Current Events > Ageism is necessary in the political world.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Let's get a little perspective here.

The 8th of this month marked the 67th birthday of Ruby Bridges. For those of you who forgot or never knew, she was the first black student to enroll in a formerly all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana when she was 6, officially desegregating it.

She's younger than 41 senators.

Now let's get down to business.

Ageism is necessary in politics. Why? Because these are the people who decide how the country is run. We can't have a slew of old, set in their ways politicians deciding how almost 330 million people should live their lives.

We need new blood. The turnover rate for congress is abysmal. These men and women (Let's face it, mostly men.) have had these jobs for longer than most of us can remember. That's no good. They're complacent, and complacency is political poison.

We need young blood, too. These senior citizens are out of touch with what contemporary society needs. We need to overhaul everything from the educational system to the police, and those things are never going to get done with these people in charge.

Look, I'm not saying that the elderly don't have their place in society. They definitely do. But, that place is not in charge of everything.

These are the people taking money from lobbyists to influence their decisions. These are the people maintaining the broken status quo. These are the people perpetuating the "us vs them" mentality that is dividing the country against itself.

Something has got to give, folks, and it's up to people in our age group to make it happen.

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You can't play the, "You were born in a bad generation and that makes you bad," card. I get the problem with it, but there were good people even then.

It is a problem if older white males are the only ones making decisions, but you can't exclude them on a purely precautionary basis.

If that were the case, we should never allow people from the South or Midwest to get into politics.

People can't support this and also be against complete representation without being somewhat inconsistent.

Good luck.
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It's not about good or bad. Old people suck with technology, and shouldn't be drafting policy in an increasingly interconnected world. Most of our senators probably can't open a PDF ffs.
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there's a reason it is called the establishment. this is the group of people who have exerted their power/status over time to establish themselves as the ruling class. it takes connections, money, and time to do that.

While I'm not opposed to hard age caps in politics either, I think a lot of this is more fallout of two-party systems (including those that do incorporate some degree of third party influence, but in practice still revolve around two major parties). The established parties often want to stick to their established members, who tend to get older; their potential replacements also in turn end up older by the time they step in, etc. The solution is that third parties need to become more viable - which in turn, requires people to realise they exist and take them as seriously having a chance, rather than a protest vote.

Here in NZ I think we're seeing a sign of people starting to realize that; the largest minor parties on each side of the left/right split are both growing considerably in support recently, though especially so on the right. (Thankfully the one replacing them is somewhere between conservative and libertarian, rather than alt-right.)

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I think we can correctly characterize our current political elite as a gerontocracy, not dissimilar from the late Soviet Union. Rather than reaching the height their power at the end of their lives, as was usually the case earlier in the First Republic, or reaching it and then passing the torch after a time to enjoy retirement, our modern political class seems to seek and hold power merely for the sake of it, and most cling to it until death finally parts them from it. There is typically only lip service given to the future.

Its by no mean an iron rule, but it is too true regardless. Older people, in aggregate, are more conservative and less decisive. They belong in government, but not as a super majority of power holders.

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Heartomaton posted...

Let's get a little perspective here.

Boy you sure fucking said it - agreed

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There should definitely be an age limit on political offices.

65 or 70 sounds about right.

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65 is ridiculously low for a maximum age.

If there is an age limit on politics, it should be based on when people are likely to experience mental deterioration -- not when they no longer get pop culture references.

My mother is in her 60s and wants to write on behalf of social justice when she retires.

Over of the US is Independent and don't belong to a specific Political Party, but some independents leans towards one side or another.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about-us-political-independents/


Why are we stuck with a 2-Party system still?
It's because "First Past the Post, Winner Take-All" eventually devolves everything down to a dumb 2-Party system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

We need to stop the Incumbency effect.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/26/here-is-why-incumbents-in-congress-are-hard-to-beat.html

The vast majority of Incumbents get re-elected for many reasons.

Academics have speculated on the multiple reasons that congressional incumbents have enjoyed an advantage over the years. Incumbents have traditionally used their positions to win favor with voters by offering a variety of constituent services or by pointing to increased funding they've captured for the home state or district. More recently, some have argued that redistricting has created politically lopsided seats that strongly favor one party over another.

Moreover, as the cost of mounting a political campaign has risen, incumbency in Congress has created an important financial advantage in attracting the money needed to win.
Since 1990, the cost of a winning a House seat has roughly doubled, adjusted for inflation, to about $1.5 million. If you're looking to win a seat in the Senate, expect to raise more than $10 million.

We need Term Limits for ALL seats in Congress in each house.
A Cumulative 12 years in the House & 12 years in Senate, then you're done serving Congress.

We need Non-Contiguous/Non-Consecutive Terms. That means you serve your term, then no matter what you have to leave and come back for a next term after a Universal Mandatory 1 year break from government at ALL levels (Federal/State/County/City/etc). This also prevents politicians from wasting their final year in office campaigning and not doing their effing jobs.

We realistically can't get rid of political parties, so let's make political parties a team sport. Somebody within your political party needs to run for your seat after you go on break. They need to have similar values to you and you can endorse the next person who runs for your seat.

And First Past the Post / Winner Take-All is the DUMBEST method for Political Representation in a Constitutional Representative Democracy.

Proportional Voting power per seat with unlimited representatives from all parties should be allowed to campaign and go into office.

That means all representatives that run for ___ seat will get voting power 1.0 vote per person.

We have Excel SpreadSheets and modern calculators

We can easily calculate the votes of all representatives per seat, up to a voting power of 1.0 voting power.

Then we can tabulate all the votes for each seat in government when making final decisions.

You want to break the 2-Party cycle, you need drastic changes.

If you're worried about who's going to pay for the difference in Annual Salary for the Politicians, we can have each political Party cover the difference in Salary by splitting the Government Annual Salary amongst all seats proportionally based on the voting power they received from the Government, and the political party will be required to pay the difference.

If we're going to have Political Parties, we're going to make it expensive and use those excess funds to pay the difference in annual salaries for all Political Representatives sent to government. This also decreases their overall funds for campaigning.

As for Districting:

You need to use the mathematically shortest Split Line algorithm for districting.

https://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html

This avoids Gerrymandering the districts.

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Holy shit that's a good post.

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The major problem is that the VAST majority of the world's Constitutional Democratic Representative Republics all use "First Past the Post, Winner Take-All" systems.

It's BAD, VERY BAD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Council_(Switzerland)

Switzerland got one thing right, instead of one Leader in power like a President or Prime Minister.

they have a Federal Council of 7 seats to run the Executive Branch.

The US and most other Democracies need another Constitutional Convention and re-adjust the Executive Branch from having a President/Prime Minister, to having a "Executive Council" to run the country.

Having one person have that much power is dangerous and stupid.

For everybody that hated ___ President, that bitched & moaned that my candidate should've won.

Having multiple seats in the Executive Council with Proportional representation per seat would alleviate all those BS issues with "Not my President" chants.

Every seat would get filled with their representative based on how much political power you (The Average Citizen) assigns them.

Every citizen can have 100 points split into 100 integer values.

You can assign your 100 points in integer wholes to all representatives / candidates you like per seat.

That allows you to not have to pick the "Least Worst" Candidate.

You can split your voting power amongst all candidates that you like, even amongst multiple parties.

Having to give ALL your voting power to one representative is STUPID and encourages people to pick the "Least Worst" Candidate.

Yes, people need to think, and do research on candidates when they vote.

That is a GOOD thing.

We need a more educated public, that requires more general education on civics, Government, national history, etc.

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Dude, learn what a paragraph is.

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Trumble posted...

Dude, learn what a paragraph is.

No time for that, I'm just letting out my thoughts as fast as possible.

No time for formal structure.

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The problem i see is everyone keeps boting the same people back into office, people need to stop doing that but i see so many say they only vote for x party, this sometimes keeps the same person in office for decades

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sabrestorm posted...

The problem i see is everyone keeps boting the same people back into office, people need to stop doing that but i see so many say they only vote for x party, this sometimes keeps the same person in office for decades

Even if you vote for __ Party, it shouldn't be the same person / candidate going into office.

There should be a wide variety of representatives to choose from within each political party.

Views and outlooks on various political topics will shift based on the person you choose, even within that political party.

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take article 1 a bit more literally, and expand the house to 10000.

Oh god this topic is way too deep for me

*Slinks away*

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Questionmarktarius posted...

take article 1 a bit more literally, and expand the house to 10000.

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/

On this date, the House passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. Thus, the size of a states House delegation depended on its population. But the founders were vague as to how large future Congresses should be and what method to use to reapportion the House after each federal census. These questions vexed Congress for much of its history as U.S. territories expanded and the population grew. Usually, the House reapportioned itself in a manner that increased, or at least preserved, the representation of most states. Gradually, however, the method for calculating apportionment caused smaller rural states to lose representation to larger urbanized states. A battle erupted between rural and urban factions, causing the House (for the only time in its history) to fail to reapportion itself following the 1920 Census. Signed into law on June 18, 1929, the Permanent Apportionment Act capped House Membership at the level established after the 1910 Census and created a procedure for automatically reapportioning House seats after every decennial census. Republican Majority Leader John Q. Tilson of Connecticut approvingly declared that the act dispelled the danger of failing to reapportion after each decennial census as contemplated by the Constitution. But opponents, such as William B. Bankhead of Alabama, who doubted its constitutionality, had earlier described the plan as the abdication and surrender of the vital fundamental powers vested in the Congress of the United States by the Constitution itself. In 1941, Congress adopted the current formula for reapportioning House seats.

The current US Census data has:

https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=Total%20Population&g=0100000US%2404000%24001&tid=PEPPOP2019.PEPANNRES

The US has a population estimate of 328,239,523 as of 2019/07-01

If we were to literally interpret the 30,000 person to 1 representative, the US House would currently have 10,942 seats at the moment and growing.

I think a simpler 1,000 seats with Proportional representation per seat with no limits on how many representatives can come from all political parties should be allowed.

That solves the ever growing seat problem and accurate representation issue.

1,000 seats would mean each seat would need to represent ~0.1% of the US Population each.

The US Senate should have 3 Senate Seats per State with one seat going in/out each election cycle with proportional representation per seat.

That means the US Senate would go from 100 -> 150 seats immediately.

TL;DR:
150 Seats in Senate for 50 States (Subject to change when we get more States)
1000 Seats for the House of Representatives to split the poluation representation into ~0.1% chunks of the popluation.

All using Proportional Representation per seat with no limits on the # of Candidates vying for each seat from ALL political parties.

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Smackems posted...

Oh god this topic is way too deep for me

*Slinks away*

Come back!!!!

Don't be afraid of going too deep and thinking critically!

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We need Cumulative Term Limits of 12 years for the House & 12 years for Senate.

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KamenRiderBlade posted...

We need Cumulative Term Limits of 12 years for the House & 12 years for Senate.

The solution to our system being undemocratic is not to make it less democratic. Term limits just restrict voters options while doing nothing to solve the problem: legalized bribery and power as a means to its own end. That would just kick them into unaccountable lobby groups, party positions, think tanks, etc. that their hand-picked stooges would mostly cater to anyway.

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ElatedVenusaur posted...

Term limits just restrict voters options while doing nothing to solve the problem: legalized bribery and power as a means to its own end. That would just kick them into unaccountable lobby groups, party positions, think tanks, etc. that their hand-picked stooges would mostly cater to anyway.

That's why businesses & organizations shouldn't have legal person-hood.

And we shouldn't allow "Legalized Bribery" in terms of campaign donations from businesses, organizations, or entities to any representatives.

The only campaign donations that should be allowed are from the local constituents.

No outsiders allowed.

Any Lobby groups, Think Tanks, etc shouldn't be allowed to solicit their ideas to representatives for Campaign contributions, gifts, trips, etc.

That should be thrown in as "Bribery".

Make the Representatives do their effing jobs.

If any Lobby Group, Think Tank, etc wants to solicit ideas, they are free to make a video and submit their ideas into the office of the Representative.
Create a FAQ on their ideas to justify their positions.

Nobody should just accept their ideas willy nilly.

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We need a Over-Sight organization that functions as a metaphorical "Sword of Damocles" over the heads of each politician / representatives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles

The Over-Sight organization should watch the finances, the interactions, and log/record everything that every politician in office does and makes sure that they aren't "Compromised".

If they get "Compromised" or bribed, the metaphorical "Sword of Damocles" should fall on them and impale them.

Basically they go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect your money.

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Bernie Sanders is roughly a thousand years old, and Madison Cawthorn was born two weeks ago. Is ageism really the answer here?

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Term limits are only a band aid solution. A lot of these guys either run unopposed, or run against people that don't often understand politics thinking it's rule by decree, not compromise, negotiation, and quite a few things you don't want to do because your riding needs it. I remember the one time the NDP got in in Alberta. They hate oil drilling and are big environmentalists, but when they saw their whole budget was tied to the tarsands, even they wanted the keystone pipeline built. And I'm sorry, what exactly makes young people immune to lobbyists?

Don't like the situation, run, and run on realistic plans that don't ignore consequences of the things you want to do. People will surprisingly vote for better options, but many don't see a lot of younger people's' plans as anything other than dreams of kids that ignore the experiences of others trying to say "we tried that, it didn't work".

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