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this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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politics
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TBH I think these calls for age limits or term limits are indirectly targeting real problems (like since when do we want people born before the automotive age regulating the internet? and why are both parties led by people still stuck in the 70s?) but the indirect-targeting has a way of creating unintended consequence:
a shorter term limit will term out qualified, great representatives with real expertise
a shorter term limit may intensify corruption if a rep or senator only has so much time to cash in and line up that fat consulting gig
Fundamentally, the voters should be voting out the Feinsteins and McConnells when their age or health conflicts with their ability to represent their interests, and this "let's have age limits and term limits" resolve kinda speaks to me of a desire for self-governance to happen, but without voters having any responsibility in the matter. It's time for our relationship to self-rule be a lot less passive, a lot more assertive.
The meta-problems at play (corruption, the presence of money in politics, the role of first-past-the-post voting to force voters to vote based on how they bet other people will vote, etc) aren't going to be resolved by term limits or age limits- if we want our elected officials to reflect the public interest, all of those conflicts-of-interest have to go.
I'd like to see ranked-choice voting replace FPTP, and for money to be strictly limited in politics, and an end to the permanent campaign our politics have become, and for revolving-door gigs for ex-legislators and regulators to be strictly scrutinized, and for voters to be able to confidently vote out their dinosaurs. If we fix those things, the problem of being ruled by people too old to do the job probably goes away by itself.
This assumes that representing people requires skills, experience, and expertise that can not be obtained elsewhere and can not be provided by advisers. If representing constituents interests did require specific skills, there would be pre-requisite courses. We don't elect people to design and build nuclear reactors - we select them based on their skills. There are certainly skills involved in being a career politician, but these aren't necessarily serving the public interest. I often feel like a politician's main job is convincing constituents that their preferred course of action is best, rather than simply representing constituents interests.
This doesn't make much sense to me. As in, we need to keep shitty politicians around for longer to kind of water down and spread out the shittiness over a greater period of time lest it be intensified.
Man, I wish that were the case. Convincing other REPRESENTATIVES is the main job of a legislator. The reason why lawyers are so good at the role of legislating (the nuclear engineer equivalent in your analogy) is that they are both trained in 1. Convincing others of their argument 2. Understanding legal standings and the workings of government. These skills should be the basis for someones eligibility to be elected. The reason we select one candidate over another is the ideas and values they represent for us in the day in, day out melodrama of governing. The only reason you think the important part is convincing constituents is because that is the part you see. The real work is making the damn sausage.