships to each other and to the whole, so why get upset if someone points out that using the same political term for all 4 doesn't make much sense?

Comparing like units to like is how the international community of countries actually does decide what a country is.

My not being genetically Scottish is the worst argument I've heard yet for why Scotland is a country. It shouldn't matter who the speaker is, if the facts merit something being so it's so and if it isn't, it isn't.

Are you aware, incidentally, that the domain registration of this website is through a company in my home state of Pennsylvania?