Readers React: Wolf-crying from England over Scottish independence

To the editor: Cambridge University professors Brendan Simms and Jason Pack think that the “gravest immediate threat to the West’s long-term security” comes from “peace-loving Scots.” Peace-loving? Have the lads looked at a single page of Scottish history? The bloodshed in Scotland makes the American Old West look like — well, like Cambridge, England. (“The Scots have little to gain and a whole lot to lose with independence,” Op-Ed, Sept. 10)

The writers’ fears that an independent Scotland will rapidly be overrun by the likes of Vladimir Putin and the fiends of Islamic State are also misplaced. Scotland unleashed would be the scourge of fascists and terrorists, just as Scotland unleashed was for centuries the scourge of Scotland.

I agree that Scottish independence is a chancy and probably bad idea. But if this kind of hysteria exemplifies the English, I can see why the Scots want to leave.

John McCumber, Los Angeles

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To the editor: After spending most of their opinion piece telling us that civilization as we know it will be doomed if the

Scots vote next week for separation from Britain, professors Simms and Pack of Cambridge University then tell us it will be a sorry day for those who “value democracy, liberty, economic freedom and the cradle of liberal Western civilization.”

Whew! Poor England will no longer have “heft” in world affairs, and an independent Scotland will be at the mercy of the Russians. And Catalans and Tyroleans will run riot.

Cambridge is a nice place to live, far removed from the realities of the world.

Philip Brimble, Los Angeles

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