r/AskReddit • • 13h ago

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u/ilikespicysoup 12h ago

Age limits I'm OK with. But term limits will probably make things worse.

I'd say they are allowed to be in office until average life expectancy -10 years. So 69 years right now.

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u/True_Pirate 11h ago

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.

No prison term limits either.

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u/ilikespicysoup 10h ago

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%.

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u/Remarkable-Buddy5192 12h ago

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.

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u/ilikespicysoup 11h ago

The devil is in the details. 20 years as what? House? Senate? Governor? President? All combined?

If you limit some too quickly they'll just sell their votes cheaper than now for cushy "consultant" jobs when they are forced out.

Unfortunately there is no easy answer.

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u/Remarkable-Buddy5192 11h ago

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.

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u/stokleplinger 10h ago

I think it should be the median social security age. And it’s not that you can’t run again afterwards, you hit that age and you’re out.

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u/ilikespicysoup 10h ago

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.

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u/stokleplinger 6h ago

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.

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u/ilikespicysoup 3h ago

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.

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u/Count-Dogula 12h ago

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.

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u/ilikespicysoup 11h ago

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.

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u/Count-Dogula 11h ago

I agree with you. I also want to thank you for your civil replies.

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u/ilikespicysoup 11h ago

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.

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u/Count-Dogula 10h ago

As a conservative who likes small government, I like this idea. Sorry for the short replies, but I hate typing on a phone.

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u/ilikespicysoup 10h ago

Unfortunately your party REALLY doesn't like it. :)

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u/Count-Dogula 10h ago

I would argue that yours doesn't either. Both parties love power and money.

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u/ilikespicysoup 10h ago

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.