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Should we be so concerned with the private affairs of a politician or political candidate?
Politicians are also known as civil servants 1 because they represent people’s voice 2 and carry out policies that make citizens’ life become better.3 Since our taxes pay for the politician’s salary, we want to make sure our money is used wisely. In order to accomplish this, we want to elect a political candidate that is truly committed to hard work and also want to make sure that the already elected politician 4 is doing their job. Because of the little information we can get from a politician, we can only rely on the media to judge the performance of the politician is good or not. Media often reported what politicians do in their private lives. We should care about a politician’s private behavior because this provides us with clues to determine whether the politician is qualified or not.
Politician’s private behavior indicates what they will do at work. For example, someone who cheated in marriage will probably be unfaithful toward 1 their colleagues. Also, people who conduct illegal deeds privately may utilize the power they gain to do larger scale illegal activities. On the contrary, someone who is law-abiding and is honest toward his relationship is more likely to keep his promise and put effort into improving citizens’ welfare.
Sometimes the media dug too deep into politicians’ private affairs such as revealing their secret interest. As a citizen, this kind of information is not relevant to assisting in making a judgment on the work that the politician has done; therefore we should not pay attention to this news.
Because citizens have little information about politicians, we can only rely on the media’s report to help us judge the politicians. Most of the people don’t wear a disguise in their private lives; therefore, knowing about politician’s private behavior is one way for citizens to judge the validation of the politician. However, gossiping about what kind of personality the politician has is useless. We should pay attention to what the politician had done. Focusing on the event happened and maintaining a neutral mind, we could make a decision based on this little information.
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Should we be so concerned with the private affairs of a politician or political candidate?
In Taiwan, politicians are supposed to be blameless in private. Whenever an election comes, the media usually focuses on the candidate's appearance, relationships, and family. However, these things do not necessarily reflect the ability to govern. We should pay more attention to the policies and performance of politicians rather than their private affairs.
The public is often confused expectations of individuals with expectations of politicians. For example, in Chinese traditional society, women are expected to marry and have children. Single female politicians are considered to be eccentric and therefore are incapable of leading the government. However, the role of politicians is to serve citizens. If a politician can improve the well-being of the people, it is irrational to criticize the politician on grounds of social norms.
In addition, the media exaggerates the severity of personal misconduct. Extramarital affairs, for example, only relates to a few people, but news about adultery draw attention from many people. On the other hand, the decision of politicians will affect the livelihood of everyone. But fewer people are concerned with corruption and malfeasance of politicians.
Even though politicians’ manners in private might reflect their behavior in public, the potential of making a mistake does not mean things have happened. Therefore, in order to supervise politicians, we should be more concern with their performance, not their private life.
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