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Jon Notabot's avatar

We live in times of absolutely overwhelming complexity. Combined with a disinformation machine that would make Joseph Goebbels faint, our everyday life is anything but easily reconciled.

Term limits make sense on the surface, right? In an ideal world they would provide for fresh thoughts, new practices, and of course - keep the "gubmint bureaucracy" in touch with an ever changing society. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. Far from it. So we may be wise not to destroy the good in pursuit of the perfect.

At first glance, term limits are probably quite alluring. They would satisfy the constant desire we have for simple solutions. But first we would need a problem to apply this solution to, and that is where we get duped. The "problem", as Thom clearly illustrates, does not exist. In fact, having people with actual experience in governance is far from being a problem - it's something we need. Any other institution on Earth would fail immediately if they imposed "term limits" on their employees, volunteers, board members, etc. It would be an absolute hilarious disaster. So why would we ever want to artificially induce turnover in the most important institution of all - our own representative government?

All I really know for certain is that I certainly don't know much. So that's why I have certain rules for things when I don't have the time to really dig deep on a topic.

My number 1 rule is: Know the source, know the intent.

If something is being championed by Putin, for example, I know to immediately walk away. No matter how appealing this hypothetical thing may be, no matter how practical, no matter what - I know that in the end, it must be self-serving - because of the source. Believe people when they have shown you who they are.

Now, I'm not on the "Blue no matter Who" train. But I'm absolutely positive that "Red equals Dead". They've shown who they are, who they work for, and to what lengths they will go to get what they want. If the GOP is pushing for something - I'm pushing back. I know the source...

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docrhw Weil's avatar

That's a good argument, though some decent ones have been made for getting aging and entrenched people out too. But what is too often missed in the discussion is that it doesn't do much good to have somebody leave office if they still pull the reins of power. The most obvious example of this was in 1967 when George Wallace's wife succeeded him as governor of Alabama, though he later served 3 more terms in his own right. This election of a spouse as governor also occurred in Texas back in 1924. For that matter Putin was appointed prime minister of Russia--effectively staying in complete control-- after a two term limit was reached in 2008 (constitutional fiddling allowed him to come back as president).

I am sure there are many other examples with siblings and children succeeding to office, and while sometimes the puppet master can lose control, as happened to Roosevelt with Taft after the 1908 election, keeping someone out of office may be no more than a legal fiction. All this is part of larger questions over who controls legislatures and executive offices, and these issues have been around for a long time. (In the 1952 science-fiction novel "The Space Merchants" senators are directly appointed by corporations. The president is a figurehead.) Drawing Congressional district boundaries on a non-partisan basis is a much better way to get people out of office since that leads to competitive races, but it doesn't happen enough. So clearly term limits aren't a real fix, much as one might wish they were.

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