691
McConnell’s freezes complicate Republican attacks on Biden’s age
(www.nbcnews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2023
691 points (96.5% liked)
politics
18601 readers
4123 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I do have to admit, after getting concussed I also appeared to freeze but I was thinking hard of what the right word is to say next.
That said, probably anyone in concussion recovery should be on leave from legislating. The brain will heal more slowly, and your work will be of poor quality.
That's all before getting into the actual politics of having a gerentocracy.
I know a lot of people have talked a out adding an age limit, but it seems to me most of the ancient ones are skating by on incumbent effect. If we had term limits it would resolve that. Alternatively something like the Virginia Gubernatorial rules where you cannot hold the position successively.
I have the same occasional issue with forgetting words after a TBI, and have worked with people in recover who have it much worse than I. It's an interesting outcome when simple words just cannot be recalled. To fabricate an example; I know what this object is, a tool for writing, it's in my hand, it has ink, but what the hell is it called. (a pen) - it can be for the most mundane and common words.
However; I don't go slackjaw and become completely nonresponsive for 10-20 seconds. This guy needs to be in medical care.
You're right, it's never as long as this. I am young, though so I don't know how it would show in an ancient man hahaha.
I don't see the appeal in insisting everything is fine. I would rather see my leaders saying "hey, I don't feel good so I'm going to take some time to get healthy".
The hubris of man
I appreciated that about Fetterman. I feel as though he presented his injury as something humans go through. He will continue his job, at times with assistance, and do the best he is able. He didn't need to step down and he is not incapable of doing his job, but he has a flaw and is honest of it.
I dunno I don't feel good about setting laws about who should be eligible to run for public office. The voters should decide who is eligible and who isn't.
Yeah there's a lot of dumb voters out there, but the general idea that we're smarter than the voters and therefore need to make laws that supersede the voters feels wrong to me.
I think the problem of voters being dumb is just something we have to accept about democracy.
Voters being dumb and electing incumbent yet incapable people is not just democracy, but populism. Especially when those in power have been in power for so long that they meddle in education funding to keep said voters dumb
Democracy and populism are mutually exclusive?
Improving education is indeed the solution to the problem. And it's a thing that is more likely to happen than a law prohibiting those currently in power from running again.
IMO it's useless talking about what laws or policies need to change to fix this because the people with the power to change it know that doing so will affect their ability to stay in power and just won't change it to their detriment. It's the same reason protesting won't ever fix the fundamental issues. The people currently at the top aren't just going to hand their power away or cripple their ability to easily generate or access wealth. If it comes to it, they'll go to war before giving that up.
Then it follows that it's also useless to even discuss such things on the internet. So why even bring up these topics if it's impossible to change anything?
Or are you just spending time posting on the internet in an attempt discourage others from trying to improve things?
Solving a problem requires understanding it. I'm not trying to discourage improvement but want more people to see what I see about the nature of what's going on and how many of these flaws in the system aren't seen that way by the people who pass the laws and make the policies.
That's the beauty of the "can't hold the position consecutively" rule.
It doesn't matter what age, party, or how long you've been in office.
You can always run for a different office, or wait for the next term to run again.
Might be a bit weird with the House.
I don't know either. It feels shortsighted and bigoted to do things like that. The issue is that when votes in Kentucky vote the rest of us have to endure how they vote. Term limits could and should be tried. So even when the voters make a mistake the mistake doesn't linger around.
It would solve a lot of problems of the Senate if we set the term limit to 0.
The solution is simply better education. Which solves a lot of problems beyond codgers like Mitch McConnell. There are plenty of other terrible people running for office that wouldn't be prevented from doing so by such laws. But these terrible people wouldn't have a chance of winning an election in a better educated population.