Unfortunately short term thinking is a hazard of politics. 5 years of a government that folks are unhappy with and the new party comes in to great fanfair. Within 6 months to a year the people are complaining and within 2 years a sizeable chunk of their voters will have turned on them because essentially nothing has changed and they aren't millionaires.
4-5 years later there is talk of the former lot getting back in because they will know what to do and everything will be fantastic. And the cycle continues
It would be great if everyone was content with the possibility that things might be hard, inconvenient or perhaps downright miserable for a decade while the new country finds its feet and all those teething issues are worked out but eventually you will never have it better.
But 10 years is a long time if you are looking over your shoulder at redundancy and keeping your family fed and in a suitable/ nice house. Is 10 years of hassle worth it if you are a pensioner and will be dead by the time it could be great. The romantic notion of 'doing it for future generations' does not fit with a capitalist 'Me' society where its get what you can quickly and sod the rest.
As was mentioned earlier I also feel the whole thing has been rushed. 3 years of talk followed by 18 months campaigning is not enough to decide the future of a 5million+ country.
To put it into a a bit of perspective it has taken Tesco more than 6 years of negotiating, campaigning, researching etc to finally obtain outline planning permission for a medium sized supermarket on a former industrial yard in the West End of Glasgow. It will take them another 1-2 years of research, feasibility studies, meetings etc before they can obtain formal planning permission.
It will be almost a decade by the time the place finally opens (if indeed it does) and that building will only impact the people in the G11 & G14 Postcodes.
Exactly how much research and feasibility has been put into the yes or no campaigns because the closer we get to the date the more I see 'Opinions' being banded about as 'facts'?
A skill in debating is being able to anticipate what the other person may be thinking and putting yourself in their place for a short while so you can at least try to understand why they don't agree with you.
There is a distinct lack of that in both sides of the campaign and for me it has been even worse than a general election.
As an undecided the last thing that will convince me to vote either way is someone using the phrase ' I cant understand how anyone could even think of voting <insert yes or no>.
But we are stuck with the date now so we all need to get on with it.
I just hope that come September 19th everyone just accepts the decision and gets on with it.