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Last Updated: Feb 13, 2017 - 1:45:37 AM |
 If you want to say the Bahamas is in a mess, the clouds were slowly gathering for decades now. Some people are just intellectually dishonestly enough to be very selective in when they say it.
From public commentary, one would gather that the usual suspects just realized this right after 7th May 2012.
Ms Dames is advised that if the PLP government was unaware that The Bahamas faced social challenges, the party would not have proposed National Service as far back as 1987, almost thirty years ago. This very important social policy proposal never saw the light of day, thanks to the FNM and their media friends.
After ten years in the political wilderness, Christie’s PLP government promptly introduced Urban Renewal and the youth restorative program with YEAST. The FNM cancelled both programs and watered down Urban Renewal. In 2012 Mr. Christie doubled down with UR2.0, a program with 41 sub programs and 11 projects.
In its current term the Christie government has moved quickly to introduce Saturation Patrols, Shock Treatment; School-Based Policing; amendment to the Police Act; Prison Reform, Urban Renewal 2.0, Sandy Bottom, the Trafficking in Persons (TIPS) initiative; Marco’s Law; the sex offender registry; Welfare Reform (R.I.S.E.); community walkabouts by the National Security Minister; the anti-gang initiative and supporting legislation; amendments to the criminal procedure and penal codes; the Swift Justice Initiative; Integrated Justice Software; Citizen Security and Justice Program; Department of Corrections Grant from the IDB for rehabilitation; re-staffing of armed forces with more than 1,000 recruits to date and the proposed Parental Responsibility Bill. These initiatives were introduced only after just three years and represent a small sample of the response of the government to the challenges facing the country.
This is not the actions of a “delusional” government. The writer provides absolutely no evidence that the government tells the Bahamian people the sky is “green” when in fact it is “blue” as she suggested in her column. Where did that bit of nonsense come from?
Also, I would love to see the list of anti-crime initiatives the FNM government implemented in any three year period during their 15 years in office.
Were these crime policies successful? Before Ms. Dames and other critics of her ilk dismiss all of these policy initiatives as failures, they should first answer a simple question.
Which democratic country, faced with a crime surge, the limited fiscal resources and the structural challenges of the judiciary that Christie’s PLP government was faced with in 2012, legally reduced serious crime by 18% in three years as the Christie government was able to? It is a reasonable question. Many of the tactics used by the Jamaican constabulary and police precincts in Ferguson, New York City and Baltimore to reduce serious crime, especially murder, were either deemed illegal by the US Department of Justice or challenged in criminal court.
Ms. Dames is advised that spewing out random opinions and aimless, angry rants without supporting evidence and empirical data is “delusion” – detached from reality.
Investment Minister Hon. Khaalis Rolle simply made a broader point about the import of a National Development Plan in solving many of the challenges facing. Further, a “delusional” Prime Minister could never advance VISION 2040 for a stronger and safer Bahamas, insisting that the private sector and the College of The Bahamas should lead the process. Only a delusional writer would opine the same in clear contradiction of the facts.
So when Ms. Dames writes “in a climate where political polarization is the most significant threat to national development…” Bahamians know that her editorial antics worsen this same political polarization she characterizes as this great threat to national development; she is part of the problem.
Some unsolicited advice to Ms Dames: Many of the young black males did not become hardened criminals between 2012 and 2015. Many of them were born and reached puberty and adolescent twenty years ago. Who governed The Bahamas during the 1990’s? It is instructive to determine which socials programs, if any, existed during that period and which social support programs were cancelled.
I submit to Ms. Dames that one of the major and glaring failures of Ingraham era that nobody in the media wants to talk about, especially between 1992 and 2002, was the absence of social policy that led toMASS SOCIAL DISLOCATION, THE EFFECTS OF WHICH WE ARE FEELING TODAY. INDEED THE CHICKENS HAVE CLEARLY COME HOME TO ROOST.
Am I casting blame? Well the entire premise of the National Review is to cast blame on the Christie government while offering no solutions – and to do so without balance, context or perspective – and worst of all, without comparative empirical data. Without these basic criteria, the National Review is shallow drivel.
I invite Ms. Dames to read the editorials of the Washington Post and New York Times. She can learn a great deal about constructively reviewing public affairs in context and with balance.
From her diatribe, one would get the impression that she got her dictation directly from Hubert Ingraham.
She must therefore declare her hidden agenda post haste.
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