Some people claim that the goal of politics should be the pursuit of an ideal. Others argue that the goal should be finding common ground and reaching reasonable consensus.Write a response in which you discuss which view more closely aligns with your own

Two distinct viewpoints coexists in today's society on the main goal of politics. On the one hand we have a claim that politicians ought to champion an ideal. On the other hand, we have a belief that officials should look for reasonable consensus. Although, at the first glance those views seem to be in conflict with each other, in fact they are complementary. The reasons of my stance will be discussed in details below.

To begin with, I assume that everybody agrees that politician ought to protect our ideals. Who are we without our liberties and freedoms? Our society is created by such ideals as freedom of speech, equality, fair trial, freedom of religion and other democratic principles. When we have a deal with international affairs, our decisions and actions ought to reflect our ideals. For example, we may impose sanctions on Russian Federation because of its annexed of Crimea. Russian's action violates our understanding of rightness, our ideals and thus it should be stopped. In case, we kept silence, we would deteriorate our ideals and therefore our own society.

However, searching for reasonable consensus is a worthy goal as well. In fact, this search is the main tool and goal of contemporary politics. Each country, state, nation and leader has one's interests and frequently they are in conflict with interests of others. Consequently, to reach a decision both sides have to sacrifice something. For example, we may take a look at the recent negotiation between the USA and Iran about Iranian nuclear program. On the one hand, the United State of America wants to be sure that the country will not create a nuclear bomb by using as a pretext creation of nuclear-powered electric station. The USA perhaps wants that Iran abolishes its nuclear program completely. On the other hand, we have Iran which perceives the program as a meter of prestige and therefore it refuses to seize the program. As a result, both interlocutors have to find a common ground. In today's situation, Iran allows international committee on its nuclear objects at any time they want and the USA cancels the old sanctions which forbid selling oil and imposes new less severe. This example illustrates that reaching a reasonable consensus is an important goal of politics as well.

As a result, we have a dilemma because pursuing ideals and searching for consensus seem to be in confrontation with each other; however, closer look at the paradox reveals us that in reality they are complementary. In fact, politician ought to search for consensus with the respect to one's ideals. In other words, an agreement is possible till either side does not violate ideals. For example, we may glance at the first Iraq war. The American government negotiated with the Hussein till it used chemical weapon against his nation, after the leader breached the international law and ideals of democratic societies, the ground military operation became inescapable. Similar situation we may see in 1995 in Yugoslavia. After the leader initiated genocide of local residents because of their nation and confession, violating by this act ideals of our society, the reaching consensus became impossible and military intervention became unavoidable. Those examples demonstrate that our ideals are important criteria which allow us to establish boundaries of possibilities for possible consensuses.

In conclusion, the search for consensus and championing ideals are important goals of politics, although many of us tend to separate them, in fact, they are two sides of the same coin and cannot and should not be considered separately because only together they create a real goal of politics.
(written in 30 minutes)