{"id":3897,"date":"2016-06-28T18:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T23:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/?p=3897"},"modified":"2016-06-28T12:15:08","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T17:15:08","slug":"assorted-brexit-cogitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/backgroundprobability\/2016\/06\/28\/assorted-brexit-cogitations\/","title":{"rendered":"Assorted Brexit Cogitations"},"content":{"rendered":"

At one point, the Romans managed to conquer and rule most of western Europe, along with much of the eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n

Via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They made it as far north as the southern border of Caledonia, which they attempted to conquer more than once<\/a>. Ultimately, though, the greatest empire in European history gave up on assimilating any part of Scotland, and went back to manning and reinforcing Hadrian’s Wall<\/a>. This was widely regarded as a reasonable and prudent move.<\/p>\n

In light of this\u00a0anti-imperial history,\u00a0there is a certain irony to be had in seeing how Scotland uniformly voted to remain in the European Union last weekend. Americans, see if you can pick out the Scottish-English border just by looking at the Brexit vote results:<\/p>\n

\"uk-brexit\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sort of hard to miss, isn’t it? The descendants of those northern tribes who once refused to join Europe are now refusing to leave. This has lead to more than a little soul-searching over the 2014 referendum in which Scotland opted not to leave the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

\n

This just further hammers home how wrong I was to vote against Scottish independence. #EURefResults<\/a><\/p>\n

— James MacDonald (@JimMacDonaldMMA) June 24, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n