Most Scots Aren't Ready For Independence

As an anarchist I am often accused of being too optimistic when sitting with someone and explaining how people can be trusted to take care of their own affairs without having to have a government do it for them. But what I've seen and heard during this independence referendum campaign deeply worries me and shows me that to put it bluntly most people in Scotland are simply not ready for independence.

So what do I mean by that? Well from the SNP to the Radical Independence Campaign (RIC) all I see is socialist ideas being put forward by most on the yes side. Like the SNP talking about re-nationalising Royal Mail in Scotland, something that simply would not work when you take into account the thousands of employees who now own shares and also keeping the universal service would be a major challenge.

One of the big fear tactics is telling people that the Tories in England are trying to privatise the NHS and the only way to keep it in Scotland is to vote yes. Now, I have explained in many other articles why the NHS should be privatised anyway. But this is not about that, this is about how socialistic policies in the UK have infantilized large amounts of the population. That's what state socialism (and socialistic policies) do.

It's like this, followers of the Abrahamic religions feel comfort in having a god that is interested in them, loves them and deeply cares about what's going on in their lives like a benevolent father who never abandons them and is always around. To remove that from the very deeply religious is to invoke fear of being alone in the cosmos and it removes the hope that there is someone you can ask to help you out in hard times and will provide a paradise (although in some Christian conceptions a strange one that's like one eternal family gathering – I'll take hell over that thank you very much) after death.

People feel the same way about the state (whether they admit it or not). The revulsion in peoples faces when you talk seriously and intelligently about removing the state altogether is due to the fact that they are afraid to have to fend for themselves without daddy government around to do that for them. By having a national health service, welfare, state pensions and all the rest of it people feel more comfortable because they don't have to worry about that stuff. They're not bothered about the fact that none of this is actually free if you are forced to pay taxes. Or by the fact that we have to put up with inferior services from state-run institutions (I have gone into depth on this in other articles).

As the state grows so does the rise of adult infants. If there was no welfare or NHS many people might think seriously before having children, they would realise that they need to work harder or get a job in the first place. That their resources must be channelled into providing the best life for their child. But when daddy government is around then people feel freer to be irresponsible because they just think fuck it, the government will pay for it. The same goes for people who don't save for their retirement for the same reasons. Do they ever think about the fact that the government steals the money from hard working responsible people to pay for that​ It is a disgrace that so many people are dependent on the state in Scotland. Now before you think, it's the fault of big business creating inequality or some other scapegoat just remember that big business couldn't exist without having politicians in their pockets and it is irrelevant which politician you put in office because everyone has their price and we know people get into politics to get paid – in a big way.
 

So how does this all tie in? Government is the most dangerous superstition (as Larken Rose put it) that we have. All this independence chat is is about bringing some form of Tartan Socialism to Scotland within the already existing power structures (the EU and the Bank of England). Until we have a major paradigm shift in Scotland and people wake up to what is really holding them back then all this independence stuff is frankly a waste of time. I would be the first to enthusiastically support a free Scotland with a minimal state to begin with and I would be out campaigning every day if that was on offer but all I hear from pro-independence people is talk of growing the state even larger if 'independence' is achieved. Let me tell you until the people wake up to the reality of government we're just re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

 

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