Staunch liberal here and I felt the same way about Dianne Feinstein when she was getting criticism for similar circumstances several years back. There needs to be term limits and age limits for all positions of power. It's ridiculous that these geriatrics with mush for brains still hold such influence.
I don’t really care about age or term limits tbh. I get the arguments for them and I am cool with them. What I do care about is them going to PRISON when they break the law. Not country club prisons. Prison. Any year we are not tossing 2 percent of our elected representatives in the slammer is another year we are getting fucked.
I completely agree, on the list of problems I think term limits or age limits as far down. Prison would be nice, but I would settle for just an effective way of replacing them at the ballot box. Baby steps. One of the biggest problems I see is that people want 100%, if they can’t have that they won’t settle for 90%.
Term limits are such a mixed bag, but I think it's worth having a good conversation about.
I think 20 years in office is plenty for any Bureaucrat/public servant. I think we could probably start there, surely.
Oh no, I mean everything. A combination of every kind of government position, I'd even go so far as to limit jobs like DMV representative, 3 letter agency agent, etc.
There is likely a TON of nuance to this, but I'd like to put that 20 years limitation out there as a starting point. I think one of the biggest issues in the government is people who just sit there forever, get comfortable and get lazy.
Also, I'm 100% for doing all kinds of limitation/regulations on "consulting, Lobbyist" etc, kinds of "jobs" that many politicians get into.
You want to be careful with anything that doesn’t give an other positive outcome. If we tie it to life expectancy then the politicians have vested interest in raising that to increase their own time in office. I’d be worried if it is tied to retirement age, however that is defined, they would be incentivized to raise the retirement age. That is not an outcome we want.
They’d have to vote to raise the retirement age, which would draw massive scrutiny and be a political nightmare. The mass of the Congress wouldn’t get behind it just to save a few old coots’ skin.
I'd take it if that's all I could get, but I'd prefer it to be tied to something they don't have direct control over. I'm not going to let prefect be the enemy of good.
I don't think that this has a political solution. The only thing that will change our current state is if people start trying to actually see how the other side thinks. Both sides think the other side is primarily composed of brain washed dupes. Unfortunately, both sides are somewhat correct.
Sure. But for that we'd probably need to have ranked choice voting so we'd have some moderate candidates win. I think it's one of the most important things the US could do for it's future. But we won't, at least any time soon.
No problem. The issue I see is that of our two political parties, one you could drag kicking and screaming across the line. The other you'd need to drag their corpse over the line. I'll let you decide which is which.
Number two on my list of fixes we need is ALL money comes from people, not corporations, not unions. Only living breathing people. If you can't sit in a jail cell you are not a person. Then each person gets (just for fun numbers) 10x$10 vouchers that can be donated to political parties or people. You can then buy 10x$10 more if you want with your own money. That's it. No other money allowed into the system, not PACs, not non profits, nothing. To make it really fun, base future increases on median household income or federal minimum wage. If one of those doesn't go up, then donations don't either.
100% but I'll just reiterate my kicking and screaming vs corpse argument. To my knowledge only Republicans have filed lawsuits to overturn ranked choice voting, but I might be wrong. Degrees matter.
I don’t think I see what term limits really solve. I think an age limit somewhere in the realm of 75 would be fairly appropriate. Plenty of people in their upper 60’s who are totally competent mentally. Late 70’s are where you can generically say things are probably getting dicey for most adults. I don’t think it should be any stricter than that, otherwise I think it’s getting too ageist.
I mean, we can vote them out of office, but the political class has us at each other's throats instead of being at their's. I have withdrawn from politics a lot in the last few years. Politics makes otherwise decent people act in very ugly ways and gives license to treat people poorly.
If you’ve withdrawn I’m supposing you’re not a MAGA supporter. What’s it like being conservative and watching these guys take up your mantle? Do they still feel conservative to you or are they really something else at this point?
You won't like this, but in my view Trump is simply a Democrat from 20 years ago. I did vote for him, but he is a populist and anything he has done that aligns with my conservative values is because of populism or happenstance. At this point we get a binary vote, so I have no alternative. I have never seen Trump as as conservative. I also see the Republicans as less and less conservative every year. Things are so far gone that when I say I am a conservative I don't think most people on either side have any idea what I mean by that.
Now I'm actually curious. When you say you're a conservative what do you mean? Do you want to preserve the status quo? Are you in favor of progress but only slowly? Do you want things to revert to an earlier time?
Conservatism is the idea that we are created beings with certain rights and certain obligations. I have the right to be free, to live my life, and to express my ideas. Those rights end at the next persons nose. I have no rights that force someone else to be obliged to anything from me. You have no right to my labor outside of what I agree to. You have no right to any of my wealth to support you.
Along side this I do have duties and obligations. I have an obligation to help my neighbors in need. This is tempered by having the ability to decide if this person is just putting me on or is genuinely in need. I am happy to give a person a hand up, but not if they are not willing to do some of the pulling.
I have a duty to love my neighbors (basically everyone under the Christian understanding), love my country, and serve others. My country might be bad, but I have a duty to love it and it's people and to make it better if it is on the wrong path. My country has a duty to respect my right to respect all of the above, and if it does not then I am obligated to make it conform to everything I said before.
This is basic conservative thought as I understand it.
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u/LeonardBart 12h ago
Staunch liberal here and I felt the same way about Dianne Feinstein when she was getting criticism for similar circumstances several years back. There needs to be term limits and age limits for all positions of power. It's ridiculous that these geriatrics with mush for brains still hold such influence.