- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- usa@midwest.social
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26024422
Saikat Chakrabarti, AOC’s former chief of staff, thinks the Democrats need a bolder vision.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26024422
Saikat Chakrabarti, AOC’s former chief of staff, thinks the Democrats need a bolder vision.
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.
I think the age thing is a problem, if for no other reason than that very old politicians won’t have to live as long in the world that they create. Sure, for politicians of good faith, that wouldn’t matter much; but many of the ones currently in office would absolutely trade our future for their own temporary enrichment, knowing that they won’t be here when the chickens come home to roost.
Like I said, I think far too much time is spent on things that are really side-issues and red herring such as term limits and age.
You could have someone in their 20s (or whatever the minimum age is for a given position) come in there, still do insider trading, still do everything for the sake of the owner-donor class and then go through that revolving door into a cozy job within the corporate world as a reward for doing everything they were told in their single term and it would still be a huge problem.
Howling about someone’s age or how many terms they have served seem to just be a distraction from the real problems. To me, anyway.
Yeah, so we need to plug all of those holes, too. I’m not saying that’s the thing that’d solve everything. Just that it helps.
Term limits makes buying politicians more expensive and insider trading less lucrative, while containing the damage one bad actor can do. Overturning Citizens United makes it even more expensive. Switching from FPTP to ranked choice voting makes third party candidates more viable. Abolishing the Electoral College equalizes the value of votes between rural and urban citizens. Age limits make it so that politicians have to live with the consequences of their actions for longer. Expanding the judiciary makes justice swifter and makes it less likely that a politician who breaks the law can escape justice by being elected again.
There’s certainly not a magic bullet. We have to do a lot of things. I’d agree that age limits aren’t the highest problems on the list—but they’re on it.
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.
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.