Every four years, registered voters of the United States of America have an important decision to make. A decision that has potential to change their country in both negative and positive ways. The decision about who will lead their country for the next four years. Voting for president is a privilege that Americans should be thankful for and take advantage of. When voting, Americans need to take into consideration who will be the best leader for their country.
I am not going to tell to vote republican or democrat or try to sway your political views. Though a candidate’s plan of action and values are important, the ability of a candidate to lead a country is vital.
The United States of America is at a time where its leader’s smart decision making is important. For example, the decisions pertaining to the Middle East. As of recently, there are about 46,000 troops in Iraq. The next president will have to make decisions governing the actions being made oversees and whether to change the amount of soldiers deployed in that area. Leadership while tackling these decisions is key.
Leadership is a broad term that entails different characteristics of an individual. A leader is committed to building excellence while doing what is best for their organization. In order to do this, a leader needs to demonstrate good character. Good character includes honesty, competence, intelligence, being fair minded, and being courageous, just to name a few.
In order to determine if a candidate is honest, pay attention to their forwardness and stance on different topics, whether it is through debates or speeches. An honest candidate will have a consistent decision throughout their campaign. This means that paying attention to the campaign is essential for voters.
A candidate who exhibits confidence will make decisions based on reason. Whereas a candidate who lacks confidence will make decisions based on emotion. As all of you know, the recent war has caused people to elicit a great deal of emotions. For example, decisions being contemplated and made by the current president Barak Obama, dealing with the amount of troops the U.S. currently has in Iraq and plans to have in 2012, has caused high emotions and debate across the country. It is important for Barak Obama to do what’s best for his country without letting his emotions make the decision for him.
Intelligence is necessary for a candidate to be ready to address any task that is thrown their way. Though there were some incidences that may be considered pretenses to the 9/11 attacks, the government was stunned by what transpired on that tragic day. A president needs to be aware that an instance like 9/11 can happen and they need to be ready to deal with it.
Next, a leader needs to be just. Being fair and treating all citizens is important. The United States is made up of numerous races and cultures; therefore, showing equal treatment is necessary.
Lastly, a leader is show courage. Webster’s dictionary defines courage this as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” A president will have many different assignments and goals they have to take on. They need to be strong to attempt and complete them.
I urge you all to consider the importance of a leader for our country. A leader who exhibits the characteristics of a leader, a leader whose main goal is to better their country, a leader who values their people. If you aren’t a registered voter and can be, please register so that you can join me in having an impact on who will lead our country. Your participation can begin by paying attention to the debates and speeches online, in the news, and in newspapers. Thank you.
Reflection
“Leadership”
The most challenging part of the assignment, to find an ancient speech and develop an imitation to recite in class, was research. There are many different documented speeches from ancient rhetors, but finding a modern topic and being able to apply the style of the ancient speaker was difficult.
When beginning the assignment, I brainstormed topics that I was passionate about and would be appealing to an audience of college students. After compiling a list, the idea of nationalism seemed to be the topic best suited for the assignment and audience. In order to have nationalism, having knowledge of current events is essential. I began exploring websites including CNN.com, foxnews.com, and USAtoday.com. Then, I read newspapers such as The Daily Evergreen, The New York Times, and USA Today. Lastly, I explored podcasts by popular voices including Glenn Beck and NPR to evaluate their opinions on leadership. Most of these resources discussed politics and the effectiveness of our current president, Barack Obama. It occurred to me how important the upcoming presidential election of 2012 will be to the citizens of the United States. I decided the voting for a leader in the upcoming election would be the topic of my persuasive speech.
The next step was to find an ancient speech that I could imitate. I decided to use the “Third Philippic”, a speech by Demosthenes to the Athenians encouraging them to rise up
Suhadolnik 2
against Kind Philip. Demosthenes was concerned with the actions being taken by King Philip and was trying to get the Athenians to have the energy to call for change.
Demosthenes was not concerned with using vast words and intellectual language. He used common linguistics that an audience of both educated and commoners with little or no education would understand. He didn’t use many tropes or other devices, but chose to educate his audience on the lack of leadership of King Philip in order to get them on his side and call for change. Therefore, his speech was simple but adequately narrated the desired argument about current leadership. His intended argument was easily received by the Athenians audience.
My imitation is calling for U.S. citizens to take action by voting so they can better their country by demanding appropriate leadership. My imitation describes the qualities of a good leader, which is what Demosthenes was trying to explain to the Athenians in his speech. My imitation uses language that common university students will be able to understand without the unnecessary strain of trying to understand the language.
Leadership was an important feature to consider for a king during the time of the ancient speech and can be applied to voting for a president in the present day. Leadership entails narrower characteristics that voters should be aware of. Our textbook , Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students states, “Aristotle pointed out successful examples may be drawn from history” (Crowley 173). To strengthen my argument researching renowned leaders in history and identifying what made them successful seemed to be an important topic to discuss in my speech.
This brought me to my next challenge. I needed to research past leaders who left a legacy of successful leadership and dig deeper to be able to identify what characteristics made them
Suhadolnik 3
effective. After exploring numerous online resources, there seemed to be a consensus that Moses, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy left a legacy of successful leadership. Knowing the
information I found could be considered highly subjective, I chose not to directly attribute the characteristics in my speech to specific historical people. However, I chose to use the leadership characteristics of the historic people to give my audience real life examples to apply to the present day. While researching, I learned characteristics including the need for a leader being imaginative, meaning being able to discover new and innovative ways to handle a situation and that the ability to speak and gain followers isn’t as important as a leader’s character.
After compiling the information I found though research, I made an outline of my imitation. The outline was helpful to put my ideas in order. When it finally became time to write my speech, linguistics, presentation, and delivery were the only strategies that needed tweaking.
Looking back after the speech was written; I enjoyed the assignment more than I thought I would. The instant overwhelming feeling I had when we received the assignment disappeared while researching, which was when I began to be interested in the topic. This assignment taught me that though ancient speeches were given so long ago, the rhetoric can be used for an audience today.
No comments:
Post a Comment