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Over three-fourths of Americans think there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey.

    • bakachu@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      1 year ago

      I think testing for cognitive function is going to prove impossibly difficult - or at least for now. How do we set and quantify an acceptable value for cognitive function? How will we execute testing? When do we test? How often? Who will do the testing? How do we counter for potential performance drugs for test candidates? Do we notify the public on the test findings? There’s just a lot involved with making this the barrier to entry vs age or term limits.

      • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
        31·
        1 year ago

        Yeah I was wrestling with this in the same way. It’s too hard. That’s not even mentioning that cognitive function or mental acuity isn’t really a straight or constant line. You could test someone who’s off in outer space most days but you test them on the right day they’d ace any cognitive test you put in front of them.

        • bakachu@sh.itjust.works
          1·
          1 year ago

          Oh absolutely. I’m a walking, talking banana if you catch me at the wrong time or on the wrong day.

          Also, if we went this route and tested for cognitive function- I’d 100% guarantee that our politicians would be on Adderall or some other amphetamine…if they weren’t already.

      • fsmacolyte@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 year ago

        They’re saying that politicians like AOC, Katie Porter, Sanders, etc. are high quality public servants, and that high quality public servants should be able to be elected as long as they have cognitive function.

        On one hand, in a hypothetical and ideal scenario, that would be nice to have for us voters.

        On the other hand, even if an elected official does great work and has a great track record, should they be able to just serve indefinitely until their brain gives out? There’d be a lot of potential problems such as having entrenched and corruptible political operators, even if they started out good, who prevent “fresh blood” from entering politics. It’d be neat to see a study comparing different countries and political systems where there are age barriers and term limits vs those that don’t have them.

          • fsmacolyte@lemmy.world
            6·
            1 year ago

            I think that’s their point: That maybe, as long as a candidate is mentally fit, then voters ought to be able to continue voting for them if they feel like the candidate is still worth voting for.

            Honestly, if there was some kind of magical bullet to simply ban candidates who are mentally unfit (i.e. losing their marbles) from holding office that couldn’t be exploited, I think a lot of people would find that preferable to an age limit.

            That doesn’t address issues like politicians who are too technologically illiterate to do things like open PDF files, though.