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Career politicans?

What would you do with career politicians?

  • Keep things as they are.

    Votes: 10 29.4%
  • Eliminate them through mandatory term limits.

    Votes: 22 64.7%
  • Don't know / no opinion.

    Votes: 2 5.9%

  • Total voters
    34
Every politician should be subject to mandatory term limits, for reasons already posted by several here. The maximum number of terms allowed per each elected official is another matter.
 
The advantages that incumbents have, in seniority-based power and fundraising capacity, are such that challengers rarely succeed.

Term limits would level that field a bit and give someone else a chance.

Politics is NOT like everyone else's job, because they run the country. We don't need people who think of themselves as part of the professional ruling class, above the common herd.


I would almost rather pick Congress at random, out of a hat, than what we currently have in DC.

Well, how does the hat prevent corruption from seeping into Congress?
 
Well, how does the hat prevent corruption from seeping into Congress?

That was mostly rhetoric, but since you asked... it would prevent career politicians!
 
Difficult to say alot of people complain politicians arent in tune with the publice.I think the opposite is true they just walk the tightrope of to get re elected.But then again how can you really aim for a job that will only last 8 years?
 
How do you vote?

My vote - Eliminate them entirely. Put term limits on everyone. As long as the law limits their terms, then they will be limited as to the amount of damage they can do as a result of believing that they are better than the rest of us.

Term limits don't solve the problem.

We must eliminate universal suffrage. Implement a sound way to filter out the crap from our stock of people to make a limited supply of eligible voters.
 
Term limits don't solve the problem.

We must eliminate universal suffrage. Implement a sound way to filter out the crap from our stock of people to make a limited supply of eligible voters.

Yeah, we've already tried that before, it didn't work out so great.
 
Yeah, we've already tried that before, it didn't work out so great.

I was working out quite well in fact.

Government growth was almost exactly tied to inflation, that is until women were finally included.
Not that I think all women shouldn't be included but some of both men and women should be denied.
 
I was working out quite well in fact.

Government growth was almost exactly tied to inflation, that is until women were finally included.
Not that I think all women shouldn't be included but some of both men and women should be denied.

Things were great back then... given that you were a wealthy white male.

If only certain people can vote, they will vote for their own superiority over the non-voters.
 
Things were great back then... given that you were a wealthy white male.

If only certain people can vote, they will vote for their own superiority over the non-voters.

The founders were extremely critical of democratic anything precisely because it allows groups of people to confiscate unearned benefits from the public treasury.

That is what is happening now, limiting voting has nothing to do with "rich white males" and everything to do with preserving negative rights.

We used to be a country where the rule of law was most important and democracy has brought us the rule of man, a crass, unsavory existence that will fail us.
 
The founders were extremely critical of democratic anything precisely because it allows groups of people to confiscate unearned benefits from the public treasury.

Then why did they found a democratic government?

That is what is happening now, limiting voting has nothing to do with "rich white males" and everything to do with preserving negative rights.

That's the theory, which is much different than the reality. The reality is, there's no way to stop the few who can vote from voting themselves benefits which the non-voters cannot have.

We used to be a country where the rule of law was most important and democracy has brought us the rule of man, a crass, unsavory existence that will fail us.

We used to be a racist, sexist, classist society, and now we're not.
 
Then why did they found a democratic government?

They didn't, they founded a republic.

That's the theory, which is much different than the reality. The reality is, there's no way to stop the few who can vote from voting themselves benefits which the non-voters cannot have.

Requirements to voting would be, You cannot vote if you receive any form of payment, subsidy, favor, privilege outside of voting itself.
That includes employees of the government.

You must be a tax payer to vote.

Following these two Constitutional requirements anyone who votes themselves benefits from the government will have the privilege of voting removed.


We used to be a racist, sexist, classist society, and now we're not.

All parts of the rule of man, if we can eradicate that we should be able to clean the gross amount of ignorance from our voting stock.
 
They didn't, they founded a republic.

A democratic republic. You'll notice that voting is mentioned in the Constitution, but limits on who gets to vote is not.

Requirements to voting would be, You cannot vote if you receive any form of payment, subsidy, favor, privilege outside of voting itself.
That includes employees of the government.

You must be a tax payer to vote.

Following these two Constitutional requirements anyone who votes themselves benefits from the government will have the privilege of voting removed.

Voting for your own superiority doesn't just mean voting yourself money. See Jim Crow laws.
Oh by the way, living in NOVA means knowing a lot of people who work for the government, including within my immediate family. They're no different from any other people. Why they shouldn't get to vote is beyond me.

All parts of the rule of man, if we can eradicate that we should be able to clean the gross amount of ignorance from our voting stock.

Isn't our whole government based on the rule of man? After all, it's "We the People", not "We the Few".
 
Limit the franchise to veterans. Heinlein had it nailed.

Are you kidding me!

Sounds like the makeup of a sham-democracy.

You can limit what the government can do, or you can even alter ellections with the ellectoral college, but one person-one vote is the only way to go.


If you can limit some people from voting (except from limited cases of people in prison, which is still bull****) then it can grow to take out whoever society feels like it.

There is no way to only have the "best" people vote, if that was possible, then we wouldn't need democracy. Only a near-universal consensus of people can have any just government.
 
A democratic republic. You'll notice that voting is mentioned in the Constitution, but limits on who gets to vote is not.

I understand that, but I think they believed that eventually everyone would be informed enough to were them voting wouldn't be a detriment.

Unfortunately that hasn't come to pass yet.

Voting for your own superiority doesn't just mean voting yourself money. See Jim Crow laws.
Oh by the way, living in NOVA means knowing a lot of people who work for the government, including within my immediate family. They're no different from any other people. Why they shouldn't get to vote is beyond me.

Again voting yourself any privilege of benefit will disqualify you from voting.
Having greater rights over another will disqualify you.

People who are employed by the government have a direct advantage of keeping their employment even if it's beyond useless.

They can form their own voting block and politicians will pander to give them greater benefits much like teachers unions do.

Isn't our whole government based on the rule of man? After all, it's "We the People", not "We the Few".

Our government is based on "leave me alone to do as I wish as long as I don't hurt anyone else."

Equality under the law, the law is supposed to be unemotional and impartial.
The law doesn't cry because Johnny has more than Sally. As long as Johnny doesn't steal from Sally.
 
Are you kidding me!

Sounds like the makeup of a sham-democracy.

You can limit what the government can do, or you can even alter ellections with the ellectoral college, but one person-one vote is the only way to go.


If you can limit some people from voting (except from limited cases of people in prison, which is still bull****) then it can grow to take out whoever society feels like it.

There is no way to only have the "best" people vote, if that was possible, then we wouldn't need democracy. Only a near-universal consensus of people can have any just government.
I'm quite serious, actually.

It's real simple: You want to vote, put your ass on the line and earn it.

Perhaps if people had to earn the right themselves, more people would take it seriously.
 
The protection is not of the people who get to vote for their representative, but the people who don't get to vote and are affected by the choice anyways.

For example, when a state elects its Senators, those Senators make decisions that affect the whole country. In a perfect world all Senators would be equal, but this is not the case: the more someone stays in the Senate, the more power they have. Now, a state is going to want to grab all the power it can get, so it re-elects and re-elects its Senators, however crappy they are. The only way to stop this cycle is to put term limits on the Senate.

Senators are elected to support their state. It is completely appropriate, in that context, for them to do things that will help their state and constituents. They need not worry about others...not why they were elected.

Hmmm...are you all saying that it is important to consider the federal government in this, not just the states?
 
But doing so (in your absolute sense) would create an overall organizational culture that while utilizing our democratic principles by being constantly concerned with the public, would also be hindered by that same responsibility, perhaps to the determent of an abstract good policy or tangible results for the American public.
 
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I am for term limits and I would go one further and create a general fund for all donations that are devided evenly among all competeing cadidates. I think the general fund would help remove two problems that I think we have now. The first being the person with the biggest bank account has a clear advantage over other cadidates and the second being corruption and favors granted to those that have funded the cadidate.
 
I understand that, but I think they believed that eventually everyone would be informed enough to were them voting wouldn't be a detriment.

Unfortunately that hasn't come to pass yet.

You could inform the crap out of someone and they're not going to change their mind. Being "informed" means nothing, and "misinformed" voters are not the problem. The problem is people being more loyal to their party than their country.

Again voting yourself any privilege of benefit will disqualify you from voting.
Having greater rights over another will disqualify you.

A paradox. If you can vote, and others cannot, you already have greater rights over another. You decide how the country works, they just get to sit and watch even though it affects them too.

People who are employed by the government have a direct advantage of keeping their employment even if it's beyond useless.

They can form their own voting block and politicians will pander to give them greater benefits much like teachers unions do.

Unless a majority of the country is a government worker it would be kind of hard to vote themselves benefits on their own.

Our government is based on "leave me alone to do as I wish as long as I don't hurt anyone else."

Equality under the law, the law is supposed to be unemotional and impartial.
The law doesn't cry because Johnny has more than Sally. As long as Johnny doesn't steal from Sally.

That has nothing to do with what I said, which is that our government is based on the consent of the governed, not the consent of a select few of the governed.
 
Senators are elected to support their state.

Incorrect. Senators are elected to REPRESENT their state. They work for the Federal Government.

It is completely appropriate, in that context, for them to do things that will help their state and constituents.

No, it is not. They work for the Federal government, not the states that elect them. Why should I see MY tax dollars go to building some Senator's pet project in another state?

They need not worry about others...not why they were elected

They were elected to help the country, not their state.

Hmmm...are you all saying that it is important to consider the federal government in this, not just the states?

In the context of Congress, yes, they ARE the Federal government, and therefore the Federal government should be more important to them than the states.
 
We have term limits on the president we should have term limits on other offices too.
 
Limiting franchise is something I've thought about at times, beginning when I read Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The novels he referred to as his "juveniles" often had deeper themes than 99% of what is written for mature adults. :mrgreen:

Given how ignorantly and selfishly many people exercise their franchise, I'm not sure it would be the worst thing to limit it a bit.

The key component to me would be that franchise had to be earned, and that the requirements were such that any person who was willing to make some sacrifices and put forth the effort had the opportunity to earn franchise.

This would prevent it from creating a ruling class and a ruled class.

The Heinlein model of having to do two years of "national service" to obtain franchise was not a bad one. In the novel, he noted that anyone who insisted on doing national service was entitled to being accepted, that "if you were blind and in a wheelchair, if you insisted on doing your two years they'd find something you could do, even if it was counting the hairs on a caterpillar by touch." :mrgreen:
 
As well as having term limits I also think we should ban carpet bagging.
For those who do not know what carpet bagging is it where politicians run in states or districts they are not residents of or politicians who have their residency changed to another state or district for a few years so they can meet the residency requirement in order to run for office there.
 
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