Complex Numbers

Age Is Only a Number

I haven't visited Asheville, NC for about 10 years. In that time, apparently it's gained approximately 16,000 new breweries (and it had about 4,000 to start with). I'm going to try to drink at most of them today.

But first (because I doubt I'll be able to do it later), a "JAFBG"  [XGC] prompt:

There has been talk recently about imposing upper age limits on political roles. Do you think there should be a maximum age limit for political positions?

Only for members of the other party.

Again, this is going to be US-centric, though I might mention the Queen of England, who is about to celebrate her 70th year on the throne (she might want to get up sometimes). However, that's not a political position. And now that I've gotten British royalty out of the way, back to Freedom Land:

Nah. Why bother? You're either going to be able to hold the office, or you're going to die, or you might become mentally incapacitated, which, from what I've seen, no one will be able to tell the difference (see: Ronald Reagan).

I say for age limits the same thing I say for term limits: We have them. It's called voting the bastards out of office. No one seems willing to do that, though. But if you don't like how old someone is or how long they've served... don't vote for them.

Yeah, this doesn't apply to judges, but that's not technically a political role either.

While we're at it. let's eliminate lower age limits, too. Right now, to be President, you have to (among other qualifications) be 35 years old. Senators, 30. Representatives, 25. These aren't new things; they're right there in the Constitution. So eliminate 'em. Hell, any given 8-year-old would probably do a better job than some of the fuckers in office right now.

Of course, this means lowering the voting age to 0 too. Well, I'm willing to compromise on that a bit. You have to be able to go through the voting queue without shitting your diapers. This would, of course, eliminate a lot of older voters as well. Which is an added benefit.