[Z]

I cannot STAND this "fear won over hope" ****e I've been reading everywhere. I'm just going to share what I posted on Facebook this morning in this thread.

spent all of yesterday slagging off everyone who felt the need to get on a podium and give their opinion prior to the referendum result as if they had anything new or especially insightful to say and I'm now reading plenty more post-referendum statuses today. The thing that strikes me is there is a lot of "I'm stunned people would choose x (hypothetical bad thing) over y (hypothetical good thing)" as if these were choices we were voting for yesterday. The question was a simple yes or no, not a list of x versus y scenarios where you picked the one that matches your personality best and you can share the results of the quiz on Facebook. Nobody has died for their human rights in this SNP-driven bid for freedom. Nobody has had their views silenced, their families arrested, their homes destroyed. This campaign was not grassroots, it was not the will of the people being spearheaded by a popular leader - it was a group of politicians trying to convince the people of Scotland that they wanted something they'd no real reason to consider previously, like door to door salesmen trying to sell vacuum cleaners to housewives. They gave it a fair crack and they exposed many of the flaws that are present in the United Kingdom; but they didn't show us anything that we didn't already know. They didn't provide us with anything positive to cling onto, because they couldn't. They could only offer promises and criticisms. That's the problem with trying to start a revolution in a place where the quality of life is far better than everywhere else in the world; there's nowhere else in the world for us to aspire to become like to spur us into wanting change. We are at the top of the pile, all we can really want is small changes here and there, there is no place for a gigantic, monumental shift in power or lifestyle if it doesn't reflect the people. We are not Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania in 1991. We are not Palestine or Syria or Iraq or Ukraine in 2014. This is not my opinion, these are merely factual observations that explain why the yes campaign didn't triumph in the end - but they gave it their best shot and as with all things political; there will be changed that we like and dislike and it doesn't really matter which union we belong to, that will always happen. Now I'm annoyed that I've joined in. Bye.

I voted yes, by the way.