The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

I propose this:

For elected national political service (President, VP, Senate, House), you cannot accept a new term in office once you are past 65 years old.

If you want to be the mayor of some small town and be 90, knock yourself out.  I also don't care as much about appointed positions, especially in an advisement capacity.

I like.

how about adding some hard cap to SCOTUS ages as well.

I'm not 100% against it in terms of age limit, but I fear term limits for SCOTUS.  I like the idea that once appointed, you don't ever have to answer to political interests ever again (in theory).  So, it's not like you're angling for your next job.  Public approval, societal pressure, political pressure -- those things aren't supposed to matter and I think that's good in theory.  Once you get where you are, you are only beholden to right and wrong as viewed through the laws of the Constitution.

But I think they need to be more accountable in terms of checks and balances, corruption, etc.

i'm down, but unless i'm wrong, it needs a constitutional amendment for make it a reality

While I wouldn't oppose such a change, it is not a priority for me and near impossible as it would require a constitutional amendment and if just a small portion of those over 65 voted against it, it would go nowhere.  

I see a lot of democratic pearl clutching around jokes about Feinstein's death.  Fuck that.  She should have retired 25 years ago.  It's a disgrace she was in politics, being wheeled around like Weekend At Bernie's.

The Daily Show made a joke "Democrats have still not asked her to step down" and everyone is so aghast at the bad taste.  Get the fuck out of here.  What's a selfish way to tarnish her legacy.  I'm embarrassed for the party at how they have handled this.

Keep in mind:  She didn't need to resign. She wasn't appointed in for life.  She was 85 years old when the voters in her district decided to send her back to the Senate. 

If more than half the people don't have a problem voting for someone 85 years old, is it really democratic to change the constitution to no allow someone over 65 to run? 

I get Biden, Trump and Reagan are all controversial figures, so I will skip them.  But anyone want to tell me why they think Eisenhower, Truman, or Jackson was too old to be an effective President.   

Dave, your issue is with democracy.
It's not like there's some sort of weird, arcane council in a smoke-filled room that's anointing octogenarians to high office; the voters have their choice, and they are picking ancient candidates.  The idea that we can fix the electorate by just telling them "You're not allowed to vote for this person anymore" misreads the problem.

The bizarre part about this is you don't seem to see a problem with it on the Supreme Court, where it's actually the worst issue!  Supreme Court justices have no accountability & can stay in office until they literally die, and no one can do anything about it.  If there's any institution where age limits should be enforced, it's SCOTUS.  I understand the desire to protect the justices from pandering to the politics of the day, but 1) they aren't elected in the first place and 2) a fixed length of service gives them just as much insulation.

I think you guys are being naive and not accounting for the will of the party.

The party supports candidates and there is some level of choice or preference or pressure within the party.  She was 25 years too late.


It doesn't mean that no old person would be capable.  That's not the point.  I'm sure some 33 year old is capable, yet there are laws about that, too.

Ike first ran when he was 62.  Truman was 61.  At least they're in the ballpark.


And I said, I'm fully on board with SCOTUS restrictions...but I'm just not sure that it's age.  I'm more concerned about ethics and ability to be recalled.

I agree that incumbency is too powerful for reelection.

But you picked an issue/solution that:

(1) is unwinnable.

(2) won't actually solve the problem

(3) is fundamentally undemocratic. 

I will get behind things I don't view as particularly winnable, if they will make a difference, this one won't. 

This is an excuse offered by losers.  If "the party" chose, Hillary would have beaten Obama in 2008 and Jeb would have beaten Trump in 2016.

Your problem is the voters, not "the party."

I'm not being sour grapes and I'm not even talking about the President as that's high profile enough.

It's really for more of these local or state races where the same name-recognition dinosaurs are in power for 60 years.

Right, but "name recognition" isn't party bosses putting their thumb on the scale or whatever.  It's the voters pulling the lever for a familiar name.  That's just democracy.

In the particular case of Dianne Feinstein, the California Democratic Party declined to endorse her in 2018, when (due to CA's jungle primary system) her general election opponent was another Democrat, Kevin De Leon.  Declining to endorse a 4-term sitting US Senator is just about the strongest move they can take.  She won easily anyway.

The party doesn't decide.  The voters do.

I didn't know that.  Good for the CA Dems.  I feel better about that.  ...It's probably something that shouldn't have happened once and should've been going on for 25 years, but good on them.

We already have limits, it is called voting. We the people are the ones who keep reflecting these fools into office for decades...and suffer for it.

I'd be glad to put an age limit on politicians...as soon as voters decide that seniors have no rights.

This actually seems like a "never gonna happen in a gazillion years" kind of thing

I am not interested in limiting the rights of older folks, but I would love to see the voting age lowered to 12.

I think it's pretty obvious term limits and age restrictions should be applied. Voters of both parties continue to put officials back into office who everyone knows should have moved on years before. There is no way that is beneficial to anyone.

I think the real gripe here is (a) voters not doing their required share to learn about who they're voting for and (b) it takes too long / too hard of a road for younger folks to make a name for themselves in politics.

People vote for name recognition.  I am guilty as well.  Most of the time, people don't even know the first thing about the person they are voting for, but they have a (D) or (R) next to their names.

I am actually OK with people voting straight D/R.  It's not ideal, but you know what D and R stands for, as a collective, so you're voting for a group of ideas, in general.

Where we really can do better is in the primaries, where the various candidates will craft the parties.

I'm starting to relitigate my own position after being enlightened by Spider on Feinstein's reelection, in the face of not being supported by the party and winning anyway.


I still do think we should have age-limits, full stop.

However, maybe that's just too difficult to achieve and would send the wrong message and be too damaging to democracy until it were adopted and accepted.

We need to stop normalizing fossils as political figures, as a whole, and not just at the highest levels of things.  We fixate on President (and on that I agree as well), but I'm actually more concerned with people actually crafting the laws.  In terms of branches of government, the legislative branch is the one that needs to be most in-tune with things like technology, social issues of the day, and youth culture.

A healthy mix of ages is good for that legislative body, but there's a point where you're just too damn old.

Fundamentally, you're talking about restricting the ability of the people to vote for whom they choose.  This is a pretty dangerous proposition.  In the case of the President, such a restriction - in the form of term limits - makes sense, given the amount of power invested in that singular office and the potential for a dictator to arise.  A similar argument can also be reasonably made for state Governors.

But in the case of Congress, I think you need to give pretty clear and substantive evidence that the risk of allowing these candidates to hold office outweighs the right of the people to vote for whom they choose in a democratic republic.  And I find that case lacking; the amount of power wielded by a single US Senator is not so great that it justifies obstructing the right of the voters to choose.

If you vote for someone that's too old, you get shitty representation in Congress... but the ability of the people to choose suboptimal representatives is just how voting works.

There should be an Amendment to the Constitution to enact term limits, that would pretty much solve the age issue.  But that would require the egoticians to basically vote themselves out which they would never due.

And I think the same is now true for Supreme Court Justices, limit them to a 20 year term.  At one time it was good to have Supremes with a lifetime appointment because that way they wouldn't be swayed by politics, but in the past couple decades all the new Supremes have mostly come in with a strong political agenda.  Surprisingly I think Chief Justice John Roberts is the fairest, yes he's right leaning but not terrible.

Term limits just put lobbyists in control of the government.

right .. special interest groups aren't currently in control of the government ?

To whatever extent you think they are in control now, term limits put them even more so.

Huh?  Lobbyists already own politicians because they fund their re-elections.  If you take away politicians being able to be re-elected forever, then you take away some of the hold that lobbyists have over politicians.

Just the opposite.  Most politicians primary goal is to get reelected, what happens when their only goal becomes landing a high paying job at a lobbying firm?

In addition to what Hoodie said, when elected politicians are forced to be rotated out every few years, the people with real connections (and therefore power) in the capital city are the lobbyists that remain there for decades.

Term limits could only "work" if we first eliminated the influence of money in politics, which isn't likely to happen.

If we're pie in the sky-ing solutions. Here's my idea.

I'd like to see a system for the US house where the congressman for a district is selected for a 1 year term every year from the same pool of people juries are selected from. You're in for 1 year, you pass some laws, and you're out. For the rest of your life.

^ Like...randos?

yes, randos .. like a jury randos .. could be you .. could be your wife .. could be your mother in law .. they get sent to DC for a year, pass some laws and GTFO

1. that is not a democracy.

2. it will create a system where the unelected entrenched lobbyists have even more power. 

3. the lack of predictability in future policy will cause economic chaos. 

4. the leaders will have no accountability

Is this thread some sort of joke to come up with ideas to invent a worse system?
 

Yeah, I tend to think that would result in poor lawmaking and unqualified people.

(I realize the retort is that "we have that now.")

yep

Having tried an amateur for president....

I don't think the solution to our current political problems is to seek out everyday people with even less political knowledge & experience, and draft them into running our government.

That's half of what I said, Politicians primary goal is to get re-elected; which is made possible with the help of lobbyists.  BUT if the politicians aren't worried about getting re-elected, THEN they don't have to rely upon (or fear the backlash) of lobbyists to get re-elected.  It takes away the power of the lobbyists which is mainly the ability to help get the politician re-elected.

That's not true, for two reasons:

1) Unless the term limit is exactly one, there will be a perpetual rotating roster of first-term politicians looking to get funding for their (limited) re-election
2) As Hoodie stated, politicians leaving office and taking cushy jobs with lobbying firms, or even directly with the corporations they were tasked with regulating, is already a problem today... but in a world with term limits, the moment these guys arrive in office, they are working towards their post-government career.  The power of the lobbyists switches from "helps me get re-elected" to "helps me get a good job after I'm termed out," which is a much worse motivating factor.

There's a minimum age requirement for the President. Don't see any issues with a max age requirement although gonna be hard to get that passed before the next election. That really would look like election tampering.

...before next election isn't reasonable.  Candidates are already in place and that would be a bad look for democracy.   Even if you had to make exceptions and set it to take effect 10 years down the road, that would be something.

Age in itself may not be a good measure of fitness. However, at least some sort of senility test would be a good measure for those over, say, 70 years? Which should be both Presidential candidates by my calculation. Plus some of the Senate. The last thing you want is someone with any kind of Dementia dictating how you live... which brings me to the question of....

Are you really happy with the probable candidates you have for the highest office? Experience and wisdom is one thing, but it seems like you guys seem to be picking from a surprisingly shallow pool.