Tainari88 wrote:Most of the politicians are lawyers and with deep pockets. They are lawyers with banker connections. They love to lie and they are manipulators since most lawyers care about technical aspects of government and not about social movements.
They are either lawyers, bankers or businessmen with a lot of money. I happen to think the best candidates for being a politician that might be able to make decent decisions would be scientists like Carl Sagan and Degrasse or professors of history like Elaine Scarry. AOC has a degree in economics. But she was going to graduate in biochemistry. She loved science.
Those make the best politicians. Literature majors, philosophy majors and so on. Anything but lawyers with deep pockets. Those are professional crooks.
Enormous percentage are lawyers. And or businessmen and corporate bankers or commercial banking people. Between the lawyers and the bankers and the corporate businesspeople? You clean out the congress and the senate. Stock it with a bunch of intellectuals with some really great working class backgrounds and scientific proclivities. You will get a much better political scene by far.
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/05/are- ... gress.html
I rather stay away from vilifying people in general. The job of being a politician means you have to compromise because everyone wants different things. Compromises usually make all parties less happy than if they had gotten exactly what they wanted. Add a little bit of corruption, self-interest and just human stupidity to the mix and you think the guy/girl in charge is a devil from hell, when in reality you might have not done much better yourself in their shoes. That is not to say we shouldn't put pressure to have them do a better job, but seeing how they enter their job and how they leave years later, you can realize that the job itself is corrosive and difficult.
Politics_Observer wrote:@XogGyux
You can disagree, but that doesn't mean you are wise in disagreeing. Ultimately, it boils down to this: do you want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy that serves the public interest? Or not?
@Politics_Observer
Again, it depends on what you mean. When you say public interest do you mean what the public wants or what it is best for the public? If you are only focused on what is best for the public, you can make a serious argument that having the proper education and expertise is best... however you will soon run into the problem that what is best for the public and what the public wants are completely different things. Not smoking and drinking are better for the public, with less incidence of cancers, heart disease, and liver disease, less expenditure in healthcare, fewer car accidents, fewer DUIs, fewer totaled cars, fewer fractures, fewer missed days of work, fewer bar fights, less divorce, fewer birth defects, less domestic violence. But the public does not want a country without cigarettes and alcohol, does it?
Back to your analogy, the Surgeon knows what is best, but you know what you want, and thus what it is best for you. That is why the ultimate choice of wether to proceed with surgery (and in some cases, which type of surgery) is left to you and the surgeon is relegated to the position of making YOUR choices happen as best as he can manage.
When it comes to politics, a degree is not going to even ensure you make the right decisions within your own field of expertise. What are Rand Paul's and Ben Carson's positions on vaccines? On abortion? On COVID? On Universal healthcare? Presumably their education would have granted them special insight on these and many other health-related decisions. Do you think they have the right view on these topics? I wonder if you think because they are experts on those fields their opinion is superior to your own on the same areas?
If you disagree with my position, you don't want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy to serve the public.
"Good public policy" What does this mean to you?
The government must represent all parts of society (namely, the public) and not just one small segment of the public.
Imagine that what you want was implemented... to get a job as a representative, senator, governor, mayor or president you have to have a degree, bachelor's or masters in public service. How long until colleges start shaping the curriculum to their own benefit, and how long until new barriers and/or requirements are placed in order to weed out those that are deemed not worthy? Until other politicians use this to their benefit? Until rich and powerful buy their tittles and degree?
You are not really fixing a problem, you are merely making a new one instead. Congress does not lack education, 96% of congress has a college education. That is far, far more than the percentage of Americans with a college education.
In addition to qualification requirements along with mental and emotional fitness tests before being allowed to run for office, all members of Congress should have a two-term limit (with each term being no more than four years).
So now you like term limits?
If we have limits, that solves a lot of our problems. The voters take care of screening mental/emotional fitness, it is not a rigorous evidence-based system, but it is good enough for this. As long as we put a limit so that people don't find ways to stay in an anti-democratic way, I think the system can work a lot fairer.
Moreover, if they fail to get re-elected one time, they can no longer run for that specific kind of public office.
I don't see the purpose of this. People are able to change their mind. This goes both to voters (that might have decided they want a candidate that they dismissed on a prior attempt) but also for candidates (a candidate that ran on a platform of rebuilding schools might have realized that perhaps this was not as great of an idea and instead he is running now on a platform of banning assault riffles). As long as term limits exists and are respected, I don't mind if candidates run for reelection after losing a round of the election.
The reasoning for this is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So this is why term limits for the President and members of Congress are necessary.
I have no objection with this. As I said on my first post on the topic, I support term limits and I think it goes a long way to addressing many of the issues we are having. I don't mind if a candidate gets elected at 72... however if this candidate, thanks to his new found political power is stacking the decks in his favor and stays in power for 2 decades until he dies in office at 92... I am less of a fan of that system. If the voters think that this candidate at 72 is sharp enough, energetic enough, and is capable of representing the voter's wishes... then he is a person that should be given the chance to run and win. And that goes for any age... age is just a number. Term limits will go a long way to purge out those that become demented while serving... The voters have the duty to purge out the ones that are demented prior to running
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Godstud wrote:The best leaders can do so without any sort of degree. Asking for a degree, in order to be a president, is just stupid.
A degree just means you went to school and weren't completely daft.
Why don't they just have a university degree called "Presidential qualifications"? It'd be about as dumb.
Agree. Not to mention it does not help for anything. You think the Bushes and Clintons are not going to be sending their kids to Harvard to obtain that degree?
Believe it or not, Matt Gaetz is a lawyer... that does not prevent him from breaking the law, acting criminally, abetting criminals or ignoring the crimes of others (Trump?). I don't see how a degree qualification would have made any difference what so ever.