311–320 of 377 posts
Why does someone want to have power over others at 90
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Putting it on your radar: Approval Voting Has many advantages over RCV / IRV (Ranked Choice Voting / Instant Runoff Voting). For one - no need to change ballots; educating the public is a single sentence rather than a more-complicated explanation. https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/
Another system similar to this but with more information is STAR voting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STAR_voting They all have different strengths and weaknesses. We should be trying to move to more optimal systems.
Meanwhile approval voting is exhaustively explained by "vote for as many candidates as you like. Candidate with the most votes wins."
A "more optimal" voting system doesn't exist in a vacuum, public understanding and trust make a voting system more optimal. Just not more mathematically optimal.
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"Adolescence" was a made-up term to remove personal sovereignty over younger people who know full well, and would do, but aren't legally permitted to do so. They're also subject to our laws. They should have their say as well. And then we see under-18 routinely be charged as adults. And yes, if 15 year olds could vote and run for office, I do think we'd see more issues aimed at the younger generations ALONG WITH long…
I used to believe this - and even advocate for change - then I watched my children become teenagers. There is truth to the idea that, whether due to life experience or brain development, teenagers struggle with proper decision-making. I don't like the arbitrary nature of age cutoffs, but I would no longer support the idea of giving more political power to anyone under 18.
If you get ages can be seen to have the same legal cognitive patters as an adult, why shouldn't they also have the same rights as an adult?
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The argument we're making is she should have retired twenty years ago, when she was "just" 70 years old.
why should a 70 year old retire if her constituents continue to support her?
many of her constituents aren't allowed to vote
She really was pretty moderate in many ways, especially when it came to defense/ir. I doubt her replacement will be as moderate, but hopefully she will be younger and more cognitively fit. (We have a competency crisis in our highest ranks, perhaps it’s a feature for certain factions, but it’s a big problem. Generational variation in narcissistic behavior doesn’t explain it all. How many of our current leaders would w…
Unfortunately, the population has a tendency of voting for the incumbent. 98% of the time according to Wikipedia. We keep electing the same people and wonder why the middle class keeps shrinking. Vote out the incumbent by default. Yes, the person you like is part of the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_stagnation_in_th... . Default Bias Fallacy: (also, Normalization of Evil, "Deal with it;" "If it…
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Presidency is a special case as it is a singular role that holds enormous amounts of power. And former presidents still have the ability to transition back into Congress afterwards and affect change at that level.
Should the Presidency be a special case? The President isn't supposed to be "leader of the government," just an administrator of one of three co-equal branches led by the people. The president shouldn't be any more popular or powerful than a Senator or representative in Congress, arguably they should be less so because Congress writes the laws and controls the budget. But the way American politics works, driven by po…
It is a special case.
Unless you are saying we need to abolish the position entirely and just rely on the legislative and judicial branches of the government on their own.
But until that happens the presidency is a very specific position that only one person holds. But at the end of the day, Congress as a whole holds more power, so term limits in Congress I would consider much more impactful (in a bad way) than term limits on the presidency.
I know the easy approach here is for people to want an age limit in Congress, but I've always been more partial to a term limit. I'm sure there are plenty of hypotheses as to why this happens, but whatever the cause elected officials seem to have an extremely easy go of getting re-elected these days. The increasing average age in Congress is just a side effect of that in my opinion.
Term limits are just a mechanism to transfer power to un-elected officials and lobbyists, and to make sure any decent politicians are kicked out before they can have any lasting impact. Imagine working at a job where there were rules that forced your company to lay off all the most experienced folks after a few years. Sounds miserable to me.
Why is it that people like Feinstein or Ruth Bader Ginsburg do not retire? Do they fear to be prosecuted by their successors, Soviet style? No pension in their employment contract? I don't understand the mechanism.
I think it's mostly ego. You're a powerful and successful person, the kind of type-A personality who can get all the way to the top of a fairly exclusive profession, and you wind up thinking you're irreplaceable. "I could retire... but I don't trust that the person who replaces me will be as good as I am." They're not even entirely wrong in the short term -- the Democrats in particular seem to have been doing a reall…
Why is it that people like Feinstein or Ruth Bader Ginsburg do not retire? Do they fear to be prosecuted by their successors, Soviet style? No pension in their employment contract? I don't understand the mechanism.
What are they going to do, subject themselves to the cruel joke that is medicare and social security? Return to the workforce? Greet people at wal-mart? Flip burgers? Why would they give up power and money and privilege to be turned out onto the street like a common dog?
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All these senators that manage to make tens of millions of dollars on their $250k salary should really release personal finance books.
To be fair, Senator Feinstein was married to a guy who ran his own equity capital investment management firm so it's not like we can assume her personal wealth is all derived from investing her salary.