Yeah I’m realizing the fediverse feels so homey because it seems dominated by people old enough to remember the internet of the 90s, the ones that knew AOL was not the entire internet or even ‘web’ proper. We’re already acclimated to an internet where ‘discoverability’ took a little more elbow grease.

I think I finally realize why the news and politics communities are so popular here.

You will. I’ve got some years left. I will admit the move from Reddit was a bit perplexing.

But I’m learning. Sync and Thunder are interesting. Working out for me.

I will never understand the people who have enough money for thirty lifetimes but not only keep working, but keep working a job that involves being a full time piece of shit.

I can understand people who love their jobs holding on, which makes me think they love being pieces of shit more than spending more time with their families and pursuing passion projects.

Most people under thirty are facing their “retirement” being two weeks of palliative care that wipes out their savings but there’s 80 year olds out there dragging their bodies out or bed each day to try and take even more.

It seems like there are some ugly games played involving voter age. I don’t like it.

I appreciate that.

I had some kind of random ten years’ of good health through my fifties. Then it all came to a stop like a train wreck – pneumonia, Covid, chemotherapy. And somehow I ended up type 2 diabetic.

Doh!

Yes, can’t endorse this enough. Judicial appointments need a term limit, no matter the position. Maybe 10 years maximum.

In 1789, the average lifespan for a Supreme Court justice was 67 years. By 1975, that expectancy had risen to 82 years.

Just let agelimits apply to judges as well and make judges appoint judges while you’re at it to minimize the politicizing of the bench.

Age limits are difficult.

They’re not that hard, and they’re simple and direct, and we already use them. Don’t overcomplicate it.

If a pilot is forced to retire at 65 due to fear of killing a couple hundred, there is absolutely zero reason someone in charge near 400 million shouldn’t have a maximum age cap

the slippery slope that an age limit would entail.

Can you elaborate?

Considering a lower age limit would have to be put in place by existing politicians, that particular slope is not slippery at all. And slippery-slope arguments are categorically invalid except when you can point to a specific reason why doing something will make it likely to be done in excess.

I think testing for cognitive function is going to prove impossibly difficult - or at least for now. How do we set and quantify an acceptable value for cognitive function? How will we execute testing? When do we test? How often? Who will do the testing? How do we counter for potential performance drugs for test candidates? Do we notify the public on the test findings? There’s just a lot involved with making this the barrier to entry vs age or term limits.

So you advocate your style of politics with lifetime appointments? Certainly nothing authoritarian to see here

A rare example where a Gentleman’s Agreement that is important to how our government runs was actually codified.

I used to feel this way about Career Politicians but they actually have the opposite problem in some other countries. Politicians having personal businesses makes it very, very easy to bribe them.

That’s easy to fix: exempt anyone in office at the time the bill passes.

voting on pay raises for themselves always pass.

The only votes congress has taken regarding their own pay is voting to deny a raise. Every year Congress is set to get an automatic COLA raise, u less they refuse it via vote it automatically kicks in. Those are the votes congress has been conducting. They have voted in pay raises for congressional staff members.

This article is old but details how it works

I think no gerrymandering would absolutely nuke the red presence. Honestly looking at how bad the district maps are it’s insane it’s even gotten that far.

Term limits, no gerrymandering, ranked choice voting, and more than two political parties.

We already have more than two parties, its just almost nobody votes for them. With rank choice voting they’ll be more visible than they are today.

The problem with no gerrymandering is that it’s actively hard to enforce without false positives

Hillary, Why pick her over anyone else when her stigma was so intensely negitive? Isnt their goal to get their person in that chair via the election.

That’s okay and that’s the democracy we chose.

There are plenty of perfectly capable and intelligent people until the day they die. People are individuals not the average of their demography.

You mean like how most places don’t let you vote before you turn 18 because it is accepted that children have not developed the cognitive ability to make sound decisions in regards to electing officials?

This is a strawman argument. OP was talking about an age limit for elected officials, whereas you are now talking about age restrictions on the voters. Yes, we are both talking about cognitive decline in decision making; however there is a substantial difference between putting an age limit on those who can be in power vs. putting an age limit on those who can decide who is in power.

I think once you get over 80 it is time to step aside and let the world move forward.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but how do we prevent this logic from being used to disenfranchise voters above the max age? If they’re not sharp enough to make decisions in the government, how are they sharp enough to vote?

I see two options, if we’re going to have limits on serving in Congress. One, they maintain the right to vote for the same reason 18 year olds do – they’re legally considered adults, and they deserve a say in matters that affect them, like wars. Two, people above the age can’t vote, but no law which passes can affect their day to day. They wouldn’t need to pay taxes, social security and Medicare payments would be guaranteed to not go down for them, and they generally aren’t held as autonomous adults in legal matters.

This is a can of worms, and needs to be carefully handled.

We already have restrictions on other government jobs about how old you can be.

For the sake of clarity, are you referring to the minimum age limits of U.S. government officials?

It’s not breaking new ground or saying anything new that Congress and other elected officials should not be able to serve in excess of 10 years.

My argument isn’t that it should be avoided because of it’s novelty, I’m saying that, in order to justify such rules, one must be of the belief that the voters are unable to determine the competency of who they elect. Given that a democracy is founded upon the idea of a government ruled by, of, and for the people, it is of paramount importance that the people be able to make such decisions for themselves.

Both limits are stupid.

My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate; however, it should be noted that there is a difference between such a restriction based on competency, and another based on, for lack of a better term, trustworthiness, e.g. a natural born citizen clause (this is not an argument for, or against the natural born citizen clause, I’m simply outlining the scope of my previous statement).

Why do you assume people like minimum age requirements either?

The Constitution is difficult to change. I’d get rid of the “natural born citizen” bit too.

My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate.

He wouldn’t be a natural born American citizen and thus couldn’t run.

deleted by creator

First past the post at work

People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils.

What’s interesting about this statement is that I interperet it as saying that the candidates that the voters are considering are pre-chosen by some independent third party that the voters have no control over. I would argue that, as it currently stands, in the U.S.A, for example, there is no such gatekeeper – the DNC or, GOP are not gatekeepers as the voters could choose to simply ignore them, and vote for an independent; however, from what I can tell, the issue certainly seems to be that the general public thinks that they only have two choices so they vote accordingly. This is quite possibly a symptom of the FPTP voting system, but I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter to say conclusively.

Will that really change if we added age limits? They’ll just pick a successor and people will mindlessly vote for the new candidate instead.

We all know the Bidens, McConnells, Pelosi’s, etc aren’t really a single person. They have a whole team of people behind them who are making the decisions, doing the research, etc. You’re not really voting for the person as much as the administration that comes with that person.

For example a lot of people that were part of the Obama administration are part of the Biden. The person changed but the power structure more or less remains the same.

The question does still remain whether the public not caring about the competency level of a specific elected official is grounds to restrict their voter autonomy. An argument could certainly be made that voting in a less competent candidate could be a strategic move.

To be fair, the election was between a 74 and 78 year old.

Not like there was much of a choice

From what I can gather, Biden’s victory was due to a more of a strategic vote, than a vote truly for Biden.

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This mindset is not conducive to a properly functioning democracy.

I would argue, with a rather high degree of confidence, that this would never occur. If it did, it would certainly indicate a complete degredation in the core functions of the government, as well as the trust that the public has in its operation – I suspect that a revolution would be imminent. Furthermore, due its unstable nature, I would wager that it would be rather fleeting.

Instead they’re doing that by gutting social programs to appease the top .01 percent.

I mean they can try but I think most politicians / parties would consider such a move political suicide regardless if they manage to ram it through or not. In some countries retirement is a pretty vague thing altogether though so the quick and easy fix is to just quit voting the people you consider too old into congress.

because seniors currently have all the political power in the US, they shoot down that smart idea.

Frankly I think this is something that needs to be indirectly addressed. We need to reduce the importance of seniority in Congress such that people won’t worry about new blood losing them influence. And, we need to make it easier for people to run for office. It’s all about encouraging turnover.

The problem with a mental acuity test is that it can very easily be corrupted for disenfranchisement. After 2016 the idea of a basic civics test to vote might’ve seemed appealing for instance, but in practice it would almost certainly be used to suppress minority votes.

As far as divesting, would you be okay with not necessarily liquidating but moving investments into a 3rd party holder?

Basically like "okay this is what you had in an investment fund, now a third party (for sake of argument fidelity) takes over the fund and now fidelity advisers manage it in its entirety until the person is no longer a representative.

The question really being, what kind of divesting do you want? Because straight liquidation could still negatively impact younger candidates, given that the liquidation would remove potential legitimate interest from their portfolio. Meaning that them running could negatively impact their future.

Everyone running would get the same campaign funding and that is all they are allowed to use.

Can I keep running for office and spend my campaign dole on pot?

Term limits and an inability to invest would just make it a completely unwanted job for anyone without some significant fallback plan.

Age is absolutely the problem. Bickering partisan politics over 40 years led to a division in our country. The millennial conservatives I know are reasonable, the boomers aren’t. Their minds went funny with too much fox news and that’s just the plain facts.

I’d argue (as a 54 year old, naturally), that you need experienced people in these positions.

Capping it at 45 would mean you have a 10 year window on public service, 35 to 45. That won’t work.

At the same time, too old, and they don’t comprehend what they’re legislating. I’m not sure I would be competent to write laws on AI, and I’ve been working in tech for 30 years.

And gen z is lazy. Does that help anything?

No one does…

Bernie himself says he’s too old, and his entire purpose is to build up the next generation.

It’s just Bernie is the one example people have to try and get people to be against this.

There’s a shit ton of elderly conservatives and moderates in office, but there’s only one elderly progressive. So that’s why people immediately throw him out there.

If you think that having 1/3 of voters sit out an election is a “win”, then we’ve already lost.