What will we do about our certificated jackasses?

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]orrect me if I’m wrong, but I detect a growing level of desperation within the ranks of the St. Lucia Labour Party that I hadn’t noticed before. That sense of which I speak leads me to conclude that instability has returned to the SLP. Why else would leaders and supporters of that party be falling over themselves to condemn the UWP leader for using the word “jackass” at a public rally, without identifying any specific target?

There was a time when a simple response to an insulting name-calling was, “It takes one to know another.” If a youngster told his parents someone had called him or her a jackass, this is the advice they would receive: “Don’t worry, he is a bigger jackass!” There was also the “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can do me no harm” comeback. Such responses usually ended the silly name-calling.  How times have changed—for the worse!   

Incidentally, calling someone a jackass nowadays has lost its sting. The reason may be that there are so many home-grown savants, smart-men and con-artists daily walking the streets. Indeed, insulting words have validity, only when we give it to them. The word jackass therefore has no impact on someone who is confident in his own skin and knows where he is headed.

In the vicissitudes of life, one can never tell for certain who will be the next prime minister of Saint Lucia. What we can confidently say is that a thin-skinned, psychologically damaged individual who takes offence at name-calling ought not to be allowed near the prime minister’s chair; neither should a known jackass, no matter his university qualifications. After all, a university degree has never been a guarantee of wisdom!