The Scottish Vote

55% of the voters in Scotland cast their votes to remain part of the United Kingdom.  Wow.  I am both very surprised and very pleased.  Had I wagered on the election outcome I would have lost.  The CNN sub-headline this morning says, “Scotland rejects independence.”  I do not see it that way.  I see it as Scotland rejects secession.

It appears to me we live in an age of secession.  Unhappy in your marriage?  Secede.  Unhappy with your church?  Secede.  Unhappy with your government’s policies?  Secede.  Unhappy with the ethnicity of those in leadership positions?  Secede.  And has there ever been a teenager frustrated by parental oversight who has not contemplated running away from home?  Secede.

The American Civil War was a classic example of this approach.  The “South” left the union.  The “North” fought to get them back.  We usually do not think about the fact that there were many in the North who supported the South and many in the South who supported the North.  It was not a universal split, it was a majority split led by those with power in the South, and it was mainly done for both economic and cultural reasons.  The South lost and technically became a defeated nation that waged war on the United States of America, and the idea that one or more of the “united” states may withdraw from the union was put to rest.  Well, put to rest everywhere but Texas, but that is another story.

I remember the battle over the City of Stafford and the Stafford Municipal School District.  In 1977 the City of Stafford was booming as Houston expanded.  Stafford was a small part of the Fort Bend Independent School District, a district that was at that time mostly rural.  Stafford knew that their property values were higher than Fort Bend and that they would be better off if they could secede and spend their wealth on themselves rather than share it with the rest of Fort Bend.  A lengthy court battle ensued and Stafford eventually won the right to secede becoming the only school district in Texas that is governed by a city council rather than a school board of trustees.  Sadly, Fort Bend boomed and the values in Fort Bend are now well beyond those of Stafford.  Stafford cannot grow.  The short sightedness of the folks in Stafford continues to hurt them.  But, as is typical, if I think I will be better off by cutting and running, I will cut and run.

The Ukrainian conflict seems to me to be a secessionist story.  The conflict between branches of Islam in the Middle East appears to me to be a secessionist story, and ISIS clearly wants to rule the world with their own brand of faith.  In the Presbyterian Church where I grew up a secessionist movement is underway to split off churches that do not support the notion of allowing gay pastors.  In my church there has been a successful secessionist movement to split the worship service into two services, one following traditional Methodist liturgy, hymns, anthems, etc. and the other very informal celebrating what I call radio music led by guitar strumming and drum beating lay people.  The two groups rarely interact.  The early service, or “contemporary” service, has their own sanctuary and are gone by the time the rest of us arrive for church.  In fact we live in a day where non-denominational churches are the big deal.  Seems to me that folks want to be believers, but do not want to follow commonly accepted liturgy and ground rules.  So we have these islands of independent mega churches all over the place and it is virtually impossible to find in writing what they really believe.

(As an aside, what I observe occurring politically across the globe based on ethnicity, belief systems, and cultural variables is the opposite of what I see occurring economically across the globe.  We live in the age of globalization and merger.  Large economic concerns are more interested in becoming larger than they are splitting up into smaller and smaller operations.  Wonder why?)

On and on it goes. Seceding is easier than staying and working things out.  It comes as no surprise to me that folks want to secede.  Earlier in human history if a group disagreed with or did not relate to the ruling group they could and would pack up and go elsewhere and start over.  Believe Jesus visited the western hemisphere and that polygamy is OK?  Pack up and head west.  Now we have nowhere else to go. 

This nation was founded by folks who disagreed with what was going on in Europe.  They were the minority.  They were the economic, political and philosophical losers so they seceded to the “New World” to form a new nation under a federalized government.  Funny to me that there remain folks who oppose the concept of a federal government and I wonder if they understand our history and the Civil War. 

But Scotland voted to stay in the United Kingdom!  Wow.  I wish Russia would get out of the business of encouraging secession in the Ukraine.  I wish radical Muslims would stop insisting that the world operate the way they want it to operate.  I wish those that oppose current US policy would stop threatening to shut down our government to have their way.  I wish the divorce rate were lower.  I wish folks would learn to work within a diverse system to ensure that their wants, wishes, needs and beliefs were met, rather than symbolically packing up and running away from home.

(The only thing worse than secession, from my point of view, is banishment wherein someone working within a system to create change is kicked-out of the system for thinking differently than the ruling majority.  That kind of thinking to me is worse than secession and simply contributes to more secession later on and represents the anti-thesis of a democratic belief system.)

On the other hand, we did say that, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”  We would not exist as a nation without secession. 

But we seceded from a dictatorship, not a democracy.  Those who so insist on having their own way that they would support secession from a democracy are working on intellectual premises I cannot support. 

Way to go Scotland!