Real senator, or wax figurine?

  • Almacca@aussie.zone
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    21 hours ago

    Whether he’s dead or not, an 84 year old should have retired a decade or two ago. It’s not like he couldn’t afford to.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 hours ago

      Such people would have to let go of the wheels of power, take their snouts out of the trough, unlink their brokerage account from all that sweet sweet insider info and stop doing favors to extremely grateful friends.

      Obviously, they’re not going to do that unless they literally have no other option.

    • osanna@lemmy.vg
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      19 hours ago

      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.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        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.

      • Taleya@aussie.zone
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        19 hours ago

        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

        • osanna@lemmy.vg
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          19 hours ago

          waaaaay before 70. at 70, they likely have some dementia. I’m thinking 60.

          • YeahToast@aussie.zone
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            14 hours ago

            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.

          • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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            15 hours ago

            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.

            • Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 hours ago

              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.

              • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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                6 hours ago

                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.