By: Kevin Guo

It would be needless for me to attempt an elucidation of the significance of the events that arose in the South, where that beacon of democracy, on which free nations such as ours have relied so heavily for survival and expansion, has undergone the most tumultuous exercise of the principles laid down by its perspicacious founders to advance the rights and liberties of man and resist the wilful oppression of tyranny. Whereupon I deem the duty of the Golden Falcons as the educator of students would be unfulfilled by affections of ignorance of those occurrences that have captured the attention and mind of people, I put forward this article to contribute, by means more elegant than those in daily discourse, to the extensive deliberation upon the consequences of the said events, on behalf of this paper, in terms the least offensive to my cherished friends, from whose views I humbly beg to differ, and in a manner the most distant and disengaged from that irreconcilable divide in which some find themselves trapped. 

The one criteria that ought to come before all others in the judgment of a public figure is the person’s possession, or lack thereof, of those virtues that society and common sense hold dear: honesty, goodwill, and humility.

I dare not wanton the time and attention of the gentle reader on arguments that have been exhausted by writers and political staffers of all affiliations and draw myself into that disagreeable debate on the merits, qualities, and experiences of either side. Instead, I shall dissertate upon one aspect that has been universally overlooked by tedious partisans, respecting the undeniable importance of the virtues of public figures, and the strikingly spare attention that the public has paid thereto. 

The one criteria that ought to come before all others in the judgment of a public figure is the person’s possession, or lack thereof, of those virtues that society and common sense hold dear: honesty, goodwill, and humility. In the advocacy of those virtues I expect no surprise from the gentle reader, for, is it accepted by every reasonable man that he who is vacuous of the components of a good person, likely to want the abilities of a good leader. However, most dangerous is he who lacks virtues yet abounds in abilities: if he were free of the restraint of the former, he would exert excellence in the latter to the perfection of deceit, the sabotage of peers, and the satisfaction of vanity — in short, to overwhelm the public with turpitude. Therefore, any degree of wiseness would instruct the public, in the selection of their representatives, to prioritize excellence in both virtues and abilities; yet if they were presented with a binary choice, then they must prefer the incompetent person of virtue over the able person of turpitude, for the sake of the interest of the nation and the survival of democracy. 

Wherein I am justified to lament the unmitigated failure of a group of the public in the South, who, during the course of the late events, have illustrated the most dreadful ignorance of a gentleman, who, having proved himself on every count void of virtue, convinced them, by means most dishonourable and misleading, to return him to an office of supreme value to the preservation of democracy and freedom, where he will substitute the previous exemplifications of virtue for specimen of turpitude. More horrifyingly do I behold another section of that great society, who, totally conscious of every failing and evil intention of the gentleman abovementioned, stood relentlessly on his side, discarding the duty of a citizen to safeguard the virtue against the intrusion of turpitude, which has become all but irresistible; they wittingly cast aside the consideration of virtue for the hope of cynical benefit; they terminated the fulfillment of democratic duty within the satisfaction of immediate wants.