issue167 0710G同主题写作第5期

mellon_lUID: 2364758

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."

提纲
同意
1、        确实完全的honesty是不可能的，为了国家的安全和利益着想，有时不得不隐瞒一些信息。
2、        但是除去以上情况，大多数情况下应该让公民了解真相
3、        相反的，在有些情况下如果withhold truth，会给国家造成损害。


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."


I agree with assertion that it is impossible for an effective political leader to tell the truth all the time because sometimes they have to withhold information for the sake of national security. At the same time, in the majority of cases, political leaders should be honest with public. And under some circumstance, the withhold of truth will cause great many negative impact on the country.

To begin with, in order to preserve the national security and both political and economic interests, political leaders have to take some measures to diminish the unsafe factors. Sometimes, those means include denying fact and withhold information before the public. National classified documents such as the data of latest designed weapon should definitely be kept in secret and any leaking of such information could cost great loss of the nation. Besides, the existence of spy sent to other country could never be exposed to the public.

However, besides the particular situations I mentioned above, I believe that political leaders should be honest before public. Only by doing so could the public understand their country better and do their bit for the country. For example, in 1998 all Chinese experienced a severe natural disaster--- the flood. During the time of resisting flood, government leaders made use of every means of media, including radio, television and even loud speaker to inform public the present situation of flood attacked areas. No matter how vicious the problem is, the truth is uncovered before the public. After getting the information, citizens could do their best to help the poor people in those areas by sending them clothes, food and medical devices without asking for any reward. It is the trust of the leaders' honesty made Chinese people survived from that period.

To the contrary, dishonesty of political leaders would bring great negative influence on the country. Take the SARS in China for example. The hiding of the truth that there are already much more infected cases in China than reported made the disease spread in China in a uncontrollable way. This also caused a dramatic declining of Chinese national reputation. In addition, it is reported recently that in some mine provinces, local government leaders hided the accidental death of several mine workers and tried to get rid of legal punishment by doing so. Their behavior apparently hurt the heart of the worker s' relatives and what is worse, they have brought a negative impact on society.

In sum, drawn from the three points I have made above, I arrive at the conclusion that though it is impossible for political leaders to be honest all the time, telling truth under proper circumstance should be requested.

王亚冉UID: 2758328

矿难隐瞒问题很有意义~