8/9/2019 AAMC 3 Essay 2
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Consider this statement:
Politicians too often base their decisions on what will please
the voters, not on what is best for
the country.
Write a unified essay in which you perform the following tasks.
Explain what you think the above
statement means. Describe a specific situation in which a
politician might make an unpopular
decision for the good of the country. Discuss the principles you
think should determine whetherpolitical decisions should be made to
please the voters or to serve the nation.
Sample Essay: Politicians
In a representative democracy, representatives are selected by
the voters to convey
their ideas and values in the government. These representatives
are voted for by
citizens according to their degree to which they will uphold
these ides and values.
Citizens would obviously not vote someone into office who
believes in the opposite of
the citizens on several issue. The representatives will be
re-elected in the same
manner; the degree to which the citizens ideas and values were
upheld. It is notsurprising that politicians will base their
decisions on what will please the voters and
not on what is best for the country. The politicians must
maintain the popularity of the
voters and the best method to achieve that is to please them
with the actions made in
governmental circles.
The politicians however are not merely carbon copies of the
citizen's consensus
opinions. The politicians will have opinions of their own and
occasionally this may conflic
with those of the voters. At this time the politicians may make
an unpopular decisionfor what they feel is for the good of the
country. One example is often seen with the
petition of Nazi groups to march. While an exceptionally high
majority of citizens woul
never want to see this march occur, many politicians would have
no choice but to let th
march preceede for the greater good, in this instance it is the
right to free speech
guaranteed by the 1st Amendment to the constitution. From this
ideal, much of this
country was founded and it would by hypocritical to deny it to
another group regardles
of how unpopular this group was to the voters.
While this is an extreme case of politicians displeasing the
voters for the good of the
country, there exists a great range of "grey" area where
politicians and voters do not
meet eye to eye. So what should be considered when making a
decision to please the
voters or serve the nation? Fortunately, for the most part, the
voters will also have th
best interest of the nation at heart but trouble can still
arise. One major problem is
the building of new prisons or landfills. For most voters, there
is no question that they
8/9/2019 AAMC 3 Essay 2
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are needed, but none of the voters wants to see the prison or
landfill wind up in their
backyards. To deal with such problems and still remain in good
standing with the voters
the politicians must learn to make concessions. For instance,
the same district where a
new prison is built, a new High School and Industrial Park is
set up to better education
and increase jobs and the local economy.
A politicians must weigh the potential degrees of disfavor that
they may incur when
determining whether to serve the nation at the risk of the
voters. Politicians are unabl
to please all of the voters all of the times, but by ensuring
that unfavorable decision
are accompanied by many favorable ones, the politicians can
balance on the treacherou
tightrope between serving their country and serving their
voters.
SCORE POINT: 5
ANNOTATIONS:
This paper clearly addresses the three elements of the
rhetorical assignment, examining the issue of
political decision making in a democracy as it pertains to voter
input and perceptions about political
sensitive issues. The presentation is coherent, focused, well
developed and unified thematically as th
writer presents specific examples to illustrate the complexity
of the issue. The explanation and
commentary on the examples, especially the discussion of the
prison/landfill dilemma in the next-to
last paragraph, engage the reader and provides ample evidence to
support the writer's position.
There are weaknesses in the presentation of the paper,
especially minor lapses in diction and
mechanics, but there is good syntactic variety and little
repetition or redundancy. Sentences are well
formed and purposeful. Effective work choice and imagery are
used (politicians not being "carbon
copies" of citizens' views, politicians keeping their footing on
the treacherous tightrope"). Overall,there is a strong command of
language.
The first two paragraphs address one of the inherent problems in
representative democracy: what
should politicians do when their opinions, conscience, and sense
of what is awful happen to differ
from the views of the people who elect and reelect the
politicians to promote their viewpoints? The
writer explains the elements of representative democracy in the
first paragraph. In the second
paragraph, the writer illustrates the dilemma by offering an
example: Nazi groups desiring to
demonstrate in a community where the vast majority of citizens
oppose Nazi marches.
The writer admits, in the next paragraph, that the example is an
extreme one. This declaration works
as a transitional device, allowing the writer to proceed to a
more common and ambiguous example.
noting that the construction of landfills is favored by voters
but that they seldom want them in their
own communities, the writer explores the predicament facing
elected offices. The writer says
politicians "must weigh the potential degrees of disfavor" and
acknowledges that politicians may no
be able "to please all the voters all of the time." Thus,
compromise is required, and the writer offers
creative solution to the hypothetical situation" build a prison
and "a new High School and Industrial
Park."
