{"id":30458,"date":"2013-01-20T17:18:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T22:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=30458"},"modified":"2013-01-20T17:18:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-20T22:18:15","slug":"opinions-ill-conceived-ill-timed-illogical-and-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2013\/01\/opinions-ill-conceived-ill-timed-illogical-and-illegal","title":{"rendered":"Opinions: Ill-Conceived, Ill-Timed, Illogical and Illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last week we were told by the Minister of National Security that \u201cregulation implies legalization\u201d, perhaps it was convenient\u00a0 that a medical doctor made that statement and not a lawyer. Maybe he was \u201cchosen\u201d\u00a0 because the legal community in the PLP, inclusive of\u00a0 Mrs Gibson and Mr Fitzgerald would have a problem saying something like that and having\u00a0 an ill-informed\u00a0 statement, attached to their names.<\/p>\n

I know that the good doctor\u00a0 has been following the series of events, and it would have been in his best interest to let the \u201clegals\u201d in this drama take this to the public. The term \u201cNon-constitutional amendment\u201d should have served as a red flag. I had called the Miller show this week asking him about the logic in his thinking as we \u201cdiscussed\u201d why he was voting Yes, and he told me that his motives\u00a0 were \u201cideological\u201d, a term that has a wide spectrum of meaning that moves from the subjective to the objective.<\/p>\n

I would think that when it comes to the matter of legality and the Constitution, under which the rights of all citizens are protected, even a medical doctor should see the necessity of logic, discussion and clarity on the gambling issue.<\/p>\n

An ill-informed electorate will lean toward a No-vote, no matter how subjective the Prime Minister paints this situation, even though the social and financial needs of the Bahamian people are pressing in at this time. The fact that many of the constituents who gamble make up a significant percentage of those \u201cin need\u201d, further complicates matters. Voting\u00a0 yes or no on January 28, will not mean what most of us think it means.\u00a0 The Minister of National Security has said that the issue right now is regulation, even though there is no legal framework established for those regulations.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister was right when he said that he has to wait and see how the vote goes, before he can even pursue regulation and that if the vote is no, he has warned of what will happen in terms of persons being displaced from their jobs. What he and his Cabinet has not brought to the public\u2019s table is the objective or long term issues that the nation will have to face, in this atmosphere of confusion\u00a0 promoted by his \u201cnot having a horse in the race\u201d.<\/p>\n

I am waiting on the \u201cother lawyers\u201d in the nation to do\u00a0 a public service and\u00a0 have an injunction taken out against the January 28th Referendum vote ( if they have not done so already). A decision has to be forced on those who were elected to lead us. If they are allowed to get away with what is being pushed on this nation, what \u201cconvenience\u201d will they attempt next?\u00a0 I am voting No, because the industry of Gambling takes more than it can ever give, and this No is further encouraged by the confusion being promoted because of the damnable attitudes political, social and religious leaders who are more interested in their bellies that what is good for this nation.<\/p>\n

With the 40th year anniversary less than five months away will we be content to have this \u201csmearing\u201d of the National image, by an ill-conceived, ill-timed, illogical and illegal Referendum?<\/p>\n

By Edward Hutcheson<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An ill-informed electorate will lean toward a No-vote, no matter how subjective the Prime Minister paints this situation, even though the social and financial needs of the Bahamian people are pressing in at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[14],"tags":[636,944],"class_list":["post-30458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-gambling-referendum","tag-letter-to-the-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30458","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30458\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}