The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his 1762 treatise theorized that any political community operates on the basis of a social contract.

Rousseau asserted that only the people, in the form of the Sovereign, (all people including women) have the all-powerful right to legislate. He went further to say that Governments are not sovereign but merely a tool of the people who comprise the Sovereign, which is the exercise of the general will of the people. A test of any aspect of the social contract is the extent to which the Sovereign body (the people) accepts the status quo. The commands of the rulers may pass for general wills where the Sovereign, even while free to, does not oppose them. Silence is taken to imply acceptance. But, for laws to be heeded they need to be accepted. Sometimes laws are not good laws.

The aim of the Social Contract is to determine a legitimate political authority. In the Bahamas this authority is our elected Government on the basis of a majority. This is representative Government but it is not direct democracy. The former does not rule out the possibility of the latter. Put another way, people should be able to vote on policy initiatives directly, especially if the Government is in need of a better idea of the general public view on an issue.

It is right therefore that our Government look to our people from time to time for determinations regarding issues of national importance.

Historically in the Bahamas legislation follows on the heels of international expectations and the efforts of our community from many sectors to ensure that we have a system of laws that we find acceptable. This means that we believe the “existing situation” to never be in a state of perfection but rather that it always needs improvement. Often in this pursuit we are not creating anything new but rather we are copying others.

This brings me to the social contract (not just legality) regarding Gambling in the Bahamas. I would point out that our legislators have obviously decided that Gambling in the Bahamas is acceptable as we have Casino Gambling and have therefore implicitly determined that gambling is “moral”. To think otherwise is to imply that they have passed “immoral” laws. Some may think this but intuitively I suspect the Sovereign has accepted its morality insofar as there has been little or no effort to reverse this. Albeit the present gambling laws do discriminate and this may be why it stands effectively unopposed even though it’s unconstitutionality may be in question due to this discrimination. Or maybe we don’t care if non-citizens are immoral in our midst. It may also be that there are other reasons that this form of gambling has met the test of the social contract. This acceptance may be due to the fact that other more popular forms of gambling have always existed in spite of existing legislation rendering them illegal. The lack of a concerted effort to stymie this illegal activity is clearly an indication of its acceptability within the context of the social contract. It is the unacceptability of the existing legislation that this illegal activity reflects rather than being a rejection of morality on the part of the Sovereign.

Direct Democracy is a suitable means to gauge the acceptability of the issue of Gambling. Whether the results are binding or used as an opinion poll they still add to the awareness of the Public View.

It is commonly known that the devil is in the details and I close by saying that those who feel that any part of our social contract is unacceptable know that they can always move to adjust it. The victors are always legitimated by their victory. How long they last in this legitimacy depends on the adversity that it imposes on the Sovereign. In this day and age the morass of media and communications systems advantages us unlike our forefathers who nevertheless brought us this far.

So! Participate!

SIMON RODEHN

Cherokee Sound,

Bahamas.