diane feinstein-r.i.p.

[JLTraveling]

Most of the congressional staff usually come with the politician when they're elected. They're advisors from previous positions and previous campaigns. There are some staffers that seem to jump from one representative to another, but not most of them.

It's getting somewhat harder to find good staffers, too, since they're constantly dealing with government shutdowns, changes to their healthcare, low pay, and death threats.

Also, asking someone to serve a few days to a few weeks on a jury is somewhat disruptive. Asking someone to serve 2-6 years is incredibly disruptive. Will they still have a job after? What if they have kids in school? What if they're taking care of elderly relatives? Or they're struggling with illness? Or they just don't want to serve in government? Are we really proposing to force people to serve in Congress? What happened to individual liberty?

So I'm going to preface this by saying that I don't actually like the idea. At all. But just as a thought experiment....

What if we merged the two ideas? So people would have to voluntarily throw their hat in the ring. But without raising money, campaigning, etc. Just "we're now taking applications for the next round of Congress" and the application was simply a demographic checklist. Then whoever was in charge of matching up people to Census data would do that, but only from the list of potential volunteers.

As for staffers, what if we made that a standardized non-partisan government position? So they would just be hired like any other federal workers and serve whoever came to them, from whatever party? And they were hired for their knowledge and skills only.

Again, I am NOT a fan. But it's an interesting thought experiment...

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We have minimum ages, why not maximum?

It's an interesting and accurate point here.

People forget the bell curve that is life. In the auto insurance world for example elderly are just as much of a risk as a 16 year old, some states have rules regarding license renewals after a certain age (either re-testing or shorter timeframe it's good for is some of what I've seen). Life insurance becomes more expensive as you age. We've accepted this basis for other parts of our society and for good reason why would this be any different?

There's a case for experience but experience does not make on competent. Health issues can arise from any age that much is true but the older we get the more frequent, severe and sudden onset that can be.

I'm not entirely certain age limits should be used strictly for competency but certainly passing the baton down after a certain point seems prudent and would also help in people looking at familiarity alone for their choice thus broadening our choices as a whole.

It's saddening to see her passing but it was pretty evident this year things weren't looking the best for her

 

[Moliphino]

It's an interesting and accurate point here.

People forget the bell curve that is life. In the auto insurance world for example elderly are just as much of a risk as a 16 year old, some states have rules regarding license renewals after a certain age (either re-testing or shorter timeframe it's good for is some of what I've seen). Life insurance becomes more expensive as you age. We've accepted this basis for other parts of our society and for good reason why would this be any different?

There's a case for experience but experience does not make on competent. Health issues can arise from any age that much is true but the older we get the more frequent, severe and sudden onset that can be.

I'm not entirely certain age limits should be used strictly for competency but certainly passing the baton down after a certain point seems prudent and would also help in people looking at familiarity alone for their choice thus broadening our choices as a whole.

It's saddening to see her passing but it was pretty evident this year things weren't looking the best for her

In the elderly, even something as simple as a UTI can cause delirium. We've seen that with my grandmother a few times.

 

[DCLMP]

Well, if you come up with a better one, then let us know. For now, we're all just doing the best we can.

If this is the best we can do we are doomed.

 

[SpaceMan5]

I haven't read those books, but the last big terrorist attack here lead to the war in Iraq, the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, more spying on Americans, Gitmo, torture, and... not much of anything good. I'll pass on the terrorist attacks as a way of improving the government. Voting should eventually get us there without all of the dying.

Hey Kwami, unfortunately you misread my post. Never would I want another terrorist attack.

In hindsight, I should have offered more of an explanation as @sam_gordon did.

 

[SpaceMan5]

If you had read the post, you would have seen that @SpaceMan5 wasn't advocating for a terrorist attack.

If you would have read the books he mentioned, you would know 95%+(?) of government was wiped out by the act of a single person. All but a handful of Congress, the president,, all of the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs.

The new President asks states to send him not politicians, but people who DONT want to be political. Folks who know how to "do things", even if they don't know government.

Thank you! Appreciate it

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Closing the thread due to the political discussion in several posts.