Cornwall should have a devolved Assembly/Parliament

"I think there's something wrong with a system where a parliamentary representative is blocked from discussing the rule of his own constituency...something very wrong indeed." Perhaps, but gag orders exist in smaller legislatures too. " As far as I know, racism is racism and there are no subsets" Subsets of the same category as racism- collectivism :D. "And although the Celtic race is separate from the Anglo-Saxon race, they are indistinguishable. The desire for self-rule is in now way racist." The classification of a specific race being ruled by it's own members rather than by members of another race as "self rule" is racist, it determines that one's identity is dependent upon one's race. Since you've conceded the classification is race, I'll drop the subsets bit for now. "The age of globalization is immaterial. It only means that information and travel across the world are faster, not that national, linguistic, and racial differences are going to go away" First you state they are indistinguishable, now you state the differences won't go away... Make your mind :D. Also, it's ignoratio elenchi. I never stated that people would start ignoring things during globalization, only that globalization means that the differences between them are no longer objectively relevant (i.e. for example Europeans don't ipso facto have more access to technology than Africans for example, because they've mixed up, including in the countries where technology is prevalent). Since they all have access to the same ideas, inventions, and whatnot due to globalization, those arguing that they are still collectively different in relevant ways are, necessarily, racist. " No, I think states average out to be as restrictive or free law-wise as the federal government is. Some states are more liberal, some are more conservative, and thus the laws are different, but state authority in and of itself does not lead to tighter laws." The problem with this notion is that both modern liberalism and modern conservatism, the two predominant ideologies in much of the democratic world, are BOTH ideologies that reduce freedom- they simply want to be reduce freedom over different things. Liberals seek control of your wallet, but wish little or no control on their bedroom activities, drug use, abilities for dealing with the consequences of bedroom activities (birth control and abortions), and speech (thought control they don't have a problem with, but speech control still shocks them). Conservatives seek control over all those things- but want little or no control over your wallet. When the two square off evenly (as is likely in larger jurisdictions), every time they want to control something, they'll have to compromise and allow for control of the thing they didn't want controlled, making the process very painful indeed. When the two don't (as is more likely in smaller jurisdictions than otherwise), it is rather easy... South Dakota, for example, restricts abortion pretty much to the absolute limit allowed by Supreme Court precedents, it is only federal supremacy which prevents it from going further. Or one might just note the obscenity laws that made a regular practice of banning books that exposed people to any ideas other than... well, frankly, yours according to your profile, throughout the South and even some northern states. What stopped them? An assertion of the power of the central government. Or, to take an extreme example, there sure as heck haven't been any witch burnings in Massachusetts since it had a central government to answer to. "The founders of America, in entrusting so much power of the states, saw rightly that the people and industries and practices of Alaska were going to be different from those in Indiana, and so on. So, they decided that the states themselves, obviously with their own best interests at heart, would do a better job in some tasks of government than the federal government" This is a socialistic assumption. The industries of Alaska are different from those of Indiana... but this does not have consequence for a government that allows a free market. Since you've been upholding freedom as a value, that is the scenario we are striving for. It has consequence for a government that interferes in the economy, but that just means that such localization is tailor made, not for freedom, but for etatism :D. And no, there is no fundamental difference in "people from Alaska" and "people from Indiana." " Ireland is still one of the freest nations on earth. Knowing nothing about it as I do, that health care system sounds harebrained--but compared to some of the shenanigans in the UK and US these days, it's practically paradise. The tax rate, which is the biggest factor I think in a "freedom index" is very low in Ireland." Something is missing in this equation. Universal health care and a very low tax rate don't go together in a system in which taxes pay for the government... unless you either throw in loads of debt that will not be paid off without a massive increase in taxes (meaning such "freedom" is temporary either way), or less investment in a military, meaning such "freedom" will be gone the first time an invader comes across it. " Exactly my point: The UK has become less free. It has become less free because it is ruled by a bureaucratic monolith." It has become less free because of the loss of the votes from Ireland that would otherwise slow down this loss of freedom. The bureaucracy bit has a lot to do with it, the monolith part does not. "Why don't you support the Cornish assembly, then, which would break a gaping hole in the monolith" Because, unless it has fundamentally different [political premises behind it, it shall simply create new bureaucrats, who know the territory and therefore how to reduce freedom in it, far better. "That sounds to me like it was pulled out of a hat. I'd love to see some hard data. That's exactly the opposite of what, say, the Founders of the US thought. " And the Founders of the US took advantage of the separation of authority into different states, so that the ones in the South could continue owning their slaves, and the ones in the North could say "What? I'm not associated with them" and wash their hands of the matter while continuing to purchase the cotton from it and not have to have their constituencies compete with blacks in the free labor market. It was the central government which finally, tossing aside the restrictions of the Founding Fathers, built an army and freed the slaves. Is the Civil War not hard data enough for you? Or is there some loss of liberty I'm missing, that's more extreme than Southern slavery, that resulted from this? " Just because the Cornish haven't armed themselves and marched on London recently (they have in the past; believe me. Ever heard of the Prayer Book Rebellion?) doesn't mean they don't deserve independence. There was, in fact, a radical Cornish front for a while." And what, precisely, were the plans of this front upon achieving independence? If we don't know that, and if we don't know the extent to which those ideals still pervade, we can't know enough to believe that Cornwall will be another exception like Ireland. For every Ireland there is a South Ossetia (which, believing Georgia's government to be too capitalist, wants to rejoin the Soviet Union but will settle for Putin's Russia, which is the Soviet Union without the honesty.) Or a Confederacy. "First of all, Cornwall is much smaller than Ireland, and second, they're just less hot-headed than the Irish. " Thought you said you weren't racist? :D Continued in comments