By Horace Palacio:
Let me hold up a mirror today, and I warn you now, some of us will not like what we see.
Belizeans love free.
Free t-shirt, we are there. Free food, we are in line. Free ham at Christmas, free cap, free ride, free hundred dollars slipped into a handshake at election time. Word spreads that something is being given away, and watch how fast a crowd forms.
And we love one other thing just as much. Complaining.
We are champions of it. The government this, the government that. The roads, the prices, the jobs, the hospital, the schools. Everything is the government’s fault. We complain in the morning, we complain at lunch, we complain on Facebook at night. If complaining built countries, Belize would be the richest nation on earth.
Now let me ask the question nobody wants to answer.
Who put the government there?
We did. You did. I did. Every single administration this country has ever had, red or blue, was hired by us. We interviewed them at election time, and we gave them the job. So when we spend five years cursing the government, we are cursing our own choice. A man who blames the mechanic he himself hired, again and again, election after election, needs to stop examining the mechanic and start examining himself.
And here is where the two habits connect, because they are not separate problems. They are the same problem.
The love of free is exactly how we end up with governments worth complaining about.
Think about what actually happens at election time. A politician arrives in your neighborhood with gifts. A ham. A little cash. A promise of a job for your nephew. And in exchange, he asks for one small thing. Your vote.
It feels like a gift. It is not a gift. It is a purchase. And you are what is being bought.
Because understand this clearly. Your vote is the single most powerful thing you own. It is the only thing that makes a politician answer to you. It is your share of ownership in this country. And we sell it. We sell it for a ham. We sell it for a t-shirt. We sell the most expensive thing we own for the cheapest trinket they can find.
And here is the part that should make your blood boil. They buy your vote with your own money. That handout did not come from the politician’s pocket. It came from taxes, from public funds, from the treasury that belongs to all of us. They take our own bread, hand us back a crumb of it, and we say thank you.
Free is not free. Free is the most expensive thing in Belize. It costs us accountability. It costs us good roads, good schools, good hospitals. Because a politician who can buy your vote with a ham has no reason to earn it with performance.
Now let me be fair, because I am not aiming this at everyone equally.
I am not talking about the grandmother who genuinely needs help, or the family in real hardship. A decent society helps its vulnerable, full stop. And I am not blaming one party, because both of them play this game, and both of them play it well. The handout machine is the most bipartisan institution in Belize.
I am talking about the trade. The able-bodied, thinking citizen who swaps his power for a trinket, and then spends five years complaining about the very people he empowered.
Because that is the second habit, and it is just as destructive. Blame is comfortable. Blaming government costs nothing and demands nothing. If everything is the government’s fault, then nothing is my responsibility. My yard, my choices, my savings, my children’s homework, my skills, all of it becomes somebody else’s job. A man who blames government for everything has quietly handed government control of everything, including his own life.
And the cruel joke is that all our complaining changes nothing, because we keep rewarding the same behavior. Every election won with handouts teaches politicians that handouts work. Every vote sold cheap teaches them we are cheap. We trained them. Democracy is a mirror, and the government we keep getting is the reflection of the voters we keep being.
Lee Kuan Yew understood this danger. He refused to build Singapore on a culture of handouts, because he knew that a people trained to receive would never become a people driven to build. He bet on self-reliance, on work, on ownership. And his people, with nothing, built one of the richest nations on earth.
So what must change in Belize? Us. Starting with these things.
Treat your vote like the treasure it is. Stop selling it. Take the ham if you must, it was bought with your money anyway, but walk into that booth and vote your conscience, your community, and your children’s future. The day our votes stop being for sale is the day politicians start working for them.
Judge leaders by systems, not favors. A politician who fixes your problem with a phone call is showing you the system is broken, and that he likes it broken, because broken systems make you need him. Demand roads that get fixed without begging, clinics that work without connections, and opportunities that do not require knowing anybody.
Take back responsibility for what was always yours. Government was never going to raise your children, clean your yard, build your savings, or learn a skill for you. Stop waiting. The most powerful development program in Belize is a citizen who decides his life is his own project.
And raise the next generation on earning, not receiving. Teach our children that free is bait, that work is dignity, and that nobody who hands you something small is doing it for free.
Here is my closing truth, Belize.
We do not need a new government nearly as much as we need a new citizen. Because a country of citizens who cannot be bought, who take responsibility, and who demand performance instead of presents, that country fixes its government automatically. No politician can fool a people who refuse to be cheap.
The day we stop loving free is the day we become expensive. And a people who are expensive, politicians handle with respect.
Stop selling yourself cheap, Belize. You were never a bargain item. Start acting like you know your own worth.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author, Horace Palacio, and do not necessarily reflect the views or editorial stance of Breaking Belize News.
The post Free is the most expensive thing in Belize appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
By Horace Palacio: Let me hold up a mirror today, and I warn you now, some of us will not like what we see. Belizeans love free. Free t-shirt, we are there. Free food, we are in line. Free ham at Christmas, free cap, free ride, free hundred dollars slipped into a handshake at election
The post Free is the most expensive thing in Belize appeared first on Belize News and Opinion on www.breakingbelizenews.com.
