issue167 同主题第三期 by 风之声

f_l_wUID: 2112831

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: 530        TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2007-8-14 下午 08:32:53
提纲：观点，不同情况需要不同处理方式
1政治家有时候需要不诚实，例如在国家的商务谈判中，过于诚实让对手知道策略，损害国家利益
2另外，在战争时期，也需要他们不诚实，或者保持沉默。例如伊拉克战争中，Bush的处理方式
3但是，涉及到个人利益时候，他们必须对公众诚实
4作为领导，他们需要有这个能力分辨什么时候该诚实和不诚实
总结
Part of controversy over the virtue for a politician has been around the issue of whether the political leader should be completely honest. The author asserts that it is impossible for an effective political leader to tell the truth all the time and complete honesty is not a useful virtue for a politician.  As far as I concerned, the politician must know how to be a clever guy to determine when he should be honest.

It is very tempting to grant greater merits to the speaker’s claim than it deserves since sometimes, complete honesty of a politician would make nothing but hurt the benefits of populaces, arose society panic，bring society disturbance. At these situations, the leader has the right, to conceal some secrets from masses, even lie to the citizens. For example, out of the benefits of his citizens, during a negotiation of commerce with other countries, the politician must conceal their tactics. His aim is to protect and maximize the total benefits of his citizens. If he reveals this tactics to the citizens, then the rival would know their tactics which would lead to impair populace benefits. In these situations, the leader must keep the secrets.

In addition, during warfare times, the politician must be more careful about what he said. For example, in the Iraq war, President Bush would have to face numerous questions concerning the war from public or media, such as what kind of soldier and how many of them would be sent to the battlefield, and what the newest weapon would be used, even the future secret policy towards the war. Thought the public are curious about everything concerning the war and they would assert that they pay the tax that supports the expenditure of the army and they have the right to know everything about the war. Yet the President Bush must know what kinds of questions he should answer , and when to keep silence. Mostly, victories could be honest and scandals and war policies should be kept secret. If not, the scandals would cause society turmoil, the public and the enemies would also know all the confidential secrets about the war actions. So, at these times, President Bush should have the ability to distinguish what should be known by the public.  

However, we could not accept that the politician’s dishonesty out of his disrepute private reason, such as cheat in political election campaign or political scandals. In retrospection of history reveals that dishonesty out of the private reasons would not be forgived by the citizens. For example, the famous Watergate events, which is a political scandal and the result of political power campaign, lead Nixon abdicated. The political leader must realize that these activities would only give them disreputation and they should abstain to do so.

In addition, because their special positions, the political leader should know when they should be honest and when they should use some tactics to handle complicated things. They must have special ability to balance the benefits of his country and himself and demarcate between them.

To sum up, I concede that honesty is a dispensable virtue of a political leader. But among different situations, the politician must know when he should be honest or just keep silence.

[ 本帖最后由 f_l_w 于 2007-8-18 10:34 编辑 ]