Mapping 46 - what should/will Biden do?

[Noodles]

Term limits, yes. Age limits...not so much.

I mean, I get that not every old person is out of touch or senile, but we have age minimums, I feel like a maximum could do a lot of good to keeping Government more agile and up to date with everything.

I am thinking like 65, maybe 70.

 

[Free]

I am thinking like 65, maybe 70.

Smacks of ageism. Besides, if someone wants to get involved with politics late in life, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable denying them that chance with "agility" being the argument.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

A thread about why Biden cannot just remove DeJoy. To remove those Trump appointees, we need the Senate. This is crucial. In that vein, we need to do everything possible to assist in those two runoff elections in Georgia.

 

[detrius]

One might argue that Biden's 36 years in the Senate, until he was pulled out to take up the VP slot, was too long.

Introducing term limits for Members of Congress means you're removing anyone with a shred of experience when their time is up, so the only competent people will be lobbyist staffers, who don't have term limits.

 

[Free]

Introducing term limits for Members of Congress means you're removing anyone with a shred of experience when their time is up, so the only competent people will be lobbyist staffers, who don't have term limits.

So your argument is, only experienced politicos should ever run for office?

 

[Rose Karuna]

I think one of the things that should be very high on the list is rescuing the Affordable Care Act. So first, change our response to COVID and then save our health insurance. Lives are being lost every single day because people catch COVID or they don't have health care coverage so they don't go to the hospital when they should.

 

[danielravennest]

There are vacancies on the board, which Biden can fill.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

So your argument is, only experienced politicos should ever run for office?

No, but do you not think it's a good idea that, once someone is elected then, subject to their constituents' continuing approval, they are able to become more experienced in the job, deepening their understanding of the issues that particularly concern the residents of their districts and developing relationships with local stakeholders, while at the same time building alliances within their party and gaining experience in, and knowledge of, particular national issues in which they're interested?

Otherwise, as detrius suggests, they're very much at the mercy of lobbyists and special interest groups, who certainly do have plenty of knowledge and expertise on which to draw.

 

[Free]

No, but do you not think it's a good idea that, once someone is elected then, subject to their constituents' continuing approval, they are able to become more experienced in the job, deepening their understanding of the issues that particularly concern the residents of their districts and developing relationships with local stakeholders, while at the same time building alliances within their party and gaining experience in, and knowledge of, particular national issues in which they're interested?

At some point I tend to see diminishing returns on this "experience" scale.

Otherwise, as detrius suggests, they're very much at the mercy of lobbyists and special interest groups, who certainly do have plenty of knowledge and expertise on which to draw.

You make it sound like every rep is a naïve distant island. I've seen newly minted senate and congress critters avoid that trap. Possibly because they aren't that dumb, and possibly because they're shown the ropes by their fellow critters. We don't and wouldn't be electing a completely fresh Congress every 2 years and Senate every 6. Those with experience, some maturity in their positions, will still exist. It's that it won't go on and on and on for decades until only death can end their career.

 

[Noodles]

Smacks of ageism. Besides, if someone wants to get involved with politics late in life, I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable denying them that chance with "agility" being the argument.

It's not even agility. It's having to live with the consequences of their decisions.

The lobbyist problem is another issue that needs fixed.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

I don't know, I'm pretty sure if DeLoy is caught breaking the law that there will be a vacancy to fill there too.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

At some point I tend to see diminishing returns on this "experience" scale.



You make it sound like every rep is a naïve distant island. I've seen newly minted senate and congress critters avoid that trap. Possibly because they aren't that dumb, and possibly because they're shown the ropes by their fellow critters. We don't and wouldn't be electing a completely fresh Congress every 2 years and Senate every 6. Those with experience, some maturity in their positions, will still exist. It's that it won't go on and on and on for decades until only death can end their career.

I understand your point, but I am still very nervous about restricting the right of voters to return the representative of their choice, no matter how unsuitable others might consider their choice to be.

We have the House of Lords, of course, which offers a partial solution, along with posts on non-governmental official bodies, for politicians who want (and are capable of) a working retirement.

 

[Free]

I understand your point, but I am still very nervous about restricting the right of voters to return the representative of their choice, no matter how unsuitable others might consider their choice to be.

I continue to be nervous about far more destructive issues.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I continue to be nervous about far more destructive issues.

It's different political systems and histories, I think -- restricting the right of people to vote for the candidate of their choice based on arbitrary grounds like term limits would go against so much British political history, where the struggles for the right to vote, and the right not to have the successful candidate debarred from taking their seat when elected, have been very much intertwined, and also our political system, for whatever reasons, doesn't give individuals the opportunity to amass the kind of power US senators have, or hold on to it for so long.

Were I American, being conscious of the way the oligarchical side in US politics has always tried to restrict, by whatever means possible, their opponents' right to vote and be returned to office, and how they've abused constitutional reforms whenever possible (e.g. the 14th Amendment being used to protect corporations), I'd worry that, in this case, the remedy would be worse than the cure, particularly since it fixes only a symptom of the underlying problem that the Republican Party would be more accurately named the Oligarchy Party.

As I understand it, at the time the US Constitution was written, there was no presumption that democracy was necessarily the best system of government -- it was a system in classical Greece, and oligarchy was another, and the classical and contemporary philosophers, historians and political theorists all saw strengths and weaknesses in both.

The US Constitution was both a pragmatic attempt to come up with a system mutually acceptable to the the landowning aristocracy of the slave states and the smaller landowners and businessmen in the free states and to combine what seemed to them the better features of both democracy and oligarchy, and I think what we're seeing now is an intensification of an underlying conflict that's never gone away. It's just the oligarchs are very well entrenched.

 

[Free]

As I understand it, at the time the US Constitution was written, there was no presumption that democracy was necessarily the best system of government

Until the robots take over, I'll keep trying to make a go of it as best I can.

 

[Kathryn Elisabeth]

Problem I see with Term Limits is a bit more cynical. What happens next?

Someone can stay in office umpteen plus years, as long as doing kinda sorta what their constituents want. If you cap their terms, then from day one they are looking for their next job. So that's gonna make their real constituent be?

Now in theory, members of the 4th estate can diligently investigate all 535 members of Congress. Would just need plenty of local newspapers, independant, competing for readers, that will do that sort of investigation. Government, congressional committees, could work to keep track of conflicts of interest, too. Given that neither of those checks are gonna happen.

Ima thinking Term Limits will actually wind up creating an additional abstraction layer, with Congresspeople just acting as a revolving door that masks corporate boards, even more than now.

So Term Limits... Nuhuh.

 

[Isabeau]

How about cognitive and physical tests, at least for those seeking the highest positions, such as president? These aren’t ordinary jobs, people in these positions have much power over the security of the population.

Some people are “old” in their sixties, others are still quick and in relatively good health in their eighties.

 

[Kathryn Elisabeth]

Already have the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, section 4. It 'should' kick in when the office holder is shown to be crazy as a shithouse rat. Well... tested that and.. um, er... um? Still that means they already got into office, but...

Problem with testing before an elected official is allowed to assume office.

Seems at first .. maybe okay. Except what you just did was overthrow the will of the electorate. Because you hafta looket who is making the test. The following example is kinda extreme seeming, but.. basically are setting up a thing so an elected official has the new version of "Sluggish schizophrenia". The favored diagnosis for dissidents in the USSR.

So ... the actual fixit. I dunno? I mean I kinda have an idea, but... not sure all the details, or if it would ever be implemented anyway?

Basically ya gotta figure out better way to distribute power, then is just harder to break stuff.

Distributing the powers more inline with using population to select the representation.
Statutory setups that would make it harder to get 'executive authority / executive orders' wiggle room.
Methods to prevent a single political party 'locking up' the whole mess.

Some of this can be done in the USA w/o needing Amendments, but some of this is gonna need them.

Increase the size of the House, the population side, thus shifting the weighted average of the Electoral College away from geography.

Change the powers of the Senate, the 'geography' side of the weighted average, making it more of a subservient advisory body to the House.
Things like all the powers to screen executive appointments should rest on Population selected Representation, and the power to initiate bills would rest in the House only, with maybe a 3/5th or more vote in the Senate able to say "Nuhuh.. try again". Something like that is because I still don't trust .. anyone! So checks are good.

Move some more of the 'executive functions' to the House. Unsure of the details, but again.. is just adding checks.

Then ranked choice voting, most likely result would mix up the system and increase the number of parties.

And toss Citizens United verdict out on its ass....

Freedom of Speech is important, but implied in its exercise is the prospect of being punched in the face for saying stupid shit.
Corporations don't have faces to punch.

 

[Kathryn Elisabeth]

Now as to what should Biden do....

Well declassify what we have and investigate more and declassify that too.

Every bit of Russian Money, direct and indirect, that has gone to our Officials.

Every bit of Asymmetric War that has been waged on We the People.

I don't care if they play blanket pardons, they probably gonna screw up and miss pardoning some low-hanging fruit.

But Truth. Truth. Truth. Smear the names of these shitheads ... FOREVER.

---------

Now as to Truth. Truth. Truth. Is not just White-Hot Rage. It's this.. we are already in a War, and dancing at the edge of a Civil War.
The truths as to what things have been going on behind the scenes will be crucially important in the upcoming propaganda element.

Is basically new revised version of the last US Civil War in this respect. While foreign industrialists may have had sympathies with the rebellious slavocracy, the people of those nations were opposed to supporting the slavocracy.. thus keeping from lending support to the rebellion.

So is smear the names of the Shitheads... using truth. Make it clear who are the enemies of the right to self-determination.

--- edited appended.. didn't mean to hit enter when I went for Coffee Reload.

 

[Free]

Problem I see with Term Limits is a bit more cynical. What happens next?

Someone can stay in office umpteen plus years, as long as doing kinda sorta what their constituents want. If you cap their terms, then from day one they are looking for their next job. So that's gonna make their real constituent be?

Now in theory, members of the 4th estate can diligently investigate all 535 members of Congress. Would just need plenty of local newspapers, independant, competing for readers, that will do that sort of investigation. Government, congressional committees, could work to keep track of conflicts of interest, too. Given that neither of those checks are gonna happen.

Ima thinking Term Limits will actually wind up creating an additional abstraction layer, with Congresspeople just acting as a revolving door that masks corporate boards, even more than now.

So Term Limits... Nuhuh.

What I keep seeing here is variations on "term limits are bad, because" and then proclamations on some undesirable activity. Undesirable to us, at least. But in each case, it's an undesirable activity we already deal with on a regular basis in the political sphere. Only without term limits!

The U.S. has never actually implemented maximum term limits at the federal level - except in regards to the presidency, and I don't see anyone here arguing about its negative impact on that office. So claims on how setting max term limits will only make things worse are just conjecture.