Thurs. Mar. 5, 2009
I voted for you
We understand that in Cabinet there is this thing called “collective responsibility”, where any decision made in Cabinet has to be supported in public by all members, even if individuals disagreed behind closed doors. Any member who disagrees with his Cabinet in public is obligated to resign.
Well, I think every citizen who casts a vote in any election, has the right to tell the elected members that, yes, “I voted for you”, if the elected member asks him. After all, your vote is supposed to be secret; the “secret ballot” is the foundation of our democracy. And by participating in the democratic process, each voter is saying that he/she will respect the will of the majority, and acknowledge the elected member as “duly elected”.
Why would an elected member need to know if I voted for him, if not to victimize me or to give me a favor? If we will have fairness and justice in the land, then all citizens need to tell their elected members, if asked, “yes, I voted for you”. “I was only wearing that shirt to fool the other side; I voted for you in secret.” Each elected member has a “collective responsibility” to all of us who make up the electorate.
Who bombed my house?
The Comptroller of Customs is the public official whose chief responsibility is to see that Customs duties and taxes are collected from people who import goods into or export goods out of Belize. His department is one of the biggest revenue earners for the government, meaning “we, the people”. The money that Customs collects helps to support our City Council with the fixing of our streets. It is used to provide the services in our hospitals, pay teachers’ salaries and students’ scholarships, salaries for all government employees – policemen, soldiers, nurses and doctors, the money that area representatives get to help out their constituents from time to time, etc., etc.
When anyone tries to hurt the Comptroller for doing his job, they are being selfish, and they are hurting every Belizean, every one of us who has to benefit from the Customs duties and taxes that we collect from Customs. If you hear anyone talking foolishness, or see anyone trying to do anything negative against our Comptroller, tell the young man, “Hold on, youth! When yu hurt wi Comptroller, yu di hurt all a wi.”
Wed. Mar. 10, 2009
The age of cowards
An old Western song by Patti Page said,
“Two men have quarreled, so two men will fight;
Oh, stop them before it’s too late.
Lord, stop them from doing this terrible thing,
For the sake of two women who wait.”
A former American Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed in a famous pistol duel by “sitting Vice President Aaron Burr, on July 11, 1804.” (Wikipedia) Their difference “arose from a long-standing political and personal rivalry”. Crude, but hardly cowardly; it was all about honor.
These “beef settlers” that shoot in the dark from behind bushes, houses and fences need to be condemned by our whole society, everyone, from the “boardroom to the bases,” not just because they are murderers, but because they are cowards. Face your enemy and “go for your guns” like men, if you want respect as an “outlaw”; but there is no respect anywhere for cowards that shoot defenseless people or in their backs.