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Don't buy the political rhetoric

Edward Hutcheson

We are entering a season where some of our most able citizens take leave of their senses and profess their chosen political ideology with such a passion that the question of demonization comes up. In years past, I gave this anomaly little consideration, but having come face to face with it in the past decade I feel the need to comment. This activity really pinged my radar, when one of the local pastors, used some very inappropriate language as a “man of god”, as he “directed” his flock  in a previous election. I will admit that at the time I saw his behaviour as normal, when you consider his upbringing within that “political community”. In that same year, I watched as several persons that I have been in ministry with, went out on political limbs and started cutting on the wrong side of the limb they were standing on; they would have done irreparable harm to themselves and their families, if not for intervention. I think demonization is an accurate term, because when we attempt to talk about those “past” incidences they claim to have no memory of it.

"…Nation building is hard work and it must be intentional; especially in the four and a half years between the silly season."

This could be the year that we get some answers about the true function of political ideology in a social context, as a younger voting population asks the questions that have nothing to do with jobs, entitlement, dependency or Exodus as we have evolved into the new pharaohs. The populace who see themselves as a majority will have to experience their own personal exorcising as they battle the social and cultural influences that have allowed particular biases to be inserted into their psyches. In my opinion, this is worse than being a drug addict. In a recent sermon during the Majority Rule celebration, Pastor Timothy Stewart reminded the listeners that we who consider ourselves the majority came into a circumstance that allowed us to exercise our freedom as Bahamians, but some of us were more comfortable in securing our own “Pharaohs”, as we ventured into the new land. What his sermon also implied that what we call a Bahamian Majority, has nothing to do with skin colour – although some politicians would want to tell you different as they spread their own gospel of fear and mistrust. What was preached as a confusing black and white issue, has been further confounded by the additional colours of yellow, red and green.

The Homosexual Agenda???

Rick Lowe

The lead story in The Tribune's Saturday edition of the Big T for January 7, 2011 was about a Pastor Mario Moxey warning The Bahamas of the gay threat from the US and Canada. Apparently those countries have "obvious homosexual agendas" designed to sabotage "the authority of God."

This all came about in the pastors response to the draft Code of Practice for Content Regulation of the air waves.

Can't we understand that if consenting adults are homosexual what business is it of yours, mine or the good pastor?

But gays have an agenda? What agenda? Are they going to take the world over? I wonder what the "agenda" is of the gays that live here? Are they going to sabotage anything in the islands south of here or just The Bahamas?

Please tell me more pastor so I can be on my guard.

Political Propaganda is starting to roll out

Rick Lowe

With elections constitutionally required by May 2012, we knew it had to start and as usual the political propaganda is predictable.

The first group through the neighbourhood so far is the Democratic National Alliance - The DNA, and their standard bearer for Montagu, Ben Albury left a flyer outlining his party's goals at the door.

Really they're simply cute phrases, nothing more than symbolism over substance.

Here's a few of them:

1. Re-Establish Social Protection
2. First-World Global Education and Training 
3. Legitimize, Transform and Authenticate Bahamian Culture
4. Strengthen The Family
5. Rebuild Christian Values
6. Diversify Industry Structure
7. Ensure Food Security and Sustainability
8. Climate Change and Disaster Preparedness

And an obligatory quote from the Bible about vision and perishing is thrown in for good measure of course.

Okay, I'll admit that I'm older and more cynical now, but the reality is governing politicians have their hands so full trying to ensure the Civil Service gets the job done with their current responsibilities that to expect them to do just the eight additional items above is nigh on impossible.

The lesson of Ebenezer Scrooge

Professor David Henderson offers some interesting food for thought in this piece for The Freeman.

Here's my favourite quote from the article:

"The failure to distinguish between compassion and coercion is all around us. It’s a failure that people on many parts of the political spectrum exhibit." More…

Compliments of the season

                        (Image compliments of Free Digital Photos)

Christopher Hitchens: Rest in Peace

Rick Lowe

One of my favourite authors and speakers, Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday, December 15, 2011. He was only 62, but has left us a treasure trove.

Here's how Douglas Murray of The Spectator put it.

"We have lost our sharpest wit, one of our finest writers and one of our best minds. There are no false consolations to be had. Only the truth that from now on, instead of knowing what Christopher thinks, we will have to consider what he would have thought. We will, in other words, have to think for ourselves. If we manage it then, in large part, it will be thanks to Christopher and the incomparable example – in life and work – that he provided." [More…]

Here's a link to some of his wonderful quotes...

See Vanity Fair's Memoriam here…

Enjoy the Christopher Hitchens YouTube Channel here...

Machan’s Archives: Imperialism, Left and Right

Tibor R. Machan

No, I am not talking about foreign policy. My concern is with how both Left and Right seem to have their straight jackets into which they want everyone to be strapped, like it or not. It is disturbing in part because a high point of the American way of life has always been the 'live and let live' principle. And the USA, with its substantial commitment to the principle of private property rights, has managed to live up to that idea quite well.

Just consider religion--in America there are no serious religious wars because the faithful of each religion are able to conduct their affairs in peace, undisturbed by others with whom they disagree. Consider how different this is from, say, Jerusalem, where the faithful of several religions are constantly bickering about who should rule the turf. Here, in contrast, the public square is secular and the faithful are free to assemble where they will, on private property, and carry on just as their doctrine requires.

But there are some exceptions, unfortunately. Too many among the religious right have it in big time against gays now, so whenever gays get various concessions from the legal authorities, they are attacked. So long as there is a public component to being gay, gays have to contend with the political clout of the religious right. And since the state has for centuries made it its business to treat marriage as its preserve, issuing licenses and conferring rites on those who would marry, there is no peace for the unusual, unorthodox, or odd. It is a bit like interracial marriages used to be, namely, a province of state regulation, so voters could make their desires, prejudices, hates, loves felt on the topic. That is pretty much what happens whenever something that ought to be private, a matter of voluntary consent, is invaded by government. In dictatorships the big Kahuna says how it goes and in democracies it becomes an invitation to various hordes of people meddling in the affairs of others.

Lessons in Freedom: Liberty and Virtue

Tibor R. Machan

In order to begin this essay with a degree of coherence, I need first to discuss two types of lib­erty. The one kind I will designate as meta­physical lib­erty;  it means the capacity for in­itiating, starting or being the first cause of movement supposedly possessed by some things in nature--maybe by human beings, maybe by God. That is the first type of liberty that is rele­vant to the issue of virtue.

The second type of liberty is political. It is the condition that may exist among human be­ings when they do not intrude on one another, do not limit one another's choices and/or conduct. Politi­cal liberty refers to that state of organized social life in which individuals are not deprived of their sovereignty, autonomy or per­sonal authority, or a sphere of jurisdiction concerning their lives and works.¹

These are elementary ways of discussing these two forms of liber­ty. In order to have a coherent conception of these two types of liberty, one would have to develop an elaborate philo­sophical analy­sis. For example, political lib­erty is easily defined in terms of persons not in­truding on one another, but ex­actly what consti­tutes an intru­sion and what doesn't is not easy to spell out. Does looking or staring at someone amount to intruding on that person?  In some cultures that constitutes an intru­sion and in oth­ers it does not. Talking to someone is not an intrusion in most cases, but some consider it in­trusive to say certain things to women or about God. In some politi­cal ideologies conscripting some­one's la­bor is not an intrusion because it is believed that we all naturally owe one another some services or even belong to society. In others it is intrusive because a per­son and his or her skills are seen as inviolable. So spelling out ex­actly the meaning of political liberty by reference to intru­sion, or invasion, or violation is not simple.  One has to know the borders that are to be placed around people and which are to prohibit entry past those borders, and where permission is needed for entering them and how  those borders get estab­lished. That is very complicated and most political philoso­phies in the liberal tradition revolve around spelling out what those borders are.

The liberal idea of the spontaneous order, popularized by F.  A.  Hayek, depends on the idea of borders, as well, because the conduct or behavior that creates it without macroeconomic planning as­sumes that the agents are not being regimented, controlled, or coerced. But what is the agent? Does an agent include his or her la­bor and property?  Does it include one's thought? Put differently, what does "oneself" include in its meaning? What does personal sovereignty amount to?  Develop­ments that lead to a spon­taneous order presuppose this personal sover­eignty which needs to be de­lineated or de­scribed, something very difficult to do.²

Crime - Who's to blame?

Rick Lowe

As political speeches go, Mr. Ingraham, Prime Minister of The Bahamas, made an excellent presentation on crime, and steps his government will take in an attempt to get some control, on Monday evening of this week. Read it here…

I think he struck the right chord regarding volunteerism and the fact that this is a cross sector problem and will only be resolved with a community wide effort.

Maybe we should expect it now, but instead of offering constructive criticism on such a vital matter, - that is not an FNM, PLP or DNA problem, but a Bahamian one, - Mr. Branville McCartney had a very shallow response published in The Punch yesterday. Read his party's recommendations from some time back here…

I have not had time to read the PLP's response yet, so here's hoping it will be deeper than what seems to be the norm these days.

And I have not seen a response from the church groups yet, other than a sound bite from Rev Simeon Hall, but that should be an interesting read.

None us have the perfect answers, and it's easy to point fingers, but in this case I think Mr. Ingraham is closer than the responses seen to date.

Let's hope that on this issue, if no other, the politico's can prove that they are adults concerned about ridding our country of crime instead of their political ambitions.

There are many other areas they can grandstand on, but this should not be one.

In the final, we're all to blame for the crime.

Lessons in Freedom: Prohibition hasn’t Ended

Tibor R. Machan

One of my grown children and I watched the first installment of Ken Burns’ new series, Prohibition. There was a lot of information, details one would know only if one studied the history closely but one matter came through clearly and accessibly. That is just how stupid or vicious the current supporters of the disgusting war on drugs are. I mean all the politicians, citizens, members of courts and so forth, people who appear to have learned absolutely nothing from the alcohol prohibition that made criminals out of millions of peaceful American citizens.

"...Having such rights means, mainly, that they might be exercised in objectionable ways, just as having the right to freedom of speech and religion can be...."

What a scandal and catastrophe! A country that has had a reputation throughout the globe for institutionalizing a mostly small and free federal government and for being on record championing liberty for the citizens of the entire globe is undeniably hypocritical and has been such for much of its history, at least in some of serious areas of American society. There was slavery, of course; and prohibition, and detention for Japanese Americans and now the insanity of placing thousands and thousands of citizens in jails and prisons for, well, nothing that could possibly be reasonably considered a violent crime.