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by throw4847285 704 days ago
Term limits are actually bad for democracy. The most effective politicians are the ones who have learned how to do it over time. There's this bizarre American idea that being an elected official shouldn't be a job. It definitely should.

The problem here wouldn't even be solved by term limits, because Joe Biden has only been president for <4 years. The problem is that he has started to rapidly decline. Unless you institute some kind of Logan's Run Rule, you can't avoid elderly people in positions of power.

The actual, less fun solution, is for the party apparati to start elevating younger people to positions of power and influence. And that only happens if the members of that party start to demand it. It worked on Joe Biden, and he stepped aside.

1 comments

Democracy is not there to be effective. It was meant to be a sociopath shredder, a wannabe kings and nobles grinder. But they reached critical mass and defanged the tax system, the most important containement vessel.
Defanged the tax system!?

The world's democratic governments tax and spend a greater % of GDP than ever before. The last time we were in this ballpark was in WW2.

That's not true. Democracy is an end in and of itself, a system of government that at its best accurately reflects the will of the people. Preventing tyranny is a means to an end (preserving democracy) not the final goal.

And democracy is most certainly not a sociopath shredder. It runs on the power hungry. There are just supposed to be enough checks and balances to prevent any one person or minoritarian cabal from amassing too much power.