Chapter 23 3. If democracy loses its dignity, how is it different from the crazy show of the "Cultural Revolution"

Candor - this is a quality that is excellent and sometimes even reveals a person's nobility.It may be a spear in one case, to awe the most insolent foe; and a shield in another case, to ward off the blows of the most virulent foe. But candor has a price.The price is - publicly admitting one's own faults, shortcomings and mistakes, and even needing to publicly admit that one is not perfect in morality and character.Not only is he not perfect, he is also a person who deserves to be condemned.What's more, there is a need to publicly admit that part of the ugliness that is private that no one would ever want to admit publicly.It takes a lot of courage.

If a person is an ordinary person, then people tend to think naturally——I am already very ordinary, and the result of being honest will definitely damage my personality and reputation?It will definitely make me lose the original goodwill of my relatives and friends, right?Yes, that is likely to be the case.But this is often temporary.Under normal circumstances, people don't think this way.Another idea will naturally arise in people's minds - is honesty really more beneficial to me than quibbles, cover-ups, and denials?So people give up the last "weapon" to maintain their dignity.As a result, people become more vulnerable.

If a person is a celebrity, a celebrity among celebrities—the president, then people will often automatically think—I am an ordinary person, and ordinary people are fine, but I am clearly not.Doesn't the result of being honest mean stripping naked in public and completely losing the dignity of the president?Where will this take my family?It's about my moral character, what face do I have to continue to be the president after admitting it?What qualifications do I have to call for the moralization of society?What qualifications do I have to criticize other people's immorality?Then you will think about the gains and losses of his party, the public image of his government, his prestige and reputation on the world political stage, and the evaluation of him by history after he left office-there is no doubt that one is a great power. For the president, the pressure on him to choose to be frank is even greater, he has more concerns, and requires more extraordinary courage.At this time, another idea will naturally arise in his mind-with the influence and power of the president, can't he get rid of it smoothly by relying on sophistry, cover-up, and denial?

And at this time he has actually begun to take risks that are more difficult to estimate than the frank results. And in a country like the United States, where partisan struggles are often at odds and news supervision is always pervasive, even the president, especially the president, is almost doomed to eventually become a prisoner of the law. In America, it might be easier for an ordinary person, an ordinary person, to try to hide a fact—such as extramarital sex.And it would be harder for a president to successfully conceal this than to completely cover his face with the palm of his hand.Because his attempt to cover up must have stimulated greater "voyeurism" in the press—this is more prominent in the United States than in any other country in the world, and it can be called the "American Syndrome", and it must have stimulated him even more. The activeness of the enemy's attack must at the same time provoke the law.At this time, what he has to deal with is not only the harassment of the press, but also the attack of his political opponents.His most resolute enemy is already the law whose authority is far above it...

We have seen with regret that President Clinton, who is quite strategic and conscientious in governing the country, has fallen into a predicament step by step that attracts the full attention of people all over the world. When the media all over the world seemed to be excited and excited about the incumbent president of the United States, almost no media commented on Lewinsky's "close girlfriend".And I think it is really scary for a person, no matter if he is a man or a woman, whether he is a commoner or a president, to have such a friend by his side.Recently I came into contact with two American friends, and they both said that she had to retaliate because she had been repeatedly warned and pressured by the president and his subordinates because she had unfortunately become an insider.However, we have not seen such content from the investigation and evidence collection materials of the independent prosecutor Starr that have been published in domestic and foreign newspapers.Therefore, the words of the two American friends I came into contact with are not reliable.Moreover, after I asked them, I found out that they were American Republicans.It is conceivable that their words are biased between political parties.As a result, as a friend of Lewinsky, what she knew about was the nature of the "Watergate Incident", so her concealment proved that she was not a conscious and patriotic American citizen.But what she knew was nothing more than a pure relationship between a man and a woman at first.It's just that one side is the president, which has so-called sensational news value.Apparently, she was able to record the audio on the other end of the call because Lewinsky, up to that moment, considered her a close friend.Her actions, however explained, were quite despicable.As far as I think, it may be difficult for her to have friends in this world in the future.The laws of the United States can forgive her actions, and the American moral judgment scale does not seem to condemn her much.But her behavior will definitely cause many people around the world to introspect and be vigilant about their principles of making friends.And she has become people's negative teacher at this point.

Lewinsky is also a man worthy of analysis.If this 21-year-old plain-looking female White House intern hadn't taken the initiative to "beside" the president in a coquettish manner, it is obvious that she would not have attracted the attention of the president in the special time and space of the White House.My two American friends told me that in addition to her girlfriend, she also showed off her sexual affair with the president to at least a dozen people.I do believe that.This has also been reported by foreign media.So it shows how vain she is, a shallow little girl.According to the analysis of Freud's sexual psychology, whether her sexual psychology is normal or not is also very doubtful.Why do you keep a skirt like that?What is the idea of ​​keeping it?What fetish satisfaction could this reservation bring her?

It is really shocking that President Clinton was humiliated by such a little girl. The gossip started to spread, but President Clinton couldn't confess before Lewinsky had not brought the truth to the independent prosecutor.It is honest enough to be frank, and proactive enough to be proactive, but it is actually against morality to ignore Lewinsky's feelings.This means that he unilaterally betrayed the female client and gained a reputation for honesty.Therefore, he actually has only two options - either to wait for the development of the situation in silence, which is not in line with Clinton's character;Since Clinton chose the latter, of course he can only bear the predicament he is facing today.

After Lewinsky was brought in from the ground up, Clinton had the most appropriate opportunity to show and prove his candor in a relatively unobtrusive manner.He can at least express such an attitude-if the United States can only have a perfect man or a saint as president, then he is not, and he can step down because he is not; President, and can forgive his moral lapses, then he promises not to make the same mistakes again, and to serve America more positively, and to demonstrate more genuine repentance by more conscientious service.If he could, his candor had a gleam of courage.And a meaningful question was raised in front of the American political circles, the press, Congress, the judiciary and the public—how should the United States view the merits and demerits of a president in order to show an objective and calm attitude?What kind of mistakes can the president make that may be lenient once, and what kind of mistakes should he be convicted of?As well as party supervision, news supervision, and judicial supervision under the premise of democracy, should we guide more levels of principles?What is the main focus of that principle? ...

There are examples that demonstrate the power of candor—I can’t remember exactly which country this happened in the past few years: During the election campaign, a reporter asked a presidential candidate on the spot, “Have you ever treated your wife? An act of infidelity?" with his wife standing beside him.He pondered for a moment, then replied solemnly: "Yes. Only once. No one knew about it. Now I openly admit that as a former president, it was not good. I promise it will never happen again ’—and he turned and embraced his wife, kissed her, and said: “My dear, I beg your forgiveness.” For a moment his wife was speechless with tears in her eyes.The audience was solemn, followed by applause.

The result was that the man who had been president once was elected president again.What a pity!Clinton's candor did not show when he should most prove that he has this valuable quality. He lied to politics, the press, Congress, the judiciary, and all Americans. As Lincoln said, "You can lie to some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot lie to all of the people all of the time." In my opinion, Clinton's subsequent candor was also believable, but too late.That kind of frankness can no longer have the brilliance of courage, but it can only give people a pitiful impression of humiliation, helplessness, and embarrassment.Therefore, many people in the world feel very sorry for him.

He currently still has an approval rating of more than 63%, which shows the rationality and maturity of more than half of the American public.But this rationality and maturity obviously also contains a lot of frustration and disappointment.Moreover, no matter how much a president's ability to govern the country cannot be underestimated, if his image is damaged to such an extent, his ability to continue to play will be greatly compromised.And it is precisely this that is extremely detrimental to Clinton's desire to continue serving the United States.Because changing a president in the United States is more common than changing a class teacher in an elementary school. The independent prosecutor Starr had an extremely profound and contradictory influence on my thinking as a Chinese throughout the incident. On the one hand, I see from him a persistent judicial principle and spirit of unswervingly performing his duties in order to get to the truth of the incident.We Chinese praise this kind of spirit-"willing to cut yourself to pieces, dare to pull the emperor off the horse".Although in the United States, the president is just a high-level "wage earner", his authority cannot be compared with that of the emperor.But in the face of repeated categorical denials by the president himself, repeated strong protests and equally convincing rebuttals from White House lawyers, it is really necessary to withstand tremendous pressure to persevere in the investigation.The development of the incident naturally gradually surpassed the scandal itself, and turned into a question of honesty or not-between the president, Lewinsky and his girlfriend, one party must have publicly lied.If it is the latter who are lying, it is a common occurrence in American society.But if it is the former, it is something that the US judiciary cannot take lightly.Starr's perseverance reflects the awe-inspiring independence of the American judiciary, especially the strictness of the President's legal requirements and constraints.Contrary to Clinton's call to emphasize that Congress should focus on national issues, Starr's perseverance is reminiscent of a line of Baogong's iron-clad libretto in Chinese Peking Opera - "First go to court and then go to court." On the other hand, Starr also clearly embodies a dark, grandiose use of power's revenge pleasure.Because what he was investigating was the veracity of the scandal, not the sexual details of an affair involving the president.In other words, his mission is to verify the president's honesty, not to report on the president's sexual style.If it is said that before the president admitted the scandal to the public, all the sexual content in the report had the significance of determining the legal basis for the facts, then after the president publicly admitted the scandal, all the sexual content had actually completely lost any positive legal significance and became A bunch of obscene garbage that has no need to spread around the world via the Internet.Under such circumstances, any party wishing to see the content of the report in advance, no matter in what sense it is understood, is actually a proper consideration.The refusal of this request is obviously ulterior motives.It's no wonder White House lawyers accused Starr of "deliberately and publicly humiliating the president."In my opinion, this accusation is justified.So Starr gave me the impression that he was the Royal Sheriff Javert again.Javert was cold, but not vulgar.Stahl's report, however, has elements that are both vulgar and vulgar.It is too similar to some low-level and vulgar so-called "documentary reports" under the banner of "legal literature" in China nowadays. If you criticize the other party's "moral crisis", you should adopt a correspondingly higher moral stance.Otherwise, it is difficult to give a decent and serious impression.Even, he may fall into the low-level vulgar stream.Many people in the United States have expressed doubts about the content that is "unsuitable for children", which is probably unexpected by Starr, right?Clinton's approval rating has risen instead, perhaps just proving the rebelliousness of a considerable part of the American public. This "presidential scandal" case in the United States, as far as I think, has the meaning of a typical "demonstration teaching" no matter for the United States or other countries, including China.It inspires the world to think—under a good democracy, how can party supervision, news supervision, public supervision, congressional trials and judicial rulings be transparent and solemn without losing their dignity? Democracy is the most progressive state of government practiced by mankind so far, but the most progressive does not mean the most perfect, let alone the most perfect.The political phenomenon of partisanship and the news phenomenon of addiction to hype often make a good democratic regime cast a frivolous color of farce.That's why the short stories of the famous American writer Mark Twain came into being. I have always longed for American democracy.China will inevitably enter the corridor of democracy one day.Moreover, it is now gradually transitioning towards this ideal regime.Like many young and middle-aged intellectuals in China, we look to American democracy as a model.But now I feel that it seems that I might as well look to England, France, and some Western European democracies—those countries seem to practice democracy more solemnly. If democracy loses its solemnity, it is actually not much different from the "Big Four" practiced during China's "Cultural Revolution".Have we Chinese cast our eyes on American democracy for too long? The United States, the United States, please set a more respectable example of democracy for China.