issue167 geniego越洋农场作业队

geniegoUID: 201395

167."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."

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: 578          TIME:  未限       DATE: 2006-8-5

No matter to be a politician or a common person, the most basic and crucial element should be honesty. When being a politician, first of all, he or she should be a person with basic moral and ethical standard of which honesty is the lowest demand. However, sometimes, they can not tell truth in order to be effective and consider benefits of all the people.

Not only is capability the standard when judging a politician, but also moral and ethical standard should be taken into account, even the latter is more important.  Bill Clinton, the outstanding president, has splendid achievements on economy and politics. After his sex scandal, when judging him, people all thought the sex scandal is not the most disappointed, but he told lies to cover what he had done, letting people supporting him down. Moreover, honesty is most essential quality of a person and is what we learned when we were kids. People, when communicating, some safe feelings based on trusting each other and honesty to other. Moreover, a politician, always presenting a nation, a state, a city or a department, what he or she said means promising and he should be responsible to those words. So, as a political leader, no matter effective or not, the most basic quality should be honesty.

When coming to some cardinal political issue, that is important to be honest to win trust of the mass.  Honesty means respects for the listener, sometimes. When the leader came to trouble or a dilemma, to keep things transparency is the best way to win trusts. I think it is quite famous SARS in 2004 in China. Government thought it is impossible to told the mass what happened in order to stable the situation, even to cover the truth. Although doing this is wise and helpful, after all, a panic is bad for handling problems. However, when the situation was out of control and became serious, Chinese government decided to tell the truth, and report the number of dead people everyday. Because the panic brought by knowing nothing is much more terrible. And public leaders need to speak out the truth with totally honest when it is under serious situation.

But to be a public leader is no need to tell the truth every time. Although honesty is basic quality , that does not mean telling truth without considering the situation. For political issues are always complicated mixed with religion, commerce, benefits between nations, units and people. When knowing the truth, people will all take steps to obtain their own aims, as politics is selfish. Under these circumstances, no doubt it is no beneficial for handling problem but to mix them more complicated. The responsibility of a political leader is to judge and decide, so he or she has the rights to keep the situation simple and clear in order to balance benefits.

All in all, to be an leader, fist of all, he or she should be a man with basic ethical and moral standard, what is more, leaders’ honesty presents a collectivity and his acts and worlds can be considered as models even recorded for millions of years. Moreover, when facing issues out of control, it is necessary to be honest to publics in order to win trust and avoid panics. However, leaders have the rights to cover truth even tell lies for sake of efficiency, but that is based on a honest character and a sincere heart for others.