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电梯直达

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发表于 2009-8-16 22:16:34 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

题目：ISSUE8 - "It is often necessary, even desirable, for political leaders to withhold information from the public."
字数：560       用时：01:00:21       日期：2009/8/16 22:11:50

I broadly accede to the speaker's assertion that political leaders should not always tell the truth to the public for several reasons. However, I do not think it a good conduct for a successful leader to conceal information from people all the time, which might lead to some undesirable results as can be seen in our history.

To begin with, there are generally two kinds of reasons for a political leader to conceal information from the public in my point of view including private reasons and public ones.  The private reasons mentioned above have something to do with elections which are for a political leader to withdraw information for fear of attack from other candidates in order to make it comparatively easier to win the election. In addition, political leaders have their own life and privates like common people after all. In 2000, George Bush, President of the United States, conceal his partner Cheney's condition of a sudden heart attack, which finally helps Cheney elected vice president of the US successfully. Otherwise will the case be different, for electorate would hardly accept a political leader with a poor health.

The public reason is to maintain the stability of society, promote the morale of soldiers in frontier and guarantee the nation security. It is often a wise choice for a political leader to temporarily conceal the truth and deal with the condition with only a few consultants, in order not to cause a nationwide panic among people, until a feasible plan is worked out.  The similar cases are with battles. Consider Winston Churchill's speeches for example, details about the death toll and injuries were intentionally neglected and local victories were otherwise emphasized on which is better than telling everything to the public in a modern perspective. Also, development and data involving a nation's military force are always classified and no leaders should reveal such information.

On the other hand, over withdrawing of information may lead to serious results such as corruption, abuse of power, and even totalitarianism. As a famous instance, the Soviet Union leaders had been concealing information about the policies and details in elections, which made people starving and finally the disintegration of the union. As a commonsense, plans only promoted by a government without consulting to the public would always not be success ones, for suggestions of mass play a equally - and sometimes more - important role in carrying out a policy. Withdrawing facts exceedingly may be bad for either political leaders or the public.

In my point of view, concealing information can only be useful as expediency at best and political leaders must be frank enough in the career of politics. No successful leader in history was memorialized for concealing information or cheating in elections instead of a long-term contribution and devotion to what they promised to do before inauguration.

To sum up, I agree with the speaker's assertion to the extent that it is sometimes useful for a political leader to withdraw information from the public because it truly abound history to make things better. However, no one would like to see that the leader of the nation is deceptive and people have no access to getting an overall grasp of current policies and strategies. So, it is always necessary for a wise political leader to keep a balance between short-term withdrawing and long-term frankness.