CHANGING COLOuRS AMIDST SHATTERED DEMOCRACY!!!

On 14th November 2018, the hallowed precincts of Parliament were destroyed!!! These are the supposed gentlemen who we are expected to call ‘honourable!!!’ They disregard Parliamentary ethics and the accepted norms of behaviour because all they want to do is to make their presence felt; the louder the better!!! Again on 16th November 2018, there was an even worse show of thuggery. Nothing was sacred, no norms or rules were respected, they displayed typical rowdy behaviour completely oblivious to the fact that they were in the precincts of Parliament!!! THEY ARE AN ABSOLUTE DISGRACE AND OUR NATION STANDS DISGRACED BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT WE VOTED FOR THEM!!! NOTWITHSTANDING ALL THIS, WHAT ABOUT THE COST OF ALL THESE PUERILE, FUTILE PARLIAMENTARY SITTINGS!!! WHY SHOULD THE TAXPAYERS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC PAY FOR THIS??? What about their Security Detail??? How many hundreds are constantly paid and fed when these people are in Parliament??? How much is the gas bill for all the vehicles that accompany them, sometimes even helicopters??? How come politicians in other countries don’t need this measure of security??? BECAUSE THEY ARE CLEAN!!!

Ban crossovers  

Their bank balances are so precious, that their integrity is not at all important, not at all!!! They can be green, they can be blue, none of their convictions is special and, they will take their chance with whoever is winning!!! One day they like the ‘Elephant’ the next day the ‘Pohottuwa,’ they are so desperate to stay in power!!! They are rootless and they are ruthless, one who crossed over twice even declared that it was his inalienable right!!! CHAMELEONS ALL!!! They want to take a supposed moral stand with ANYONE WHO RUNS THE LAND, SO THE CHORUS IS ‘PICK ME FOR YOUR TEAM, I LIKE CROSSING OVER’!!! The recurring cause for alarm is that Members of Parliament are allowed to cross over from one party to another, allegedly for certain sums of money!!! That has to be stopped immediately; it should be built into the Constitution, made Unconstitutional!!! These aspirants to Parliament come bent in two, humbly begging for your vote, once they are in, they do not know who you are!!! You are expected to refer to them as ‘Honourable’ they pledge to be servants of the people so why should they be called ‘Honorable’???

Abolish Presidency

As we have said before, THE ABSOLUTE POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE PRESIDENCY MUST FIRST BE ABOLISHED IF WE WERE TO MAINTAIN DEMOCRACY IN OUR LAND!!! The people of this country did not ask for an Executive Presidency, it was thrust upon them!!! As Dr Colvin R. de Silva rightly predicted the curse of the Executive Presidency is what has shattered and destroyed the democracy of this country!!!

Conspiracy

The late US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in a speech delivered on March 6, 1956, said, and I quote: “IF A POLITICAL PARTY DOES NOT HAVE ITS FOUNDATION IN THE DETERMINATION TO ADVANCE A CAUSE THAT IS RIGHT AND THAT IS MORAL, THEN IT IS NOT 
A POLITICAL PARTY, IT IS MERELY A CONSPIRACY TO SEIZE POWER!!!” 

This aptly describes the situation our country is facing today; they are constantly seeking to advance a cause that is WRONG, IMMORAL AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!! We live in a world of declining moral values; tinkered and tampered with to the detriment of society and democracy!!! Truth is not politically expedient today because it has become a victim to politics!!! Those who lack courage; will always find a philosophy to justify the wrong they are doing!!!

Who pays? 

The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, in the course of his address to the Central School in China, said that unfortunately Pakistan lost its way and what actually stopped Pakistan from achieving its full potential was ‘CORRUPTION!!!’ He went on to say that countries are poor not because they lack resources but because they are destroyed by State Institutions and the mindset that should be concentrating on developing human resources is diverted into mega projects and the worst part of CORRUPTION is MONEY LAUNDERING!!! Money leaves poor countries and goes into rich countries; almost a Trillion Dollars that leaves the developing world goes into the developed world and when money leaves the poor countries, it deprives the poor countries of reserves, it deprives the country of foreign exchange and they end up taking loans and WHO PAYS??? He affirmed that it is the corruption of the ruling elite that destroys State institutions and the money that should be spent on development never happens!!! It is because politicians constantly spend more money than they could raise on taxation; they waste and they waste and then we talk about countries, including ours, that are broke and they are broke because ignorant politicians consistently spend more money than they can raise and they borrow and they borrow and worse; they then print money because politicians and their Central Banks have machines that can print money!!! As a private citizen, you would go to prison for doing that but politicians and their Central Banks do it all the time and they explain to you that their countries are broke and they are broke!!! It is immoral to ask the taxpayer of any country to pick up the tab of failed politicians and failed banks!!!

Pathetic unprecedented situation

Patchwork will not do when what is called for is an overhaul!!! One of the reasons why our lives remain totally unchanged is because we are unreformed and untouched; stuck in the present unwilling and disinclined to break away from the structure and situations that constrain us, so we can be totally renewed!!! We need to protest, to come out and call this political bluff, didn’t the people of the Philippines, ordinary people like you and me, come out on to the streets and topple a President as powerful as Ferdinand Marcos??? Why then should we sit back and watch while these morons take away our democracy, deprive us of our freedom and, more importantly, act as though we are also a bunch of morons like them??? We are told that weak people seek revenge, well, our politicians have given us ample proof of that, strong people forgive and intelligent people ignore BUT, in this pathetic unprecedented situation that our country is in today, it would be a SACRILEGE TO IGNORE!!!

 THE VOICE