When Abner Doubleday introduced the sport of baseball almost one hundred and eighty years ago, he probably never expected for it to develop to the extent that it did to become America’s favorite past time. \uffa0\uffa0The success of the development of baseball was probably due to its simplicity and any child playing the game whether on the blocks or at school can easily learn to play. \uffa0However, the underlying \uffa0principles and rules of the game were formulated by Alexander Cartwright. \uffa0It was based on the fact that three strikes \uffa0against the batter and he is out.When three batters have been retired, the other side then has the opportunity to bat.<\/P><\/p>\n
The simple principle of “three strikes and you are out” has since been applied to many areas in life especially when a strike refers to an action that has a negative impact on one’s life. \uffa0Such activities are usually discontinued after one has failed after three attempts.<\/P><\/p>\n
The controversial situation involving Sidney Stubbs, the Member of Parliament for the Holy Cross constituency is yet another example of the policy of “three strikes and you’re out ” \uffa0in action. History will show that this was the final Waterloo of Sidney Stubbs’ political career.<\/P><\/p>\n
The first strike against Mr. Stubbs was when exercising his authority at BAIC fired a number of employees reportedly because of their political beliefs. \uffa0Treating a group of people in this manner is what is referred to as “discrimination!” \uffa0This is completely contrary to the laws and constitution of the Bahamas.<\/P><\/p>\n
In common lingo, \uffa0this abuse of one’s constitutional rights is what is referred to as”victimization,” \uffa0that ungodly evil that Bahamas hoped would never return to the Bahamas.For the record, Prime Minister Perry Christie on a number of occasion during the 2002 campaign and after has categorically stated that his PLP government would not tolerate the evil practice of victimization. \uffa0Prime Minister Christie position is clearly contrary to Mr. Stubbs’ action. \uffa0Many persons felt that Mr. Stubbs’ action was due to his political inexperience and \uffa0being a \uffa0rookie in the House of Parliament. \uffa0But other \uffa0PLP politicians who were newly elected but did not display this kind of \uffa0undesirable actions \uffa0that Mr. Stubbs did.<\/P><\/p>\n
The 2nd strike against Mr. Stubbs was his involvement \uffa0with the Korean fishing boat scandal. \uffa0Conflict of interest , \uffa0bad judgment and improper procedure all adds up to a politically disastrous situation that should have ended Mr. Stubbs political concern right then and there. \uffa0But we as Bahamians all too often accept mediocrity and contradiction as acceptable moral behavior. \uffa0Prime Minister Perry Christie’s Code of Ethics had \uffa0made it quite clear on a number of occasion that there will be zero tolerance for any of his Ministers and Parliamentarians who violate the Code of Ethics. This position of course is hogwash as Prime Minister Christie’s slow and limited action on this \uffa0matter appears almost \uffa0to be a stamp of approval of Mr. Stubbs’ actions with his ambiguous reaction to Mr. Stubbs andthe Korean boat scandal. \uffa0Clearly Prime Minister Christie is a man who does not mean what he says or say what he means !Freeport \uffa0News editor Oswald Brown had \uffa0recently reported in one of his editorials that Mr. Stubbs has some pretty \uffa0impressive credentials having studied at some prestigious universities in both North America and Europe.While ignorance of the law is no defense, \uffa0Mr. Stubbs must surely be aware that in those countries in which he had resided such as Switzerland, \uffa0United Kingdom, \uffa0Canada, \uffa0USA, etc, once the scandal was exposed \uffa0the government would have expected nothing less than his immediate resignation. \uffa0Failure to do so could have also cost the Minister his job as the Minister is vicariously responsible for his subordinates.A worst case scenario of alleged corruption could have brought down the entire government.<\/P><\/p>\n
The third and final strike against Sidney Stubbs is enshrined in the Constitution of the Bahamas where it is clearly defined who is qualified to sit in the Honorable House of Parliament.Age, \uffa0citizenship, mental incapacity and imprisonment of \uffa0three months or more clearly disqualifies anyone from taking a seat in the Honorable House.A good example is Wilbur Moss, the PLP representative for Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay who was imprisoned in 1989 was forced to resign after his imprisonment. \uffa0This led to a Bye-election in the Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay Constituencies in 1989.<\/P><\/p>\n
Bankruptcy also disqualifies one to be a Parliamentarian.The courts has determined Sidney Stubbs \uffa0to be a bankrupt. \uffa0As this is a provision in the Constitution, \uffa0Sidney Stubbs only recourse is to resign from the honorable House of Parliament. \uffa0To try to defend the indefensible is foolish as the only court that remotely might be able to assist Mr. Stubbs is the Privy Council.Environmental Minister Code Smith’s opinion that demands for \uffa0Mr. Stubbs to resign is at this time is premature \uffa0is pure nonsense and is serving only as a delay tactic.This is most unfair to the good people of Holy Cross who had elected who they thought would have been a full time Member of Parliament and not one who is too busy defending himself and has little time to take care of the people’s business.To continue under these circumstances, \uffa0Mr. Stubbs is only serving his own selfish agenda. \uffa0This is most unfortunate, After three strikes, \uffa0clearly Mr. \uffa0Stubbs is out of the political game and it is now time for someone else to step out on the plate to bat for Holy Cross.<\/P><\/p>\n
Dr. Leatendore \uffa0Percentie
\nBoston, Massachusetts
\nJuly 25th, 2004<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
History will show that this was the final Waterloo of Sidney Stubbs’ political career. To continue under these circumstances, Mr. Stubbs is only serving his own selfish agenda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}