The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Choices are daily occurrences for all human beings. Some of us because of incapacity have our choices made for us. However, the majority of us participate in this privilege and most of us want to feel convicted in the choices we make.

Most politicians do not share this view, their convictions are often shrouded in convenience.

Information is needed to make choices. Information is needed for us to arrive at a place of being convinced that we are making the right choice; especially in matters that will affect us in the long term and this present administration has failed miserably in too many of its initiatives promised since May 2012, and of informing and educating the public.

Someone has said that if you want to get things done, it is better if you do it one thing at a time.

Bahamians have no problems with the intent of the proposed referendum, but when the Chairman of the Commission begins with the suggestion that the public should not be thinking and ends by telling us what we should be thinking, where is the place in between where views and objections are voiced.

Even in the recent “educational meeting” it seemed that the noisemakers got more attention than the persons who had legitimate questions; the persons who wanted to “think”.

We all agree that the words under question have been in the constitution since 1964 and they have a particular meaning. What the noisemakers, bigots, homophobes and misinformed are asking by their agitations is this, “Do the words mean the same thing in August of 2014?” and, “Has any administration, present or past, signed on to any conventions, be they WTO, EPA, or UN, that is going to change the meaning of those words?” It is like propositional truth, when you have established it, it often goes in a particular direction.

When high-profile personalities in government and the public arena take issue with the leader of the opposition, because he has changed his mind so that the persons affected by these amendments can be more informed we have to ask if they know something that we don’t; especially when some have been very vocal in the past in matters relating to particular aspects of this proposed amendment.

Dear Editor, If those affected are not informed, they have every right to reinforce their misinformed, bigoted, prejudices with the same zeal that some would proclaim their preferences.

EDWARD HUTCHESON

Nassau,

August 16, 2014.