392
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
392 points (91.0% liked)
politics
19244 readers
2159 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
We need to stop allowing folks to remain in power after the age of like 65.
I am in favour of both age and term limits for politicians. For one, if regular people are supposed to retire at 65ish and realistically often struggle to find work once they go past their 40s, there is no reason why politicians should be allowed to stay in their jobs through their 70s and sometimes 80s.
And I am in favour of term limits because it would keep the career politicians out of the game. Very few of them are any good.
Politicians who know that their political career is about to end have the nasty habit of doing favors for their big corporation of choice, knowing that they'll receive a cushy board position in return afterwards.
If you want to establish term limits, you also need to establish some sort of accountability for the time afterwards.
Accountability is needed with or without term limits. Too many politicians are deep in the pockets of big businesses. "Professional board member" is already one of the most popular sinecures for spent politicians. Term limits aren't a silver bullet for general politician misconduct. Everything needs checks and balances, and politics has way too little of it.
I agree that we need younger people in these positions. We need those more in touch with what the average person is going through these days.
However, I disagree that we should set a hard age limit. If anything have them take some sort of cognitive exam every few years once they hit a certain age.
You need an impartial hard limit. Otherwise you get people like trump getting doctors to lie about their health. Sorry if you’re in good health and get the boot, but you knew what the limits were when you signed on.
Makes sense. Perhaps it could be something variable based on the average lifespan of the people in the country... it might even give them a little incentive to come up with a working healthcare system if it means they get to stay in office a little longer.
That’s a good idea. But cynical me says people in power like to keep that power, and they’d manipulate and restrict what data they used to calculate that average as it applies to their tenure.
True, but you can only fudge the numbers so much. And it would help to keep things in check if medical advancements are made in a way that only allows the rich to have a drastically longer lifespans.
You'd really want a hard number right around 65-70. People by that age have some level of cognitive decline, there's evidence that around 50 is where it starts going down.
Right, what I mean by "based on the lifespan of the people" would be more of a percentage... not the full expected average lifespan.
So, for example, it could be 80% of the average life expectancy in the U.S. which looks to be around 76, so that would put the cap around 61.
But perhaps we could base it on studies of cognitive decline instead. If some future medicine is discovered (that most people have access to) which would allow everyone to continue functioning well at an older age, then I don't have a problem if the average person is still doing well at an older age. In this case we could use some percentage of the average age of cognitive decline instead.
A cognitive exam would be a good idea regardless of any age. They need to be fit to serve.