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I read with amazement and amusement Brenton Smith’s tribute to Luzette King:
“Luzette, to me, is a very courageous woman who holds steadfast in what she believes. She is very knowledgeable on a wide range of issues”.
To me, Ms King is a wingnut par excellence — an NDP ideological extremist who parrots any and all the mindless propaganda and conspiracy theories propagated by a party that has never been able to get its act together since Sir James’ resignation as prime minister 16 years ago.
No matter how unlikely the propaganda is, Ms King accepts it as gospel truth, so extreme and irrational are her political opinions. Indeed, the very extremism of her faith is proof enough to her that she is right.
How else can we explain her irrational January 2016 statement that, “The ULP cannot prove to Vincentians and the world, beyond any doubt, that they did not steal the elections”?
Both logic and the law say that the burden lies with Ms King to provide the evidence that the ULP stole the election: When one party asserts a claim (the NDP’s claim of election theft) that the other disputes (the ULP, not to mention the three external and impartial observer teams’ claim of a free and fair election), the party who asserts the first claim has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim. An argument from ignorance occurs when either an assertion is assumed to be true because it has not yet been proved false or a proposition is assumed to be false because it has not yet been proved true. Beyond a reasonable doubt, Ms King is guilty of presenting an argument from ignorance.
As for her reference to “beyond any doubt,” the term has no legal standing in SVG — or any other jurisdiction I am aware of: in criminal matters, we use the term “beyond a reasonable doubt” to convict people; in civil law, the standard is “a balance of probabilities.”
Using “beyond any doubt” as a criterion would be like asking an atheist to disprove the existence of God beyond any doubt using logic and/or concrete evidence, which would be just as impossible as asking a Christian to prove beyond any doubt that Jesus was the Son of God.
Given her mindset and reasoning skills, no wonder that Ms King has been “scorned and ridiculed by many” as Brenton Smith claims.
Still, to the uneducated and irrational listeners of Nice Radio, Ms King is a fount of wisdom.
All this goes to show is that Ms King, acolytes like Brenton Smith, and the ruling elite of the NDP have neither logic nor the law on their side, only raw emotion and a hunger for power and glory.
The same Sir James Mitchell, one of the longest-serving prime ministers in Caribbean history and a man who did not tolerate fools gladly, would certainly never have allowed such a woman to be the party’s main street-level standard bearer, yet another reason to question the fitness of the current motley crew of party bigwigs to rule our country.
C ben-David
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David I actually think you are a nasty ignorant piece of crap, but I will keep that to myself.
Isn’t it strange it’s only you and Ralph and all the brainwashed that have the same opinion as you.
I bet you do not know the woman, have never met her and have never held a conversation with her.
I am surprised Kenton found time to publish your reply on the same day as the other article, how is that possible Kenton? Are you now colluding with David? If I had written the reply it would have appeared a week later if at all.
I have never met the woman, thank God, which makes me an objective observer.
Nor have I ever met Donald Trump.
But I know what both have said about certain issues which tells me they are both nut-bars.
So, please tell me what part of my “nasty” argument is “ignorant” and why?
As for Kenton Chance, I can only assume that as a professional journalist he simply saw a golden opportunity to provoke an on-line debate on a timely and important topic.
Your response certainly showed that this strategy worked.
Peter, it has been painfully obvious to all and sundry for years now that Ralph did you something. What he did you is not clear. Perhaps you lost a position that you held before he was elected; perhaps you were sidestepped for someone else in a position in Great Britain you craved to fill. Perhaps, perhaps.
But there is something deeply and frighteningly personal in your writings which is why you are not well regarded in cyberspace.
As for me, I have no grudge against anyone I write about — nor do I have anything to gain or lose from my writing except being harassed if my identity were known — and write what I do out of personal interest in the issues, a chronic contrarian and gadfly mentality, an aversion to political self-aggrandizement, and a love of country.
So, what about you?
ADDENDUM
Brenton Smith’s outrageous comparison of Luzette King to American freedom fighter Rosa Parks cannot go unchallenged. The latter was a civil rights activist fighting for release from segregation and other forms of oppression that plagued Black people in the southern United States during the 1950s; the former is a loose cannon party hack fighting only for those who happen to wear yellow t-shirts, regardless of their race or class position. Shame on Ms. Smith for scurrilously equating the two women!
But I guess that’s all we can expect from such a poor excuse for a political party.