Interesting thread....

While I do see a movement to non-traditional and newer tartans, I think that there will always be 'old standbys' - classics that are always around and worn. Perhaps with the rationale that the wearer has a link of some kind, or not. Many folks these days don't feel they need a link to justify wearing a particular tartan - and in reality, who would enforce a tartan's required allegiance? The clan system is no longer functional (though the societies do exist in many cases).

And this draws me into another portion of Jock's post - the term Non-Scots. What precisely makes one a Non-Scot? Surely it isn't determined by blood. We have people on this very forum of pure Scottish pedigree who are looked upon as foreigners simply because they live somewhere else.
Let us also not forget the blood mixed through the ages - Pict, Norman, Irish, Scandinavian - in addition to the 'original' Scotti that people that migrated.

So what is a Non-Scot? Is it geographically bound? If I took a Scot from Scotland and placed them in France, do they then stop being a Scot?

I posit that a Scot can be a person who has a love of Scotland and all things Scottish. A Scot is a person, that if the country put out a call, would send aid in any way they could.

I hope I'm not offending, though I fear I am.
Perhaps we need to institute a new term 'Honourary Scot', or perhaps 'Blood Scot' (if it applies) - for those of us with a connection that we feel deeply.

I do hope I'm not just indulging my North American 'need to belong'.

-John