Thursday 19 November 2009

Explain yourself sir, or by god I'll...

Over on the Our Scotland forum, I've been having an interesting exchange about "the unionist position", in which one Cuthill76 seems to think that, if you are not a nationalist, you have to explain yourself to him/her.

This is of course an absurd position, so I wrote a little playlet to explain to Cuthill and others why their position is logically untenable....

Cuthill76 posed the challenge ...
To the unionists. Can you please clarify your position on why being part of the Union is a good thing? Can you please do this by providing tangible reasons and please avoid simply negative attacks on the nationalist position.

To which I responded

the curtain rises...

A Small Voice: Hey you: can you please tell me why we shouldn't cut off our right arm? Can you please do this by providing tangible reasons and please avoid negative attacks on the Amputatist position..

Me: Whut? Who are you?

I speak for your right arm..

No you don't.

Yes I do, I'm the Right Arm Amputatist Party (RAAP)

Where are you? And how can you claim to speak for my right arm?

I'm here...down here..that's right... a pinkie. And I demand redress for past wrongs....

What wrongs...

Nobody asked me to be attached to your body....it just happened, before I was born. It was the parcel of rogues in a stem cell. I wasn't consulted and I demand redress. Chop off the arm.

But your not my right arm, your just a tiny minority digit...

...I speak for the whole of the arm, and I demand amputation, or at least a referendum on amputation. And I want it now. Or later. And I demand that you give me reasons why I shouldn't amputate..

But that's crazy. I don't have to tell you why I want to stay attached to my right arm. It's always beeen there, it works quite well, if I lost it I would be a bit hampered and I have no desire to lose it. As for the arm, how would it survive on its own?

There's tons of small arms surviving quite well all over the world. They don't need foreign shoulders to lean on or foreign legs to help them get about. They're called the Arms of Prosperity, and you get them from Iceland to Ireland....

But I don't need to tell you why I want to keep my arm. It's my arm and I like it. That's enough for me...

BODYIST!

What do you mean?

Your a bodyist. You want to keep your body whole and deny me the right of amputation.

But it's my body! Dammit. And it's my arm, I don't see any sensible reason to cut it off.

Why should you keep it?

Why not?

See. You refuse to give any reasons why you should keep your arm. Your stupid and bodyist and you don't have any reasons for keeping your arm.

Apart from it works and its mine and I don't want to lose it? Isn't that enough?

Not for us Amputists. We don't agree with connection and we demand Amputaton now!

Yer aff yer heid mate. It's you that should be justifying amputation, not me that should be justifying keeping my body parts...

COWARD! BODYIST! and so on ad infinitum...

the curtain falls

3 comments:

  1. That's a silly analogy.

    If it was true the world would be full of limbless states because most modern countries were once part of, or governed by, another country.

    If your argument in favour of Scotland staying in the UK is that you regard independence as a form of amputation then fair enough.

    But not many people would agree with you as they tend not to associate political arrangements with body parts.

    Perhaps this is why you do not wish to engage in that debate?

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  2. Indy
    I'm sorry you don't like it...I thought it was quite humorous...:)

    And it is quite accurate in showing the SNP position..i.e...they want to cut bits off a healthy "body", i.e. the UK.

    And they are a small minority of Scots.

    And they don't really give any positive reasons for this proposed mutilation....

    I don't know where you get the idea that I do not wish to engage in any debate... nothing could be further from the truth...

    ReplyDelete
  3. BTW, your first sentence...

    Two of the most successful nationalist projects of the 19th century were unionifying projects..

    ...the unification of Germany by Bismarck and the unification of Italy by Cavour and Garibaldi.

    So you don't have to in favour of amputation to be nationalist.... it's just that the SNP are...

    ReplyDelete