A good politician?

I think that you can have a “good”, if not “ideal”, politician. The ideal politician would be in it for totally unselfish reasons, with only a desire to benefit the community he/she represents. But the problem is that, to a large extent, being a politician is a pretty tough job in that you are always under public scrutiny, and if you make one small mistake (which may or may not be related to your office), you can be raked over the coals. So for the politician, there likely needs to be some other “reward” for getting into politics to offset the possible (and even probable) headaches that go along with the job. Those rewards are either going to be power, or for those who just like the limelight, fame. But neither of those rewards are unselfish, and therefore “ideal” is unlikely.

A “good” politician IMO is one who, although wanting power and/or fame to some extent, nonetheless gives priority to the needs of their community. Therefore, you are more likely to find good politicians at the local level than at the national level since the power/fame rewards are smaller; for the same reason, I think that “backbenchers” without high aspirations to become more prominent are more likely to be “good” politicians. And in fact, with the “minor” politicians, often their motivation is more a desire to become involved in their local community than a desire for power.

The saddest part is that those people who are most qualified for the job probably don’t want it because they don’t want the grief and aggravation that goes with the territory.

 

AS my dad always said, the people get the leader they deserve

 

Someone who is dedicated to public service. The ideal politician should be someone who feels that he can put the interest of the public good before anything else. Sometimes it may be representing what the public wants and knows that the public will hold him/her accountable for it; other times the good politician will know when to follow his conscience and go against the majority because principle demands it.

 

I think that the description for the ideal politician was given by Plato in his "Politeia" IIRC. Five requierments were there and i will try to find them and post them here.
Now in our days i don't think that we can even find a good politician they are all power-junkies.

 

In a book I read, of which the name escapes me as such things so often do with my memory, the part which pertains to this topic went something like this: Those that want to rule should never ever be given the chance to, and it is only those that don't want to that actually have the potential to rule.

Just rememebered the book is Hitchicker's.

 

What makes someone fit for office?


You have got to be prepared to walk into the deepest darkest mires of human suffering that you can imagine, and do it with your eyes closed.

Once you have sunk up to your waist in the toxic effluent of sucking despair, you must grope around within the filth and catch hold of the emaciated, clawing remains of the creature you have come to save.

You must then drag it step by step, hour by hour all the way back to solid ground.

Then, and only then, can you open your eyes, and watch as it crawls back through the tearing brambles, to disappear into the dreary swamp once again.

Finally you get to go home, and never ever speak of what you have seen, dreading the morrow, when you must start the process all over again.


So what color do you want the writing on those 'dmc for President' buttons?


Seriously, I want to introduce you to a regular guy, Dominic Bradley, who is preparing to fill Seamus Mallon's shoes (Mr Mallon being a giant of Irish Politics and a player on the world stage).

This guy has already shaken my hand and has kicked up a stink in the local press when my local corner shop got robbed recently (Hence the Stop Thief thread).

He is fighting my local community's corner, kicking ass and taking names, and that is why, come the next local elections, he will get my vote.

If he stays the course, he may well be the grey haired politian that oversees the reunification of Ireland.

In Northern Ireland politicians must act like gentlemen and debate like gentlemen, but if they don't have the heart of a street scrapper, then they are no use to the people they wish to lead.

 

Having studied politicians for a while in my local environment, I have reached a rather depressing conclusion. (That would be politicians who actually have the power to make something happen, by the way). Politicians around here are inherently evil. The 'good' politician is merely a 'lesser evil', while the 'bad' politician is an absolute bastard. This means that politicians would best serve the public by doing as little as possible. A politician who is actually bent on doing something is a disaster waiting to happen. If an influencial politician gets up at night to go to the bathroom, we will somehow find ourselves very much in trouble the next day.

The only benevolent politician would be one that accidentally finds himself in power, without actually realizing it. He must also be removed from power before he figures out what is going on. During his period of power, he must answer a few questions about society, life and everything in general, and he must never know why. (For example; "Religion - good or bad? Should cotton wool be banned? Where should our army go today; left or right?") Some 30-odd years later, he will get an anonymous letter that tells him that he was a dictator sometime during the seventies - "...in case you were wondering. Thank you for your cooperation, have a nice day."

...or maybe I've just had too much coffee today, I don't know...