Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.
The issue with enacting a mandatory age limit in a democratically elected government is essentially conceding to the idea that the voters are unable to determine for themselves whether an elected official is competent, or not. This has substantial, and serious implications.
Obviously people are picking incompetent election officials since we have quite a few, when you are given choices the selection of choices is important too. People are being given limited bad choices and choosing the lesser of evils. We have too many of these old timers who spend their days sleeping through important decisions or/and just being led by others.
What's interesting about this statement is that I interperet it as saying that the candidates that the voters are considering are pre-chosen by some independent third party that the voters have no control over. I would argue that, as it currently stands, in the U.S.A, for example, there is no such gatekeeper – the DNC or, GOP are not gatekeepers as the voters could choose to simply ignore them, and vote for an independent; however, from what I can tell, the issue certainly seems to be that the general public thinks that they only have two choices so they vote accordingly. This is quite possibly a symptom of the FPTP voting system, but I am not knowledgeable enough on the matter to say conclusively.
First past the post at work
And yet we have minimum age requirements. Why does your bullshit argument about voter autonomy not apply there?
My argument is based on principle; therefore, it would be in opposition to any such restriction whose purpose is to “ensure” the competency of the candidate.