Sophistry and Casuistry

Thunderbolt strikes

Just when we thought that Sase “Thunderbolt” Singh has lost his masochistic need for licks, up he comes with another letter filled with his half-baked reasoning. Get this (if you can). “Democracy is not about the popular will… it is about protecting the fundamental human rights of all Guyanese.” So where did this imperative to protect everyone’s human right come from, Thunderbolt? Isn’t it what the people want? And what else is that but the “general will”, you dolt??!!

Anyhow, let’s pass over that and get to the ‘point’ Thunderbolt wants to make. Seems that he and ‘a learned friend’ – probably the ‘Donkey Cart economist’ – were arguing about the ‘proportionality clause’ of the constitution they’d violated. Rather than focusing on the overall percentage of votes the PPP received versus that of the combined opposition – 49 per cent to 51 per cent – Thunderbolt advises that we look at the 8663 votes that is the difference between the two blocks.

Claiming that these votes gave the Opposition its one seat advantage, the Committee of Selection should now be reconstituted as 4: 3: 2 to PPP, APNU and AFC! This, he claims with the epiphany of a man on his fourth bottle of scotch, or on his second Jamaican Gold spliff, will represent the “the wishes of those 8,663 voters. Get it? Well you’ll be up for the Nobel Prize if you did.

What sort of doltishness is this? Not the part that the AFC will is willing to screw APNU and reduce its allocation – that’s just them. But what’s with counting how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle. We’ll spell it once again for the obviously mathematically challenged AFC panhandlers. The Selection Committee has 10 members. By the principle of proportionality, the PPP has to receive 49 per cent of 10 persons. You’re there?

49 per cent of 10 persons equal 4.9 persons. Still there? Now you can’t have ‘part persons’ so we ‘round off” the fractional persons. You did ‘rounding off’ in primary school, right? That gives you five persons. Similarly 51 per cent of 10 persons equal five persons. OK? So as the PPP has proposed the seat allocation on the Selection Committee should be 5: 5. This is what the court will decide. As to how the APNU/ AFC coalition allocates their five seats we’ll let them (not the “general will”) figure out who owns Thunderbolt’s 8663 voters. OK?

New extractive industry

The Muckraker KN has singlehandedly solved the economic problems of Guyana. What’s the need for all that debate in Parliament on economic growth and such matters? In their yesterday’s edition, the Muckraker has a report: “Cow miner accuses police of bribery”. Now Ashni Singh did mention a buoyant mining sector, but “cow mining”? Wow! The possibilities boggle the mind – not to mention the national treasury.