Is it normal for a sitting senator to have to routinely submit proofs of life to a public who suspect he might be braindead? Just asking for 340 million friends
Minimum age is insane to me as well. In AU it’s like “Well you have to be a legal adult to become a member of the house of representatives” so that’s the closest we have.
There’s plenty of 70 year olds cooking your arse son. Having said that, if it’s for a 4 year term I agree they shouldnt be able to run after 72-75 . There are some very energetic 79 year olds. There’s also plenty that are 5 years away from death.
The risk of dementia goes upb with age but there are many many 70-year-olds wandering around who are still perfectly capable. In fact I would be willing to bet that the majority of 70-year-olds don’t have dementia.
My 96 year old neighbor is building something out of wood with his table saw in his garage right now after driving his truck to the lumber yard this morning. Broadly speaking I get cutting people off but sixties would be wild to me. I’m not all that far off from my sixties, I think I used to think that seemed older than it was in my twenties and thirties.
My grandfather kept all his marbles until he died at 101. Last time I saw him, about a year before that, he was still whipping me at chess. I was a strong player at the time.
I’m 70 now, still doing software full-time in a highly technical organization, and I can still write tight, clean code more quickly than most. I mainly do it for proofs of concept, such as when the dev team are being risk-averse and say something can’t be done that I know actually can be. I have less physical stamina than I did in my 20s, but my mental acuity’s just fine so far.
Dementia odds do go up, but are still not that high in one’s 70s, and are even lower if, like me, you have good cardio fitness and eat a healthy diet. That lessens the chances of vascular dementia. Harder to say if it helps with Alzheimers, since there’s a significant hereditary component to that, and research isn’t clear on how big that might be.
So try being fact-based when you’re proposing political solutions. Every day, we’re seeing what happens when politics is being driven by prejudice rather than truth. We don’t need more of that.
I’m aiming this upthread, not so much at the post I’m directly replying to, which I agree with.
I don’t think there should be an age limit but I don’t think it’s unreasonable beyond a certain age to require people to prove cognitive function. There are many countries in the world where they do that for driving tests which seems perfectly reasonable.
The problem is we have a generational conveyor belt problem.
The 80 year olds are running the Senate, taking the jobs the 70 year olds should have. The 70 year olds are holding the jobs of the 60 year olds. Etc.
If you implement term limits, there’s inevitably going to be a generation of leaders that never gets a shot at the top posts. Imagine you’re a Senator in your 70s. You’ve been waiting patiently for leadership posts for years, working jobs that should have been for someone 10-20 years younger than you. You were told to wait your turn, and you did! You did everything you were supposed to. Then some young upstart comes along and wants to implement term limits that will mean you’ll never get that shot at leadership you’ve been waiting years for. Would you support term limits?
If there are ever going to be term limits, they’ll have to be implemented by a constitutional convention or mass popular movement voting out any leader that won’t support term limits.
there really ought to be an age limit to being in government, in much the same way you have to be over a certain age to run for pres.
Minimum age is insane to me as well. In AU it’s like “Well you have to be a legal adult to become a member of the house of representatives” so that’s the closest we have.
Cut politicians off at 70 bare minimum
waaaaay before 70. at 70, they likely have some dementia. I’m thinking 60.
There’s plenty of 70 year olds cooking your arse son. Having said that, if it’s for a 4 year term I agree they shouldnt be able to run after 72-75 . There are some very energetic 79 year olds. There’s also plenty that are 5 years away from death.
The risk of dementia goes upb with age but there are many many 70-year-olds wandering around who are still perfectly capable. In fact I would be willing to bet that the majority of 70-year-olds don’t have dementia.
My 96 year old neighbor is building something out of wood with his table saw in his garage right now after driving his truck to the lumber yard this morning. Broadly speaking I get cutting people off but sixties would be wild to me. I’m not all that far off from my sixties, I think I used to think that seemed older than it was in my twenties and thirties.
My grandfather kept all his marbles until he died at 101. Last time I saw him, about a year before that, he was still whipping me at chess. I was a strong player at the time.
I’m 70 now, still doing software full-time in a highly technical organization, and I can still write tight, clean code more quickly than most. I mainly do it for proofs of concept, such as when the dev team are being risk-averse and say something can’t be done that I know actually can be. I have less physical stamina than I did in my 20s, but my mental acuity’s just fine so far.
Dementia odds do go up, but are still not that high in one’s 70s, and are even lower if, like me, you have good cardio fitness and eat a healthy diet. That lessens the chances of vascular dementia. Harder to say if it helps with Alzheimers, since there’s a significant hereditary component to that, and research isn’t clear on how big that might be.
So try being fact-based when you’re proposing political solutions. Every day, we’re seeing what happens when politics is being driven by prejudice rather than truth. We don’t need more of that.
I’m aiming this upthread, not so much at the post I’m directly replying to, which I agree with.
I don’t think there should be an age limit but I don’t think it’s unreasonable beyond a certain age to require people to prove cognitive function. There are many countries in the world where they do that for driving tests which seems perfectly reasonable.
The problem is we have a generational conveyor belt problem.
The 80 year olds are running the Senate, taking the jobs the 70 year olds should have. The 70 year olds are holding the jobs of the 60 year olds. Etc.
If you implement term limits, there’s inevitably going to be a generation of leaders that never gets a shot at the top posts. Imagine you’re a Senator in your 70s. You’ve been waiting patiently for leadership posts for years, working jobs that should have been for someone 10-20 years younger than you. You were told to wait your turn, and you did! You did everything you were supposed to. Then some young upstart comes along and wants to implement term limits that will mean you’ll never get that shot at leadership you’ve been waiting years for. Would you support term limits?
If there are ever going to be term limits, they’ll have to be implemented by a constitutional convention or mass popular movement voting out any leader that won’t support term limits.