If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that running for office is different than other legal rights or what?
No it’s a horse shit response meant to distract from the actual question about putting limits on who’s allowed to rule over humanity.
Running for office, especially the presidency, is different from all those other things. If you can’t see why that is, that’s not my problem.
I mean I think you want good rulers and you're being reactionary as to how you determine criteria?
I can see why you dont want the candidates we have as frontrunners.
I disagree with your view of the right to run for office though. I see it as pretty much the same as other legal inalienable rights. Right to vote, right to run for office, right to publish information, right to assemble.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that running for office is different than other legal rights or what?
No it’s a horse shit response meant to distract from the actual question about putting limits on who’s allowed to rule over humanity.
Running for office, especially the presidency, is different from all those other things. If you can’t see why that is, that’s not my problem.
Would you be in favor of only allowing people who have, say, passed a graduate-level education in a relevant subject like law or international relations to hold office?
Horse shit response.
This is about the mental and physical decline that age undeniably causes, and the implications of being ruled over by people that never actually need to worry about the consequences of their actions in office.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that running for office is different than other legal rights or what?
No it’s a horse shit response meant to distract from the actual question about putting limits on who’s allowed to rule over humanity.
Running for office, especially the presidency, is different from all those other things. If you can’t see why that is, that’s not my problem.
Would you be in favor of only allowing people who have, say, passed a graduate-level education in a relevant subject like law or international relations to hold office?
Horse shit response.
This is about the mental and physical decline that age undeniably causes, and the implications of being ruled over by people that never actually need to worry about the consequences of their actions in office.
"Everything I Don't Like is a Horse Shit Response", a Child's Primer by Sleep
I mean, if you don't want to have a discussion, then feel free to take a break from the thread.
I (and, I think, Tumin) are trying to drill down at what you think representative democracy is about. I think it's about having people who represent the electorate. That, to me, means that any group or class who is qualified to be part of the electorate is also qualified to hold office.
You don't seem to think so, because the Presidency is *waves hands* "different from all those other things." Yet, it's comparable to being a surgeon, which you spent a few posts talking about. But in being comparable to being a surgeon, somehow that comparison doesn't apply to requiring an advanced degree.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
No everyone dropped out of the race and handed it to Biden instead of actually giving us a broad range of options to choose from within the primary because all the centrists realized they were splitting their base and giving the leftists a real shot at maybe getting a candidate, so they bent the knee and made it Biden v Warren and Bernie. We didn’t choose Biden, the party did.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
No everyone dropped out of the race and handed it to Biden instead of actually giving us a broad range of options to choose from within the primary because all the centrists realized they were splitting their base and giving the leftists a real shot at maybe getting a candidate, so they bent the knee and made it Biden v Warren and Bernie. We didn’t choose Biden, the party did.
I mean it sounds like primaries aren't a great system if they select bad rulers, and first past the post isnt good for a diverse set of candidates.
We are never going to have a system that represents the electorate via simple voting reform. Power momentum is far, far too influential to allow that to occur.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
No everyone dropped out of the race and handed it to Biden instead of actually giving us a broad range of options to choose from within the primary because all the centrists realized they were splitting their base and giving the leftists a real shot at maybe getting a candidate, so they bent the knee and made it Biden v Warren and Bernie. We didn’t choose Biden, the party did.
Sounds like a problem with the party. I wouldn't be happy if they railroaded Harris or Buttigieg either. I'm not happy with how Adam Schiff is getting rammed down my throat for Feinstein's seat.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
There was/is a democratic party primary? I must have missed that.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that running for office is different than other legal rights or what?
No it’s a horse shit response meant to distract from the actual question about putting limits on who’s allowed to rule over humanity.
Running for office, especially the presidency, is different from all those other things. If you can’t see why that is, that’s not my problem.
Would you be in favor of only allowing people who have, say, passed a graduate-level education in a relevant subject like law or international relations to hold office?
Horse shit response.
This is about the mental and physical decline that age undeniably causes, and the implications of being ruled over by people that never actually need to worry about the consequences of their actions in office.
"Everything I Don't Like is a Horse Shit Response", a Child's Primer by Sleep
I mean, if you don't want to have a discussion, then feel free to take a break from the thread.
I (and, I think, Tumin) are trying to drill down at what you think representative democracy is about. I think it's about having people who represent the electorate. That, to me, means that any group or class who is qualified to be part of the electorate is also qualified to hold office.
You don't seem to think so, because the Presidency is *waves hands* "different from all those other things." Yet, it's comparable to being a surgeon, which you spent a few posts talking about. But in being comparable to being a surgeon, somehow that comparison doesn't apply to requiring an advanced degree.
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
Writing age restrictions into law probably wouldn’t get very far. But we could create a political culture that pressures older politicians to retire. Lifetime appointments in general are some bullshit, putting term limits on scotus would get around the age discrimination issue entirely.
You literally have age requirements written into the constitutiion for the minimum age for the presideny, there is no reason you couldn't set a maxium.
I would prefer that we didn't, though I recognize we haven't found any good alternatives.
I do think at the very least we shouldn't have an age minimum for office that is so incongruent with the mininum voting age.
I would prefer it if people over a certain age stopped trying to control society because even if their faculties haven't declined the reality is that you will get to a point where you are disconnected from the reality of your voter base because you've spent 40 years in washington chasing whatever dream you had 50 years ago.
I suspect I was overly polite in my prior response.
We literally have age requirements written into a document that also literally disenfranchised black slaves and Natives, written at a time when most states only allowed male landowners to vote, because the white male landowners who wrote these laws only considered people like themselves to be competent and trustworthy. That the constitution has an age minimum isn't a good argument in favor of age restrictions - if anything, we should take the US Constitution as a warning of what happens when we sit around and decide that [Those People] aren't capable of governing, for whatever definition of [Those People] we use.
That's nice.
It doesn't change the fact that this only restricts people who are under a certain age and would nominally have less expierience for performing the duties of the president from holding said office which frankly I think is a good thing.
But as I clearly stated ~and you glossed over because you're horrified at my ageism I'm guessing~ There comes a point where you are disconnected from the actual concerns and day to day living of the common man because of how much time you've spent in office; Like even if he wasn't senile I'm like 90% certain that mitch McConnel has no idea at this point what life in Kentucky is actually like or how to better the lives of his constituents.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
No everyone dropped out of the race and handed it to Biden instead of actually giving us a broad range of options to choose from within the primary because all the centrists realized they were splitting their base and giving the leftists a real shot at maybe getting a candidate, so they bent the knee and made it Biden v Warren and Bernie. We didn’t choose Biden, the party did.
Sounds like a problem with the party. I wouldn't be happy if they railroaded Harris or Buttigieg either. I'm not happy with how Adam Schiff is getting rammed down my throat for Feinstein's seat.
Well that’s the reality of how you get your candidates. This isn’t some free and open market for leaders. It’s a whole ecosystem of patronage and seniority that we don’t actually get to see. Regulation of that system by implementing a simple age limit and term limits is basically the only way to limit that.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
The other problem with the Presidency, of course, is that we didn't have a primary election. The Democratic party didn't have one period, and the Republicans had one with a predetermined outcome. If you aren't a Republican, your only decision is choosing between Biden or one of the worst presidents of the last hundred years, currently dealing with multiple criminal court cases for all the crimes he did. (While we're talking about the possibility that one or both candidates die before taking office, there's also the realistic possibility that one of the candidates ends up in prison before election day.)
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
I didn't call you a bigot.
I mean, you are declaring an entire demographic of humans to be broadly unfit to hold public office because their brains "undeniably" don't work right.
But that's okay. It's not bigotry when it's true, eh?
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Looking at actuarial tables, the life expectancy of an 80 year old man (so, roughly Biden / Trump's age) is about 88.6 years old. The odds of dying within 5 years is 31.5%. That's across the population, so for largely healthy men (which Trump isn't but Biden is) with no prior conditions and the absolute best healthcare in the world immediately available the chances at least Biden survives through January 20, 2029 is fairly good.
It looks like the odds of dying within 3 years after a stroke is about 33%. So by that logic we're using that 'but they might die soon' Fetterman at 54 should not have been eligible for Senate.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
There was/is a democratic party primary? I must have missed that.
Yup, Biden is even winning when he's not on the ballot and being written in (New Hampshire).
My main thing is I don't like the idea of people who are likely to die soon being able to set into stone how people who have barely begun to live get to exist. I have a lot of specific concerns about how the upcoming generations are likely to turn out, but they deserve to be able to have a real say in their futures rather than being beholden to whatever we millennials decide for them for almost all of their lives.
Not convinced that they WANT a say. There currently is a mechanism for this which they largely do not use.
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
I didn't call you a bigot.
I mean, you are declaring an entire demographic of humans to be broadly unfit to hold public office because their brains "undeniably" don't work right.
But that's okay. It's not bigotry when it's true, eh?
You do understand that past a certain point the human body begins to degrade right? And that this leads to problems with both physical and mental health? That declination in the mind isn't exactly obscure or rare?
It doesn't change the fact that this only restricts people who are under a certain age and would nominally have less expierience for performing the duties of the president from holding said office which frankly I think is a good thing.
But as I clearly stated ~and you glossed over because you're horrified at my ageism I'm guessing~ There comes a point where you are disconnected from the actual concerns and day to day living of the common man because of how much time you've spent in office; Like even if he wasn't senile I'm like 90% certain that mitch McConnel has no idea at this point what life in Kentucky is actually like or how to better the lives of his constituents.
I glossed over it because I didn't want to dilute my point. In any case, we know how term limit work out. That's not something we have to speculate on. Put simply: they don't. (commentary article, but it has links to studies in the text.) They induce more dependency on lobbyists and special interests and shift power away from elected representatives. They increase corruption. There's a reason that the right-wing loves them: they're fundamentally antidemocratic.
There's also a fundamental tension between believing that experience is a good thing for performing the duties of an elected office vs believing that time in office insulates a representative from their constituency. I'm not saying these are completely mutually exclusive, but they're a bit of an intellectual backflip.
Well that’s the reality of how you get your candidates. This isn’t some free and open market for leaders. It’s a whole ecosystem of patronage and seniority that we don’t actually get to see. Regulation of that system by implementing a simple age limit and term limits is basically the only way to limit that.
Prescribing term limits for oligarchy is like prescribing tobacco for a cough.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
If anyone over 65 (or pick your number) is not fit to be President, are they fit to govern their own affairs? Should testimony from over 65 be admissible in court? Expert witnesses? Should they be allowed to practice law? To be judges? To do any government job at all? To be a corporate officer with legal obligations?
To sign legal documents alone? To make medical decisions for themselves or others? To get married of their own accord? To determine their investment portfolio?
This is horse shit
Barely worthy a response
We aren’t talking about them having personal agency. This is about allowing them to be among the most powerful people in the world. Deciding the fates of millions if not billions of other people.
Are you mad cause you think that deciding to run for office is different than other legal rights or what?
If it's so obvious that an incompetent 90 year old shouldn't run for such an important post, whats the issue? Nobody will vote for them.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates* for the parties won* the primaries*. Voters* picked* them over other* candidates*.
ah yes the highly democratic process known as us presidential primaries.... where 3 states vote for whichever candidate the media is force feeding them and then we declare it over
extremely convincing, who can argue with the results!? look how well it is working
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
I didn't call you a bigot.
I mean, you are declaring an entire demographic of humans to be broadly unfit to hold public office because their brains "undeniably" don't work right.
But that's okay. It's not bigotry when it's true, eh?
Yes human bodies age and fail.
That’s not really debatable. Fuckin rage against the dying of the light as much as you want, but the reality of our existence is that in general at about 40 our bodies and minds start falling apart without intervention. Sorry you’re going to get old, and feeble, and die. This is in fact the best possible outcome of life. It doesn’t not happen because we wanna will it to not happen. Age comes for us all and it is outright foolishness to deny that fact and insist we might be fine all the way up to 80. We normally aren’t, and generally the folks that do are the wealthy and well connected.
Again is it possible some folks will be cognizant past the age cutoff? Sure. Some people do make it to 110 without much mental decline. They are a rarity not a common feature of the species, and the likelihood that they are going to be running for president out of nowhere at that age and haven’t already had their chance to rule the world is exceedingly slim because of the realities of how our party systems work. And again even if they aren’t in active mental decline they start to hit a point where they personally don’t have to care much farther out than a decade because they’re just about to average human life span and will almost assuredly die before they have to deal with the long tail fallout of their decisions.
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
I didn't call you a bigot.
I mean, you are declaring an entire demographic of humans to be broadly unfit to hold public office because their brains "undeniably" don't work right.
But that's okay. It's not bigotry when it's true, eh?
You do understand that past a certain point the human body begins to degrade right? And that this leads to problems with both physical and mental health? That declination in the mind isn't exactly obscure or rare?
Yes, I understand that, just as I understand that women have on average less upper body strength than men, and black people on average score lower on IQ tests and standardized education tests than white people. Barring people from jobs - especially important jobs - may or may not be "bigotry." I don't really care about that semantic argument. Whether it's bigotry or not, it suffers from the same basic ecological fallacy, the same false generalization as all bigotry: believing that the entire group is defined by its worst common denominator.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Why shouldn’t we just let Trump be president till he dies?
This is a silly point.
Term limits aren't the reason Trump is out of office right now.
And if we didn't have term limits on President, there's a decent chance Obama would still be in office.
Cool that would also be bad in my opinion.
However every single point for why not to do age limits is exactly the same for why term limits? Why
If you feel there’s no acceptable criteria upon which to limit the post then term limits should be right out.
I thought I made it clear I think term limits AND age limits are bad and undemocratic.
Edit - elections and voters should be the determining factor. There should be as few people barred from holding any office they can be elected to as possible.
Why shouldn’t we just let Trump be president till he dies?
This is a silly point.
Term limits aren't the reason Trump is out of office right now.
And if we didn't have term limits on President, there's a decent chance Obama would still be in office.
Cool that would also be bad in my opinion.
However every single point for why not to do age limits is exactly the same for why term limits? Why
If you feel there’s no acceptable criteria upon which to limit the post then term limits should be right out.
I thought I made it clear I think term limits AND age limits are bad and undemocratic.
Edit - elections and voters should be the determining factor. There should be as few people barred from holding any office they can be elected to as possible.
Cool so when Trump and his party win and then go about removing the term limit so he can run again, while doing a bunch of illegal shit he now controls all investigations into. I don’t wanna hear any complaints about it from you.
Why shouldn’t we just let Trump be president till he dies?
This is a silly point.
Term limits aren't the reason Trump is out of office right now.
And if we didn't have term limits on President, there's a decent chance Obama would still be in office.
Cool that would also be bad in my opinion.
However every single point for why not to do age limits is exactly the same for why term limits? Why
If you feel there’s no acceptable criteria upon which to limit the post then term limits should be right out.
I thought I made it clear I think term limits AND age limits are bad and undemocratic.
Edit - elections and voters should be the determining factor. There should be as few people barred from holding any office they can be elected to as possible.
Cool so when Trump and his party win and then go about removing the term limit so he can run again, while doing a bunch of illegal shit he now controls all investigations into. I don’t wanna hear any complaints about it from you.
I mean if Trump wins this year, manages to organize a repeal of the 22nd, and then gets legitimately re-elected in 2028 more power to him.
But I think if he's able to do that we're already so fucked term limits wouldn't matter anyway.
Edit - Doesn't change my feeling on voters should be the term limits. And Trump should be inelligible as an insurrectionist regardless of his age or terms served.
Like you all seem to be approaching this like the presidential election is some kind of meritocratic thing where the best candidate is found organically via performance excellence and then chosen by the electorate.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
+7
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Zavianuniversal peace sounds better than forever warRegistered Userregular
Like you all seem to be approaching this like the presidential election is some kind of meritocratic thing where the best candidate is found organically via performance excellence and then chosen by the electorate.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
personally I don't think monolithic political parties controlling the process is democratic in any way shape or form
and its why we continually get not just presidential candidates in their 70s and 80s, but also congressional and senate, even local
Salient points: 900,000 18-24yr old voters participated. As a group, they represented less than 30% of the total vote count.
13 million total votes were cast.
In her last Senate race Feinstein beat Kevin de Leon, also a Democrat, by about a million votes. In 2018 he was 52 and she was 85.
If young people in California wanted to elect someone who wasn't already very very old, they could easily have done so by themselves. There were more than double the necessary votes to unseat Feinstein available, and those youth voters simply did not show up to cast them.
In 2018!
Conclusion: Youth voters either hated de Leon, or didn't care enough about how old their Senator was fuel a change.
It be fair, it turns out de Leon sucks, but I know I specifically was called ageist (and sexist) by people or many ages and political creeds when I was trying to tell people to vote for anyone other than Feinstein.
Incumbency rot and advantage is the best argument for some kind of term limits.
Like you all seem to be approaching this like the presidential election is some kind of meritocratic thing where the best candidate is found organically via performance excellence and then chosen by the electorate.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
personally I don't think monolithic political parties controlling the process is democratic in any way shape or form
It isn’t but outside of a really bloody process we’re not gonna get rid of those. Like getting rid of those will require entirely rewriting the system from a base level.
It’s better to design our policies based on what’s actually happening rather than some kind of ideal we’ve really never once hit.
Popping in to say I misread the thread title and thought we were talking about old people who have Become Ungovernable.
+16
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
There shouldn’t be age limits at all but maybe every congressperson should have to take a basic cognitive evaluation every term and after any neurological injury
Like you all seem to be approaching this like the presidential election is some kind of meritocratic thing where the best candidate is found organically via performance excellence and then chosen by the electorate.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
I'm not approaching it like that at all. Rather, the solutions being offered make the problem worse.
If the issue is that the electorate can't get the representatives they really want, then the solution isn't to further restrict the field. If the problem is that back room deals rig elections, the solution isn't to empower back room deals.
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
people should be able to vote for whoever they want to represent them; that's kinda the sine qua non of legitimate government
in the US a variety of structural factors favor older people, which creates and reinforces our current gerontocracy. But I don't think the solution to that should be 'you must be younger than 65 to run for office.'
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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I mean I think you want good rulers and you're being reactionary as to how you determine criteria?
I can see why you dont want the candidates we have as frontrunners.
I disagree with your view of the right to run for office though. I see it as pretty much the same as other legal inalienable rights. Right to vote, right to run for office, right to publish information, right to assemble.
Horse shit response.
This is about the mental and physical decline that age undeniably causes, and the implications of being ruled over by people that never actually need to worry about the consequences of their actions in office.
How does this square with the current presidential election? You're saying I should vote for Marianne Williamson or whoever ends up running 3rd party?
What do you mean? The candidates for the parties won the primaries. Voters picked them over other candidates.
"Everything I Don't Like is a Horse Shit Response", a Child's Primer by Sleep
I mean, if you don't want to have a discussion, then feel free to take a break from the thread.
I (and, I think, Tumin) are trying to drill down at what you think representative democracy is about. I think it's about having people who represent the electorate. That, to me, means that any group or class who is qualified to be part of the electorate is also qualified to hold office.
You don't seem to think so, because the Presidency is *waves hands* "different from all those other things." Yet, it's comparable to being a surgeon, which you spent a few posts talking about. But in being comparable to being a surgeon, somehow that comparison doesn't apply to requiring an advanced degree.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
No everyone dropped out of the race and handed it to Biden instead of actually giving us a broad range of options to choose from within the primary because all the centrists realized they were splitting their base and giving the leftists a real shot at maybe getting a candidate, so they bent the knee and made it Biden v Warren and Bernie. We didn’t choose Biden, the party did.
I mean it sounds like primaries aren't a great system if they select bad rulers, and first past the post isnt good for a diverse set of candidates.
Sounds like a problem with the party. I wouldn't be happy if they railroaded Harris or Buttigieg either. I'm not happy with how Adam Schiff is getting rammed down my throat for Feinstein's seat.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
There was/is a democratic party primary? I must have missed that.
No you’re trying to drag the thread off topic and insist we’re stealth broad band bigots that will implement a broad set of discriminatory limits. You’re not actually engaging the real questions and are trying to twist it to your question to insist that because one limit might be ethically dubious all limits are. Which is horse shit. This restriction does not have anything to do with the other limitations questioned. Those aren’t what we are talking about. This is very straightforwardly about the question of age and how old is too old to be allowed into the presidency. Bringing up all these other potential limits is nothing other than a slippery slope argument.
That's nice.
It doesn't change the fact that this only restricts people who are under a certain age and would nominally have less expierience for performing the duties of the president from holding said office which frankly I think is a good thing.
But as I clearly stated ~and you glossed over because you're horrified at my ageism I'm guessing~ There comes a point where you are disconnected from the actual concerns and day to day living of the common man because of how much time you've spent in office; Like even if he wasn't senile I'm like 90% certain that mitch McConnel has no idea at this point what life in Kentucky is actually like or how to better the lives of his constituents.
Well that’s the reality of how you get your candidates. This isn’t some free and open market for leaders. It’s a whole ecosystem of patronage and seniority that we don’t actually get to see. Regulation of that system by implementing a simple age limit and term limits is basically the only way to limit that.
The other problem with the Presidency, of course, is that we didn't have a primary election. The Democratic party didn't have one period, and the Republicans had one with a predetermined outcome. If you aren't a Republican, your only decision is choosing between Biden or one of the worst presidents of the last hundred years, currently dealing with multiple criminal court cases for all the crimes he did. (While we're talking about the possibility that one or both candidates die before taking office, there's also the realistic possibility that one of the candidates ends up in prison before election day.)
I didn't call you a bigot.
I mean, you are declaring an entire demographic of humans to be broadly unfit to hold public office because their brains "undeniably" don't work right.
But that's okay. It's not bigotry when it's true, eh?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
It looks like the odds of dying within 3 years after a stroke is about 33%. So by that logic we're using that 'but they might die soon' Fetterman at 54 should not have been eligible for Senate.
Just so we're looking at the actual numbers.
Edit -
Yup, Biden is even winning when he's not on the ballot and being written in (New Hampshire).
Not convinced that they WANT a say. There currently is a mechanism for this which they largely do not use.
You do understand that past a certain point the human body begins to degrade right? And that this leads to problems with both physical and mental health? That declination in the mind isn't exactly obscure or rare?
I glossed over it because I didn't want to dilute my point. In any case, we know how term limit work out. That's not something we have to speculate on. Put simply: they don't. (commentary article, but it has links to studies in the text.) They induce more dependency on lobbyists and special interests and shift power away from elected representatives. They increase corruption. There's a reason that the right-wing loves them: they're fundamentally antidemocratic.
There's also a fundamental tension between believing that experience is a good thing for performing the duties of an elected office vs believing that time in office insulates a representative from their constituency. I'm not saying these are completely mutually exclusive, but they're a bit of an intellectual backflip.
By the way, that also applies to this:
Prescribing term limits for oligarchy is like prescribing tobacco for a cough.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
ah yes the highly democratic process known as us presidential primaries.... where 3 states vote for whichever candidate the media is force feeding them and then we declare it over
extremely convincing, who can argue with the results!? look how well it is working
Yes human bodies age and fail.
That’s not really debatable. Fuckin rage against the dying of the light as much as you want, but the reality of our existence is that in general at about 40 our bodies and minds start falling apart without intervention. Sorry you’re going to get old, and feeble, and die. This is in fact the best possible outcome of life. It doesn’t not happen because we wanna will it to not happen. Age comes for us all and it is outright foolishness to deny that fact and insist we might be fine all the way up to 80. We normally aren’t, and generally the folks that do are the wealthy and well connected.
Again is it possible some folks will be cognizant past the age cutoff? Sure. Some people do make it to 110 without much mental decline. They are a rarity not a common feature of the species, and the likelihood that they are going to be running for president out of nowhere at that age and haven’t already had their chance to rule the world is exceedingly slim because of the realities of how our party systems work. And again even if they aren’t in active mental decline they start to hit a point where they personally don’t have to care much farther out than a decade because they’re just about to average human life span and will almost assuredly die before they have to deal with the long tail fallout of their decisions.
Short term limits are bad, but no term limits seems to have it's own problems.
Yes, I understand that, just as I understand that women have on average less upper body strength than men, and black people on average score lower on IQ tests and standardized education tests than white people. Barring people from jobs - especially important jobs - may or may not be "bigotry." I don't really care about that semantic argument. Whether it's bigotry or not, it suffers from the same basic ecological fallacy, the same false generalization as all bigotry: believing that the entire group is defined by its worst common denominator.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This is a silly point.
Term limits aren't the reason Trump is out of office right now.
And if we didn't have term limits on President, there's a decent chance Obama would still be in office.
Cool that would also be bad in my opinion.
However every single point for why not to do age limits is exactly the same for why term limits? Why
If you feel there’s no acceptable criteria upon which to limit the post then term limits should be right out.
I thought I made it clear I think term limits AND age limits are bad and undemocratic.
Edit - elections and voters should be the determining factor. There should be as few people barred from holding any office they can be elected to as possible.
Cool so when Trump and his party win and then go about removing the term limit so he can run again, while doing a bunch of illegal shit he now controls all investigations into. I don’t wanna hear any complaints about it from you.
I mean if Trump wins this year, manages to organize a repeal of the 22nd, and then gets legitimately re-elected in 2028 more power to him.
But I think if he's able to do that we're already so fucked term limits wouldn't matter anyway.
Edit - Doesn't change my feeling on voters should be the term limits. And Trump should be inelligible as an insurrectionist regardless of his age or terms served.
That’s not actually how our system works though. Our presidential elections are a system of back room deals, money, and celebrity. Operating as though our system is some kind of aspirational meritocracy is naive.
Like you guys seem to think anyone can credibly run for president. We can’t. There’s already extensive control systems to prevent that and the only thing that can upset those systems making all the choices of who we’re electing for us is the rogue candidate already being rich and famous before they enter the party and destroy the plan they had.
personally I don't think monolithic political parties controlling the process is democratic in any way shape or form
and its why we continually get not just presidential candidates in their 70s and 80s, but also congressional and senate, even local
The last midterm election, broken down by voter age AND share of the voter population.
Salient points: 900,000 18-24yr old voters participated. As a group, they represented less than 30% of the total vote count.
13 million total votes were cast.
There are about 3.6 million Californians age 18-24.
In her last Senate race Feinstein beat Kevin de Leon, also a Democrat, by about a million votes. In 2018 he was 52 and she was 85.
If young people in California wanted to elect someone who wasn't already very very old, they could easily have done so by themselves. There were more than double the necessary votes to unseat Feinstein available, and those youth voters simply did not show up to cast them.
In 2018!
Conclusion: Youth voters either hated de Leon, or didn't care enough about how old their Senator was fuel a change.
Incumbency rot and advantage is the best argument for some kind of term limits.
It isn’t but outside of a really bloody process we’re not gonna get rid of those. Like getting rid of those will require entirely rewriting the system from a base level.
It’s better to design our policies based on what’s actually happening rather than some kind of ideal we’ve really never once hit.
Option 3: youth voting is systematically suppressed. More on that in a minute.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I'm not approaching it like that at all. Rather, the solutions being offered make the problem worse.
If the issue is that the electorate can't get the representatives they really want, then the solution isn't to further restrict the field. If the problem is that back room deals rig elections, the solution isn't to empower back room deals.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
in the US a variety of structural factors favor older people, which creates and reinforces our current gerontocracy. But I don't think the solution to that should be 'you must be younger than 65 to run for office.'
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget