I just favorited this from BreakingNewsUK on Twitter...

UK sets out conditions for Scotland to hold vote on breaking away from the rest of Britain - @Reuters http://t.co/Mk8xRXlh
January 10, 2012 at 01:03PM
from: @ BreakingNewsUK
original

Scotland To Break The Union With England?

Is the urge fro true freedom spreading from the Middle East to… Scotland? As a person of Scottish heritage, I SURE HOPE SO! So blogs underpaidgenius:

Unrest in Scotland over fiscal austerity measures have led to the Scottish National Party to capture a majority in the Scottish Parliament for the first time since it was founded. This may portend a push for greater autonomy, even separation.

Alan Cowell, Liberal Democrats Dealt Huge Blow in Britain Votes

With the final results tallied, according to the BBC, the Scottish National Party had won 69 of the 129 seats in Scotland’s regional Parliament. The result gave the nationalists a majority there for the first time since the assembly was created in 1999 — a triumph that resounded loudly some 77 years after the party was founded as a minority group promising to reverse the three-centuries-old Act of Union between England and Scotland.

The nationalists’ victory was seen by analysts partly as a reward for its track record in a regional government that, in marked contrast to the English authorities, maintained Scots’ free access to university education and to broad social benefits, even in hard economic times.

Alex Salmond, the party leader, said he would introduce a referendum on independence “to increase the powers of our Parliament.”

Mr. Cameron promised a fight against Scottish separatism, saying, “I will campaign to keep our United Kingdom together with every single fiber I have.”

Hey Cameron, didn’t your empire used to be a little BIGGER?

You might want to STFU and let Scotland take their independence if they want it.

Full disclosure, I *love* Scotland. I am of Scottish descent (though I have some German mixed in, too).  I’ve been to Scotland twice and even got married there.  Looking at history, I’ve always felt Scotland has been oppressed by England and have always thought Scotland should cut ties with them.

All that aside, this makes me think that perhaps the UK is inadvertently onto something—infrastructures and social systems just might work better on smaller, more diversified scales (like government, itself?).  The UK used to have a massive empire, but they couldn’t maintain it.  I’m sure that there are many reasons for this, but it doesn’t take a history buff to understand that smaller systems are easier to maintain.  Maybe this is something America will need to consider as it faces a federal government that increasingly doesn’t seem that well equipped to save the economy or do anything but protect corporations and wage war.