re: #212 HappyWarrior

Heh don’t get me started on historical stuff. I think people have watched Braveheart and gotten the idea that William Wallace’s FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM was for a democracy. Nah just for one other tyrannical absolute monarch to rule rather than another but at least that one knew the power of haggis!

I should point out that the Scots issued the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 which has a number of parallels to our own founding documents.

The Declaration made a number rhetorical points: that Scotland had always been independent, indeed for longer than England; that Edward I of England had unjustly attacked Scotland and perpetrated atrocities; that Robert the Bruce had delivered the Scottish nation from this peril; and, most controversially, that the independence of Scotland was the prerogative of the Scottish people, rather than the King of Scots. In fact it stated that the nobility would choose someone else to be king if Bruce proved to be unfit in maintaining Scotland’s independence. Some have interpreted this last point as an early expression of ‘popular sovereignty’[4] - that government is contractual and that kings can be chosen by the community rather than by God alone.