Rick Lowe
Did you know that if you find an article in a store with a price tag lower than the real selling price, the store is obliged to sell it to you for the lower price?
Did you know that if the government makes a similar mistake they have the power to make you pay them the difference?
How do we allow one rule for the government and one rule for us peon's?
Because the majority of people remain guiet and do not speak it. Most feel they won’t make a difference, but if everybody changed this attitude there would be strength in numbers. There should be public outcry that Mr. Ingraham and two other cabinet members are living it up at a soccer game and fellow bahamians are living without power and cannot keep food on the table. I have yet to see one thing in the press questioning this decision.
Haven’t governments always lived by the their own rule of “don’t do as I do, do as I tell you to do.”
after all, they are the annointed ones, we are the serfs.
This is exactly what happens when constitutional government and rule of law is replaced with tribal rule.
Power is vested in the individual, as opposed to Authority being vested in the position.
The population re-aligns themselves to either join the ruling tribe, or go underground hoping to be invisible, and await their tribes assent to power.
This, combined with the “under the bus” actions of the leadership of either of our tribes, mutes any objection from the general public.
This of course necesitates micro-management, which starts at the top, but trickles down along tribal lines, permitting arbitrary civil servant action and control of processes, when their real role as lawfully defined is to facilitate, pointing out required steps/documentation.
Hence the familiar line, “our interpretation is…..
“A politician or civil servant can do only that which the law provides,
A private citizen can do anything, save that which the law prohibits”
Here, we have developed the reverse, in that politicians and Civil servants do as they please,
we can do only that which they allow.
The judiciary is apparently incapable of correcting this abberation, either through incompetence or political micro-management of their function.
paralysing us into this spiral is the fact that any citizen who wishes to familiarize themselves with the Constitution or law, a good example is the Hawksbill Creek Agreement, finds comprehension extremely difficult because what they are reading bears no resemblance to what they are living.
How on earth can any one, nevermind a country plan anything, if the rules have been floated?
Before I get accused of being something I am not, or someone misconstrues my point, the word Tribal can be interchanged for fuedal.
Both are legitimate forms of governance from the past, both created difficulties that produced/forced changes, etc etc that result in what we have today.
Written rule of law, and Constitutions.
which is now backsliding or reverting to either.
Call it what you will.
You sound just like the Americans who are asking Obama not to play golf until the oil spill is clean up. People are so amazing, every summer there is the same problem with BEC, why do we behave has if it is something new or strange. If the Primes and his cabinet members did not attend the soccer game would the light stay on all day and will everyone table be full of food. your message is getting lost in the pettiness of the details…
just my thoughts
Thanks for stopping by Dacy:
I’m inclined to agree that the politico’s deserve a vacation like the rest of us.
By the same token, they need to tone their rhetoric down when it comes to the private sector.
If not, they will get the same treatment.
As for Obama, he seems little more than a PR specialist.
The Bahamas customs dept, or the government, tells you what the duty is on certain items so you bring them in, sell them based on the duty customs told you it was, then a year & a half later, they come to you & say, hay, you owe us more duty on this product & you pay it or else.Fidel Castro would not do that.That to me is very crooked & should not be.Now who could you talk to about that to get it solved ? I have tried & you might as well talk to the walls because you will not get anywhere with customs, they have way to much power in my opinion & they sure do abuse it.
I have had former Comptrollers tell me in situations surrounding the budget communication duty changes
“sometimes you win, sometimes you lose”
Hell of a way to plan for business.
The sad thing is that we, the public pay for their incompetence twice, both directly and indirectly.
Some of the higher ups are in these positions through attrition, not capability.
If They keep throwing the competent ones under the bus, this is what we are left with.
I believe its to late, they have all been thrown under the bus, at least it sure seems like that with whats going on right now, incompetence rules !
Customs makes the mistake and the innocent pay.
Mr. Glen Gomez Controller of Customs in reference to “leaks” and “tip-offs” blaming some one on his staff. He is responsible and an apology is the proper response. His remarks to the press look more like “damage control” to take the heat off.
Mr. Gomez acknowledges that a violation of the public service Secrecy Act has occurred and he hopes to prevent further violations.
IN THE MEANTIME:-
1) Senator Fitzgerald has been complicit in violating the law by disclosing confidential information illegally obtained. (the Nassau Motor Co. customs entries).
2) As a Member of the Senate he cannot be prosecuted for his possibly libelous statements. In other words he can violate the law with impunity protected by The Law – Article 364 (f) of the Penal Code.
At the very least, It would be reassuring to the country if his fellow senators would table a motion of censure for a breach of ethics.
What motivated Fitzgerald? What does he have to gain by his actions?
Could it be the “politics of envy” game? Scapegoat a successful business to gain popularity with the larger voting population?
As a strategy it has no ethical basis but in effect debases politics in our country.
Shame on him
That is politics.. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t!!! We let them make it legal! We are to blame..
Objective Thought
It is not a matter of winning and losing. It is a matter of right and wrong.
“We let them make it legal”
No we did not, Politicians act on their own decisions, and like every one else must be held responsible for their actions.
Blaiming the victim is a mistake.