Some people believe that in order to be effective, political leaders must yield to public opinion and abandon principle for the sake of compromise. Others believe that the most essential quality of an effective leader is the ability to remain consistently committed to particular principles and objectives.
Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own position and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should address both of the views presented.
Political opinion and popular ideas are always in a state of flux, one days’ popular idea or principle may be derided the next. The prompt presents two conflicting views, that political leaders should either yield to public opinion or remain committed to their own principles. I mostly agree with the former idea due to the following two reasons.
Firstly, in a democratic setting, extremely principled politicians may find it alluring or even attempt to circumvent constitutional safeguards that have been put in place to limit their powers for furthering their goals. This is especially the case, when their principles are not favoured by the majority. For example, they may attempt to get polarising bills passed through the senate (or parliament) without addressing the protests made by representatives. They may even attempt to influence and strongarm other institutions of democracy to submit to their ideas. For example they may try to influence the judiciary or event the judicial election process to appoint judges that favor their cause. And this leads to further bills and judgements that, while furthering the leader/politician’s agenda, may be at the peril of the general people.
Secondly, principled politicians may be less ‘successful’. Strongly opinionated politicians may find it difficult to bring about real change due to their uncompromising nature. Often, in order to bring about real change, politicians may have to accept compromises with respect to their principles or plans. Take for example a road proposed by one such principled politician, the politician faces opposition since the highway plan intends to cut through a densely forested area and there are concerns over its benefits. However, the opposing leaders are willing to accept the highway plan if instead of cutting through, the roads would go around the forested area. The principled politician may find it hard to accept this alternative since it means going back on his original goal, even though the people may benefit from either plan. And this firm stance may result in the plans being stuck in limbo. Thus as we can see, such a politician while strong on principle, does not prove to be effective.
However, on the other end politicians with loose principles and easily influenced ideas may prove to be even more ineffective. Consider such a politician that was voted into power over his support for the highway from the previous example. Upon getting elected however the politician finds it difficult to abate the opposition’s concerns over the highway’s environmental impact and instead gives up on the plan entirely. And once again, similar to the previous hypothetical strong-willed politician, the highway plan remains in limbo. And the people once again are not able to benefit from the said highway being brought to fruition.
To conclude, we need to recognize that while leaders who are more amenable and yield to the popular opinion may not prove to be the most effective, steadfast leaders may also prove to be equally or maybe even more ineffective, considering how the may have a higher proclivity toward dictatorial tendencies, and also their strong aversion to compromise.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 903, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Thus,
...sult in the plans being stuck in limbo. Thus as we can see, such a politician while ...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, thus, while, for example, with respect to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 18.0 19.5258426966 92% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 20.0 12.4196629213 161% => OK
Conjunction : 19.0 14.8657303371 128% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 11.3162921348 71% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 33.0 33.0505617978 100% => OK
Preposition: 74.0 58.6224719101 126% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 12.9106741573 46% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2696.0 2235.4752809 121% => OK
No of words: 510.0 442.535393258 115% => OK
Chars per words: 5.2862745098 5.05705443957 105% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.75217629947 4.55969084622 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.95982064567 2.79657885939 106% => OK
Unique words: 265.0 215.323595506 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.519607843137 0.4932671777 105% => OK
syllable_count: 835.2 704.065955056 119% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 6.24550561798 96% => OK
Article: 6.0 4.99550561798 120% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 3.10617977528 97% => OK
Conjunction: 5.0 1.77640449438 281% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.38483146067 137% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 20.2370786517 114% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 23.0359550562 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.3625995215 60.3974514979 102% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.217391304 118.986275619 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.1739130435 23.4991977007 94% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.47826086957 5.21951772744 86% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.97078651685 101% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 7.80617977528 13% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 12.0 10.2758426966 117% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 5.13820224719 156% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.83258426966 62% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.146467247915 0.243740707755 60% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0483979805625 0.0831039109588 58% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0368840121 0.0758088955206 49% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0980122752909 0.150359130593 65% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0381873249425 0.0667264976115 57% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.6 14.1392134831 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.8420337079 101% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.92365168539 111% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.1743820225 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.4 12.1639044944 110% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.66 8.38706741573 103% => OK
difficult_words: 127.0 100.480337079 126% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 11.8971910112 97% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.2143820225 96% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.7820224719 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 83.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 5.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.