The Founding Fathers & Mothers Would Have Gagged at the Idea of Legislators for Life

Recommendable!

Yes, there are too many (incompetent) lifelong career politicians in government and parliament in the U.S. and other Western countries! Term limits could be a reasonable solution!

"Republican Congressman Don Young [I blogged here about him], who died last week at age 88 ... epitomized America’s transition from representative government to elected aristocracy.

Representing an Alaska at-large district, Young became a member of the House of on March 6, 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, America was still fighting in Vietnam and the retail price of gas was 39 cents-a-gallon. ...

The Founding Fathers [& Mothers] would have been appalled at the idea of legislators for life. When the Constitution was adopted, “public servant’ was more than a euphemism.

Leaders were expected to serve because it was their patriotic duty. They would leave their farms, shops and offices for a term or two, and then go back home to live among those they’d governed under the laws they had fashioned. ...
Joseph Robinette Biden came to Washington at age 30 in 1973 (coincidentally, the same year as Young). ... spent 36 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President, before ascending to Olympus to sit with the gods. Little wonder that he has the backbone of a dishtowel and the vision of an apparatchik.  ...
Pelosi is 81, Mitch McConnell is 80. Schumer is 71. And Kevin McCarthy is 57. ...

That’s because the system is rigged.

In each election, perhaps 10% of Congressional districts are in play. In the rest, through the power of incumbency and/or skillful gerrymandering, it takes an upheaval comparable to 1932 or 1994 to make for a really competitive election. ...

I guess Congress must be endured -- like famine, plague and Kamala Harris giggling through a press briefing. With honorable exceptions, Mark Twain had it right when he said: “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself.” ..."

The Founding Fathers Would Have Gagged at the Idea of Legislators for Life | Frontpagemag What our elected aristocracy is doing to representative government.