Draw Breath

As you can see, I posted on Wednesday last week on Chekist's post about civic unionism. This provoked an interesting discussion, both here and on Three Thousand Versts... about what civic Unionism might entail. Anyway, I've been a bit lazy and have left two comments unanswered, one by O'Neill and one by Chekist himself.

I've started out writing a brief reply, but for distinctly Mark Twainian¹ reasons, it turned into a 1500 word comment. Given that I think I raise some interesting, or at least mildly diverting, points, I think that it merits a post to itself. Basically, if you're too lazy/wise to read on, I tackle O'Neill's comment (with whom I agree on a lot) on the subject of trends in social conservatism north and south and I address Checkist's comment both on ethno-nationalist origins and on why a United Ireland used to be justified but isn't now.  read the rest of this post »