I genuinely don't understand why so many American centre-left posters support Scottish independence.
Scottish independence represents the kind of stupid nationalism that you all (rightly) profess to hate. It isn't based on anything concrete because Scots* aren't really any different to English or Welsh. It would be like me supporting independence for Minnesota. Scotland isn't some kind of oppressed colony - it is actually over represented in Westminster and has its own self government that has a lot of power. Not only that but its weaker economy benefits from the stronger English economy.
* Who is a Scotsman? I was born and brought up in Wales but Ancestry says I am 75% Scottish (Shetland) and my surname is strongly linked with Gloucestershire, where I now live.
I understand that you may not like Brexit and that that might be your reasoning. But Brexit isn't actually going to change very much for ordinary people. The only difference is maybe having to pay slightly extra for some products from the EU. And really if you think leaving a 60-year union with the EU was tricky how much harder would leaving a 400-year union be?
Furthermore independence would just make one of America's strongest allies a lot weaker both economically and geopolitically. It's no surprise that Russian and Chinese state media support independence.
I generally agree with the substance of this post, but elision of certain facts and the framing of it rankles slightly and is indicative of the trouble unionism is in here.
Having a Welsh parent and as someone who was born and grew up in England, I can second your point that Scots are not very different to other peoples in the British Isles. But our national identity is a fact. We have our own legal system (and have had one for ~1000 years), a parliament, our own sporting teams, and a separate national history centred on heroes who fought the English for national sovereignty. It won't do to ridicule Scottish nationalism as on the level of that of Minnesota's. Devolution is popular, there is broad support for devolving more powers to Holyrood, and the average Scottish voter, unionist as well as nationalist, is primarily motivated by the question of "what is best for Scotland" over pan-British appeals. A unionist argument that Scottish nationalism is stupid because you're not really a nation would be insulting to voters here, and the suspicion that "the Westminster parties" all secretly believe this is what fuels a lot of nationalist animus.
As for Brexit, it's simply not credible to brush it under the carpet as something irrelevant, we're talking about a central cultural issue that paralysed politics UK-wide for years. To a majority of Scottish voters it's totemic of an alien English nationalism that dominates Westminster and is uninterested in compromise. No won the indyref with one of their main arguments that independence threatened Scotland's EU membership! We can debate the effects of Brexit (I think it's a bit worse than slightly higher prices for EU products in shops) but it's head in sand to ignore the irreconcilable difference between Scottish and English voters on the issue. And even more ignorant to ignore the Conservative governments since 2010 basing their electoral success on juicing English nationalism to help cover for an extremely unpopular programme of austerity here, which is even more fundamental than Brexit to Scottish voters' alienation from Westminster.
I'll post a bit about economic issues later. But "Scotland is a weaker economy subsisting on the stronger English economy" is framing that not only rankles but is ignoring the huge regional imbalance within the English economy that breeds huge resentment against London and the South East from other parts of England. It's not a good argument for the union here in Scotland.
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