Issue167 这篇写的没感觉，严重求拍……

darxideUID: 2503898

TOPIC: ISSUE167 - "It is impossible for an effective political leader to tell the truth all the time. Complete honesty is not a useful virtue for a politician."
WORDS: 487          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2010-7-25 22:28:28

The special duty political leaders have might deny them the posibility of telling the truth in multiple ways. However, honesty , even complete honesty is still an virtue not only valuable but should be pursued as much as possible.

Political leaders, such as the president of US or prime minister of UK, holds critical information that might endanger not only the security of their own country but the peace of the whole world if leaked. For example, if plans and targets of military operations are pre-known by terrorists, the exploit of such information could easily lead to heavy casualties of soldiers involved, and could defame the whole country as a whole though careful planning. Another reason why some information should be held back by political leaders is that lack of information, sometimes even false information, could mislead enemies. As an example, Ronald Reagan announced his plan of the missile defence system called "Star Wars" in 1980s, which is not technically practical even after more than twenty years, accelerated the collapse of the USSR. The realm of politics are so complicated that the idealistic requirement of complete honesty could bring harm to us all if enforced.

However, complete honesty ,although not practical, is a virtue nonetheless.It is only natural that political leaders, due to their significant fame and frequency of media coverage, are regarded as role models, and should be bounded by high standards of ethnics, including honesty, or even complete honesty in areas that have nothing to do with national security. The public need someone as honesty as possible to perform the duty of leadership. After all, who would support or believe the promises of a charlatan? Dishonesty could damage not only the authority of the political leader himself, but would also bring negative effects to its policies, even the right one.Who would believe those "Yes we can" slogans if Obama is as tricky as Tricky Dick?

Dishonesty could bring harm to the country as well as the political leader himself or herself. Firstly if political leader was found out to be a liar, besides the sure end of the political leader's political life, the fact will shake the confidence of the public. If the supreme commander of armed forces and master of nuclear buttons is a liar, what else could be trusted in this country?Secondly carefully disguised dishonesty is a tool for those political leaders to manipulate the whole political system as they wish, and usually this will turn out very badly, leading to totalitarians and fascism. By controlling what the public knows, they can even control the public to vote for themselves or their allies, crushing people with different views, or those who stands in the way of their tyranny, thus demolishing the foundation of democracy.

To sum up, even though it is not possible for political leaders to tell the truth all the time, it is required that they are as honesty as possible.