Humza Yousaf

[HamCam]

9 hours ago, TRVMP said:

It's easier than you'd think. I still jump off the couch when Scotland score - far moreso than I do when the USA score. And Scotland, being home, is always the place I'll have in the back of my mind for comparisons. But I'm an American now, I am integrated into this society, and every time I go back to visit everything feels a little different. This is natural: I spend maybe 10-14 days a year in Scotland and of course it's going to change. But I'm growing apart from it at the same time I grow into my life here in the US.

I don't think I'll ever stop supporting the national team, and in that sense I fail the cricket test, but in all other senses I regard myself as American first and Scottish second.

I understand your position and think integration into your new life is a real positive but you acknowledge you still 'feel' Scottish. 

[capitanus]

11 hours ago, HamCam said:

I understand your position and think integration into your new life is a real positive but you acknowledge you still 'feel' Scottish. 

But that is perhaps what you fail to see. 

There will be an emotional detachment amongst some of these ex-pats who perhaps see that some of the realism about the old country isnt all hills and bagpipes, but instead is concrete, rain, grey, dull and depressing.  Similar to how I feel about Edinburgh - I cant marvel at the splendour of the beauty of the local architecture as I've spent far too often travelling through there on really crap sodden mornings when it does seem like a really bleak place.  I can only imagine that a Greenockian ex-pat would feel that way only multiplied several times over.

The fact that it isn't governed in the way they want can only compound this emotional detachment, although ithe current state that the SNP has left the place after the last 17 years should only serve as a warning that these clowns shouldn't be allowed to get independence.  They would leave us in a state worse than Greece in no time at all.

[TRVMP]

For me the bleakness isn't in the architecture or the climate - I'd take a Scottish summer over a Texan one - and nor is it even really with governance. I do think an independent Scotland within the EU would be better - economically, socially - than it is now, absolutely. But I think that would be marginal. Overall I think that living in a place with greater individual freedom just suits me better and even those positive aspects of Scotland's relative social harmony and homogeneity just hit different now.

What I will say - and it gives me absolutely no pleasure (in fact it gives me some pause, given my largely anti-immigrant politics in the US) to say it - is that I feel more comfortable when I go to London than I do when I go to a Morton away game. I don't feel I belong in Kirkcaldy or Govan (the last two away games I was at) and I feel alien to the place. To be clear, this is my hangup and not a failing on their part. But outside of Greenock - and that's entirely and totally due to the family and Morton connection - Scotland just doesn't feel like a place I belong anymore, and that would arguably be even more true if it was in an independent Scotland.

I've gone native. I pledge allegiance to the US flag and I honor the Texas flag*. And although I'll be right behind Scotland at the Euros this summer, if in some incredible, alternate universe event, I was asked to pick up arms for Texas against the UK, I'd almost certainly do it.

*Texas has its own off-brand pledge of allegiance and it is adhered to at old-fashioned public events. "Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible." As you can see, it's a bit rubbish, but I say it and mean it.

[TRVMP]

What I'd further add, regarding the SNP's corrupt implosion, is that this seems to be a well-trodden path for small, homogenous countries with a dominant party. Machiavelli wasn't wrong; corruption is a property of an embedded oligarchy, and to excise it requires a return to first principles. This played out in Ireland, Mexico, all kinds of third world countries like that, and Scotland is no exception to the pattern. But I don't regret my SNP support. It was a necessary condition of ending Labour's own corrupt one-party state regime - and the SNP managed it with an overwhelming mandate, one that defied the proportional representation deliberately put in place to stop it from governing. I'm glad the SNP had its time in the sun and despite this ignominious ending I think they did far more good than harm. What happens next is the greater question and it's one that I won't be paying much attention to answering.

[Cet Homme Charmant]

21 hours ago, HamCam said:

I understand your position and think integration into your new life is a real positive but you acknowledge you still 'feel' Scottish. 

Unless you've lived abroad as long as I have (28 years, or 30 years if you include the 2 years I lived in England), it's difficult to explain why I no longer feel Scottish.

I've already given the reasons for the growing feeling of detachment since the 2014 independence referendum, followed by the subsequent political events in the UK. Other factors are simply the passage of time and the weakening of family ties with the deaths of close relatives. So when you add all that up, pretty much all of my sense 'Scottishness' has now dissipated. Nowadays, when asked where I'm from, I say I'm Belgian. Unlike TRVMP it's not because of any sense of national pride, but simply because it's factually correct as I'm a Belgian citizen and it's been home for the last 17 years.

I guess it's down to a feeling of belonging, and because both myself and Scotland have changed so much since I left in 1996, I no longer have any feelings of belonging. On the increasingly rare occasions I do visit Scotland (typically nowadays it's only for funerals and the occasional Ton match), I now see it through the eyes of a detached foreigner.

Like TRVMP I still follow the Scottish football team and will also be rooting for them in Euro 2024, but that and of course the Ton are really the only emotional attachments I have left. So while the football may still be in my blood, Scotland the country no longer is.

Edited March 20 by Cet Homme Charmant

[Cet Homme Charmant]

1 hour ago, TRVMP said:

.....given my largely anti-immigrant politics in the US 

I've probably asked you this before, but how do you reconcile that belief with the fact that you yourself are an immigrant? 

[TRVMP]

17 minutes ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

I've probably asked you this before, but how do you reconcile that belief with the fact that you yourself are an immigrant? 

Three ways, in ascending order of importance:

1) I've been a net taxpayer the whole time

2) I didn't immediately petition to bring over my entire family the second I got citizenship, as so many do

3) Above all, I reject the hyphen. If there was such a thing as a Scottish-American lobbying organization - to get us special treatment in government contracts or visas or whatever else - I would not only refuse to join it but I'd oppose it. Most immigrant groups to the US (and this is quite rational of them, to be clear) instead organize and create ethnic networks that serve their communities. Very rational, very ambitious. But I oppose it. America's best times have come after it's bullied (for example) The Irish and the Germans into becoming Americans, and the current style of fetishizing diversity does the opposite of this. It precludes assimilation. So while I think the recent immigrants who make a virtue of their difference are not doing anything evil, I oppose it, and I oppose their presence as they do it. 

I'll add one more minor one. I can't lie and say my heart exactly bleeds here - this isn't what gets me out of bed in the morning. But it's a fact that the Central American migration routes are horrendous. And a lot of the people who make it across are not well-served by being here. There are children here from Mexico and Guatemala who don't speak *Spanish*, much less English. They're at the mercy of uncles and "uncles" and God knows who else. And the US permits this not out of love for people but love of cheap labor. I give the Biden economy credit where it's due - it's increased wages for the lowest earners. Yet the country responds by importing an alien servant class to depress wages. It's wrong on all sides and while I oppose it from a place of scarcity rather than love, I think my opposition still counts. These kids should be in their villages and not our kitchens. 

Edited March 20 by TRVMP

[capitanus]

I wonder if this is a 'right wing conspiracy' too:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/humza-yousafs-brother-law-arrested-32543490

[capitanus]

https://x.com/NotFarLeftAtAll/status/1777836082668716251

Edited April 14 by capitanus

[Cappiecat 1.2]

8 hours ago, capitanus said:

https://x.com/NotFarLeftAtAll/status/1777836082668716251

That twitter account is nothing more than general racism, islamophobia and all the usual right wing dog whistles.

In my opinion this hate filled shite has no place in our forum.

[TRVMP]

6 hours ago, Cappiecat 1.2 said:

That twitter account is nothing more than general racism, islamophobia and all the usual right wing dog whistles.

In my opinion this hate filled shite has no place in our forum.

If it's any consolation, visiting hours are quite generous in Scotland.

[capitanus]

20 hours ago, Cappiecat 1.2 said:

That twitter account is nothing more than general racism, islamophobia and all the usual right wing dog whistles.

In my opinion this hate filled shite has no place in our forum.

I'll bow to your greater judgement on this.  I've never really bother with social media, but someone showed me that topical image the other day and found it funny.  I done a quick google search and it was on that Twitter/X page that i'd never visited before.

Just out of interest, what is a 'right wing dog whistle'?

 

[Cappiecat 1.2]

5 hours ago, capitanus said:

Just out of interest, what is a 'right wing dog whistle'?

Any topic or issue which will gather the pack of dogs.

[capitanus]

2 minutes ago, Cappiecat 1.2 said:

Any topic or issue which will gather the pack of dogs.

Where can I buy one? 

[capitanus]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/18/former-snp-chief-executive-peter-murrell-charged-over-embezzlement-husband-nicola-sturgeon

 

[capitanus]

I await his book "Nicola Sturgeon, and my part in her Downfall"   

Speaking of which, what is happening with his court case?

[capitanus]

SNP's Power-sharing agreement with the Green Party Wierdos is over.

Fucking marvellous.

 

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