• SabinStargem@lemmings.world
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    3 days ago

    Term and age limits will be needed if the Constitution is improved, alongside ditching first-past-the-post voting. A great deal of America’s rot comes from the stagnation caused by career politicians who simply exist to occupy a seat.

    Sure, we might lose ‘wise’ leaders, but it has become pretty damn clear that archaic politicians are the plugged toilets of Democracy. All they do is cause a mess if not promptly handled. The Geronocrats must go.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      Fuck yes, let’s go with it!

      • Politician age range 30-50
      • Background check
      • Minimum Education Requirements
      • Understands science (including biology) and technology thoroughly at minimum high school level
      • 200 hours of community service working with the poor
      • 200 hours of community service working with the elderly
      • 200 hours of community service working with immigrants
      • Debt, Funding and Corporate Alliance check
      • Blocked from stock market trades along with immediate family
      • No bribes
      • No Lobbying
      • No ex C-STAFF for major companies.
      • Paid enough to be single yacht and a summer home kind of rich.

      What else we need in here or what have I gone wrong on?

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Will all these hours of community service be paid or are we restricting public office to those who can afford to work for free?

      • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Let’s throw in a lifelike animatronic AOC fuck doll, while we’re mixing ridiculous fantasy with our politics

  • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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    3 days ago

    The challengers we need are to the entire DNC. They are a failure at representative government

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    3 days ago

    “I’ve got some news: I’ve decided to run against Nancy Pelosi to represent San Francisco in Congress. I know some of you might be surprised that Speaker Emeritus Pelosi is running again, but she is—for her 21st term!” Chakrabarti’s post read.

    I fucking hate boomers in political office. They refuse to let go of the reins. They want to hold on until death. Selfish.

    I saw a video last year asking people in the UK about USA politics and someone commented how old our leaders are.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Meh, it’s not the age thing for me. And I don’t care if someone works until they choose to retire, as long as the people want them. I think ageism and the appeal to some magical term limits thing is rather useless.

      I hate just how disconnected her comment was about the insider trading. It’s infuriating. Republicans do it, too, but she somehow became the face of this.

      I don’t know that her or others like her are doing anything to bring up the next set of leaders, though. I also don’t really see her fighting for progress. The age thing, the number of terms - entirely secondary and honestly, it’s just red herring in my view. All one has to do is look at Bernie.

      • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        It’s absolutely an age issue. When was the last time you met someone over the age of 60 who was both good with computers and technology in general and also has never worked in the tech industry? Id also love to see the number of government elected officials who have ever suffered any sort of real poverty and compare their ages to their peers. I guarantee that spreadsheet alone tells a novel.

        I want to see an enforced retirement age, a maximum age for first time election, and a strict term limit for all positions of government. I would also love to see all elected and appointed officials stripped of the right to financial privacy and a sort of jury system of a quarterly ethics board made up of citizens chosen at random to make review decisions on official government actions.

        It’s time citizens had more control over our government. They are employed by our tax dollars after all.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Eh, I dunno. I think the complaints about age and term limits should be cast aside. It’s red herring when it comes to the real problems we have. There is nothing inherently magical about age.

          Right now, I’m watching the likes of Big Balls being given the keys to the kingdom, and even though they are 19, I see zero evidence they could give a rat’s ass about how anything works, even if they might have been considered good at one small aspect of tech. Even if they were a child prodigy at one sliver of time’s tech, it doesn’t mean they know shit about government, or even other aspects of tech if for instance that tech involves something like Cobol.

          I also don’t think being good with computers or tech has much to do with being good at governance, and that’s coming from a life-long techie. I mean I would just love and delight in a world in which tech skills magically extrapolated to being good at everything else, but I just don’t think it works like that.

          So even assuming a role like Big Balls and doge were something American voters actually wanted and was legal, I could care less if someone knows tech or not, if their motivations are warped and they have acquired zero wisdom and their platform doesn’t align with actual progress for the American people - they could be demons there just to dismantle government and too young to know the difference.

          • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            We already have minimum ages higher than 19… Also tech literacy is massively important when the law writing bodies are writing laws about tech. Most of our modern laws are anchored in tech that 60 year old, life long politicians just don’t know anything about. Also term limits are a separate issue from age entirely. I don’t think any government position should be life time appointment and I definitely don’t think that a government position should give you any real financial advantage over anyone else in the country. Government jobs should just be jobs like every other salary position in the country. It should also come with restrictions on stock trading and anything else that corrupts. That’s why I suggest a jury system for an ethics review board.

            • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              I still am not getting how age and tech are related? They may track together in general, but I also happen to think some of today’s younger generations are even LESS technically proficient in certain ways (again, younger people may be familiar with certain brands and interfaces on pads and phones, but this is less about really being tech-literate but more brand-literate).

              I also don’t see how government and tech are related, either. What do they have to do with one another? This is like asking a rep to be experts on solar or EV. You don’t rely on their personal experience with those things, either, they have staff for that kind of thing. They can explain the outline to them like they are a four-year old (or a manager) just like any other matter requiring a deep dive, and there are many. I highly doubt someone in their 30s as a politico understands nuclear power any better than some geriatric one, nor would I expect them to? Same for matters of solar, or computer networks, or modernized electrical grids, etc…does someone younger just pick this sort of expertise up by osmosis while an 80-something does not? I’d be interested in the mechanism…

  • LovingHippieCat@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    SF is incredibly liberal, I could absolutely see Nancy losing and finally being forced to retire. Just gotta get people out to vote during the Primary.

    Pelosi was elected when she was 41-42. Saikat Chakrabarti is 39, so only a couple years younger than when Pelosi was put into Congress. This is the perfect time for her to be forced to retire.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 days ago

      SF is incredibly liberal

      That’s the problem: Liberal = Neoliberal ≠ Left

      The rich people who control just about everything LOVE her because her corruption enriches them as it enriches her and her stock broker husband.

      The population in general, though? Probably much more progressive than Pelosi and will hopefully be heard this time.

      • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 days ago

        No, we need a physical age limit. Aside from needing to get new people in so that we can pass on institutional knowledge before their staffers are voting for them while they hang out in a nursing home.

        The fact that we live in a gerontocracy is part of the reason we’re in so much shit in general. Why should the 83 yo senator from Bumblefuckia give a fuck about climate change, they’ll be dead way before it’s a problem. Why do they care about proper financial regulations when it might impact their ability to insider trade and pass off their unearned wealth to their kids.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Why should the 83 yo senator from Bumblefuckia give a fuck about climate change, they’ll be dead way before it’s a problem.

          They shouldn’t. I wouldn’t consider them wise if they didn’t give a fuck about it. Wise people think of the future as well as the present.

          Just for the record, I’m not defending her personally (hence my “giving someone else a chance to drive the car” comment), I’m pushing back against Ageism in general. Biological age is not always a good indicator for capability (see Bernie Sanders).

          Not sure why people keep conflating age with capability/morality, they’re definately seperate things.

          This comment is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

          • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 days ago

            Not sure why people keep conflating age with capability/morality, they’re definately seperate things.

            Because while they may be different things, but they’re absolutely not separate things given how age and cognitive decline are correlated. Because for every Bernie sanders you have multiple Feinsteins or Grangers that are at best not there or at worst hindering processes, holding up committee votes or taking up committee seats that could be used by someone who actually wants to improve things instead of making the line go up.

            Bernie is an exception who proves the rule, unfortunately.

            • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              they’re absolutely not separate things given how age and cognitive decline are correlated.

              Of course, degradation comes with age, but when I say they are still separate, what I’m saying is the degree of degradation is not exactly the same for every human being, but people judge ALL older people as having the same level of severe degradation, and that is Ageism.

              Bernie is a proof of what I’m saying, that not everyone degrades at the same amount/rate over the same amount of time, and it is possible to have elderly people that are very sharp-minded and very capable of doing the job, plus having the wisdom of surviving those years and the knowledge they built up from doing so to be beneficial to the rest of society.

              The prejudice of Ageism really shouldn’t be justified. Anyone over a certain age shouldn’t just automatically be thrown away, there are younger people who could have mental illness that are not capable of doing a job, so age does not directly relate to capability, physical and emotional status of the brain does.

              This comment is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

              • spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                2 days ago

                Ageism already exists in the system and we don’t have an issue with it. It’s just okay to be ageist against young people.

                We say younger people are not mature enough for certain tasks, but I know plenty of kids who are younger than the required age but able to understand and perform the same tasks. Does that mean we should let 12 year olds have drivers licenses? Are we just going to ignore these kids because they haven’t met a specific age criteria? Or are we going to say that as a rule, they don’t have the mental capacity to have that privilege/responsibility.

                We already have rails in place for older people to have their driving privileges taken away, at the very minimum there should be one for government work. You keep saying this is ‘throwing away’ older people, when in reality, this is removing people before they do not have the capacity to do it themselves. No one is saying they can’t advise, but they absolutely should not be steering the future of this country. Because that’s how we get to where we are now.

                • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  Ageism already exists in the system and we don’t have an issue with it. It’s just okay to be ageist against young people.

                  I personally don’t agree with this at all.

                  I don’t judge younger people by their age. I look at their ideas, and consider those before passing judgment.

                  Actually there’s a lot of times where I see young people doing something that I would first think “wow that’s silly”, because I’m set my ways (which I fight every day to try and not be). But then I would actually give the young person some trust and the benefit of the doubt, and actually support them in their beliefs, in a “fresh minds, fresh ideas” sort of way.

                  My idea is when one generation gets older that they kind of become the assistants of the next generation coming up behind them, and then we just repeat that cycle every generation.

                  Ageism at any age is wrong, but I’ve seen it practiced a lot more against older people that I have against younger people (especially online), hence my initial comment.

                  This comment is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

      • kevinsbacon@lemmy.today
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        4 days ago

        The issue with lifelong politicians isn’t just their mental capacity but their lifelong detachment from reality as they live in a privileged bubble.

        Wisdom can be written down, that would be more wise to do anyway.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          but their lifelong detachment from reality as they live in a privileged bubble

          Does that include Bernie?

          Wisdom can be written down, that would be more wise to do anyway.

          Something written may not be read. Better to have both, the Wisdom at ground zero in real-time (especially if the feces is hitting the fan), and written down afterwards for posterity’s sake.

          This comment is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    GOOD.

    Pelosi has been in congress for 36 years. To put this in perspective, that’s longer than I’ve been voting. Time to retire.

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      To put it further in perspective, Nancy Pelosi isn’t a boomer. She’s silent generation.

      • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Why are generation labels getting closer together in time?

        Greatest generation- 26 years

        Generation Alpha - 13ish?

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          I can’t find a good summary and am not in any way an expert in this field. But I think these generations are technically based on defining events in the world and likely common experiences more than a close tie to biological generations. If you look at the page for the Silent Generation wiki page there is some explanation of that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Generation#Terminology

          TL;DR it’s all very loosey goosey.