issue170

civilppUID: 2999177

TOPIC: ISSUE170 - "The surest indicator of a great nation is not the achievements of its rulers, artists, or scientists, but the general welfare of all its people."
WORDS: 583
TIME: 00:45:00
DATE: 2011/2/17 16:26:09

Is the surest indicator of a nation is the general welfare of all the people rather than its achievements of rulers, artists, or scientists? The speaker claims so. A nation with its people living a high quality of life can be proved a strong nation for it is pursuing the ultimate interest of people. Nevertheless, it is also unfair to conclude the achievements of the nation's rulers, artists, or scientists cannot indicate the strength of a country; otherwise, the ignorance of development in any of these field can do harm to whole society.
The greatest mission of the country, which havs the highest power to assign possession and financial power, is to serve the final interests that belong to common people. After all, the people, who are the most basic components of the country, have the right to survive and live a life with quality. A totalitarian society which only focused on invading for more space and resources regardless of the lives of its soldiers and damage to living problems of its people cannot be considered a great country but a selfish government which only pursued its own benefits. One of the many reasons why the powerful Roman disappeared in the history is that Roman empire spent too much time and money on forcing the other countries around to obey its laws rather than devoted its intellect to serve Romans. Therefore, never a nation can be regarded as strong enough to have a higher international stand in the world regardless of its welfare of the public.
Nevertheless, only placing too much emphasis on welfare of the public cannot suffice to build a nation with strength. The pressing social problems such as hunger, epidemic, drug abuse, and teenager crimes have long existed through human's history, which never solved completely by government either in the history or at present. If the whole countries would not support to other fields-whether it is scientific, artistic, or judicial-unless all the social problems has been solved, no one can afford the lose of deterioration of these fields.
The studies in science, arts, laws, and any other fields of human endeavor support a stronger nation and risen the international status of this nation as well as benefit welfare of the public. Common sense tells us science, which can improve productivity of the society, is always in requirement of all the nations around the world; arts, which is derived from emotional cognition of the society, comfort pressure from rapid pace of the society; laws, which force the morality and protect rights of the whole society, act like justice in a nation. And any other subjects that I cannot addressed clearly in this article have momentous influence both on society and our daily life. If were not for the economic theory from Hayek, the Nobel Laureate, we won't have such competitive system for free trade market as the principle of our economy, which promote the economic theory against collectivity that may not be applied to the current productivity. These fields gather the elite with intelligent brain and creative thought, which represent the highest wisdom of the nation. Therefore, the best solution to judge whether a nation is powerful or not, is through the achievement made in scientific, artistic, or judicial areas of this country.
In sum, a government can put welfare of the public as its primary goal, while it also cannot ignore the importance to financially or politically support the achievement in any fields that can contribute to strengthen the nation.