[XogGyux]

A lot of people in Congress and at the office of the Presidency are not qualified to be there, just as @Tainari88 noted. What's your point?

You are using not-qualified as an equivocation fallacy, that is why I asked you earlier to define what you meant by "qualified"
by your own definition, pretty much everyone is unqualified to be in congress due to the lack of Bachelors/Masters in public policy.
Both Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes and Marjorie Taylor Greene have the same level of education, Bachelor's degree, neither of them is on "Public Policy" one is in Business administration and the other one has it on international relations and economics. So neither is fit to serve in congress then right?
Now... a lot of them self identify as "Public servant" as prior profession, but that is a catch-all term for people that had a background as small-town majors, governors, state lawmakers, staffers for congress people, police, etc. It is not a public policy degree.

[Patrickov]

Except that Putin is destroying the country, and Biden is leading a robust recovery.

So as long as we are ignoring reality, can I have a pink unicorn?

1. The OP did not limit his example to Biden but you quickly jumped to Biden's defense. From your other posts (e.g. Biden in Kiev) I can see that you have a severe case of pro-Biden obsession, so I put in my first paragraph to call you out. I originally intended to use Trump, but Trump is both younger than Biden and not as shocking as Putin (though even younger, he's an actual case which shows problem from limitless qualification), so I put in Putin instead. (Pun not intended here)

2. I think the main point of an upper age limit is to avoid instability from die-in-office or some kind of "regency". After all POTUS is a post with actual power so it's obviously more demanding than other less-powerful heads of state. That said, I suppose mature democracies does not rely on one person that much so I don't see the limit too necessary either, but I hope to see some more in-depth discussion than the one-liner you posted.


As things stand, you seem to be quite bitter when others call you out on your Biden obsession, and you quickly ignored the rest of my post.

[Tainari88]

So two qualifications that Obama did not have, in fact, most of congress does not have.

Most of the politicians are lawyers and with deep pockets. They are lawyers with banker connections. They love to lie and they are manipulators since most lawyers care about technical aspects of government and not about social movements.

They are either lawyers, bankers or businessmen with a lot of money. I happen to think the best candidates for being a politician that might be able to make decent decisions would be scientists like Carl Sagan and Degrasse or professors of history like Elaine Scarry. AOC has a degree in economics. But she was going to graduate in biochemistry. She loved science.

Those make the best politicians. Literature majors, philosophy majors and so on. Anything but lawyers with deep pockets. Those are professional crooks.

Enormous percentage are lawyers. And or businessmen and corporate bankers or commercial banking people. Between the lawyers and the bankers and the corporate businesspeople? You clean out the congress and the senate. Stock it with a bunch of intellectuals with some really great working class backgrounds and scientific proclivities. You will get a much better political scene by far.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/05/are- ... gress.html

[Politics_Observer]

@XogGyux

You can disagree, but that doesn't mean you are wise in disagreeing. Ultimately, it boils down to this: do you want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy that serves the public interest? Or not?

If you disagree with my position, you don't want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy to serve the public. Government should not serve individuals' or entities' personal, private interests.

Government should serve the public interest and legislate and institute good public policy that serves such a purpose. The government must represent all parts of society (namely, the public) and not just one small segment of the public. Otherwise, you don't have a representative government because the overall public interest is not being served and represented.

In addition to qualification requirements along with mental and emotional fitness tests before being allowed to run for office, all members of Congress should have a two-term limit (with each term being no more than four years). Moreover, if they fail to get re-elected one time, they can no longer run for that specific kind of public office. The reasoning for this is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So this is why term limits for the President and members of Congress are necessary.

I also feel that a President should be able to be charged with a crime while in office if it is found that he or she commits a crime, be removed from office, and let the Vice President take over. There needs to be accountability for everybody. The idea is to give everybody equal treatment before the law.

[Fasces]

Pol Pot was a history teacher and Hitler was an artist. Maybe lawyers aren't so bad.

[Patrickov]

Pol Pot was a history teacher and Hitler was an artist. Maybe lawyers aren't so bad.

And then we have Putin the Spymaster and Xi Jinping the Engineer (supposedly)

Meanwhile, Tsai Ing-wen is indeed a lawyer.

So much for anti-lawyerism

[Godstud]

The best leaders can do so without any sort of degree. Asking for a degree, in order to be a president, is just stupid.

A degree just means you went to school and weren't completely daft.

Why don't they just have a university degree called "Presidential qualifications"? It'd be about as dumb.

[XogGyux]

duplicate

[XogGyux]

Most of the politicians are lawyers and with deep pockets. They are lawyers with banker connections. They love to lie and they are manipulators since most lawyers care about technical aspects of government and not about social movements.

They are either lawyers, bankers or businessmen with a lot of money. I happen to think the best candidates for being a politician that might be able to make decent decisions would be scientists like Carl Sagan and Degrasse or professors of history like Elaine Scarry. AOC has a degree in economics. But she was going to graduate in biochemistry. She loved science.

Those make the best politicians. Literature majors, philosophy majors and so on. Anything but lawyers with deep pockets. Those are professional crooks.

Enormous percentage are lawyers. And or businessmen and corporate bankers or commercial banking people. Between the lawyers and the bankers and the corporate businesspeople? You clean out the congress and the senate. Stock it with a bunch of intellectuals with some really great working class backgrounds and scientific proclivities. You will get a much better political scene by far.

https://www.nytimes.com/1964/01/05/are- ... gress.html

I rather stay away from vilifying people in general. The job of being a politician means you have to compromise because everyone wants different things. Compromises usually make all parties less happy than if they had gotten exactly what they wanted. Add a little bit of corruption, self-interest and just human stupidity to the mix and you think the guy/girl in charge is a devil from hell, when in reality you might have not done much better yourself in their shoes. That is not to say we shouldn't put pressure to have them do a better job, but seeing how they enter their job and how they leave years later, you can realize that the job itself is corrosive and difficult.

@XogGyux

You can disagree, but that doesn't mean you are wise in disagreeing. Ultimately, it boils down to this: do you want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy that serves the public interest? Or not?

@Politics_Observer
Again, it depends on what you mean. When you say public interest do you mean what the public wants or what it is best for the public? If you are only focused on what is best for the public, you can make a serious argument that having the proper education and expertise is best... however you will soon run into the problem that what is best for the public and what the public wants are completely different things. Not smoking and drinking are better for the public, with less incidence of cancers, heart disease, and liver disease, less expenditure in healthcare, fewer car accidents, fewer DUIs, fewer totaled cars, fewer fractures, fewer missed days of work, fewer bar fights, less divorce, fewer birth defects, less domestic violence. But the public does not want a country without cigarettes and alcohol, does it?
Back to your analogy, the Surgeon knows what is best, but you know what you want, and thus what it is best for you. That is why the ultimate choice of wether to proceed with surgery (and in some cases, which type of surgery) is left to you and the surgeon is relegated to the position of making YOUR choices happen as best as he can manage.
When it comes to politics, a degree is not going to even ensure you make the right decisions within your own field of expertise. What are Rand Paul's and Ben Carson's positions on vaccines? On abortion? On COVID? On Universal healthcare? Presumably their education would have granted them special insight on these and many other health-related decisions. Do you think they have the right view on these topics? I wonder if you think because they are experts on those fields their opinion is superior to your own on the same areas?

If you disagree with my position, you don't want a government that legislates and institutes good public policy to serve the public.

"Good public policy" What does this mean to you?

The government must represent all parts of society (namely, the public) and not just one small segment of the public.

Imagine that what you want was implemented... to get a job as a representative, senator, governor, mayor or president you have to have a degree, bachelor's or masters in public service. How long until colleges start shaping the curriculum to their own benefit, and how long until new barriers and/or requirements are placed in order to weed out those that are deemed not worthy? Until other politicians use this to their benefit? Until rich and powerful buy their tittles and degree?
You are not really fixing a problem, you are merely making a new one instead. Congress does not lack education, 96% of congress has a college education. That is far, far more than the percentage of Americans with a college education.

In addition to qualification requirements along with mental and emotional fitness tests before being allowed to run for office, all members of Congress should have a two-term limit (with each term being no more than four years).

So now you like term limits?
If we have limits, that solves a lot of our problems. The voters take care of screening mental/emotional fitness, it is not a rigorous evidence-based system, but it is good enough for this. As long as we put a limit so that people don't find ways to stay in an anti-democratic way, I think the system can work a lot fairer.

Moreover, if they fail to get re-elected one time, they can no longer run for that specific kind of public office.

I don't see the purpose of this. People are able to change their mind. This goes both to voters (that might have decided they want a candidate that they dismissed on a prior attempt) but also for candidates (a candidate that ran on a platform of rebuilding schools might have realized that perhaps this was not as great of an idea and instead he is running now on a platform of banning assault riffles). As long as term limits exists and are respected, I don't mind if candidates run for reelection after losing a round of the election.

The reasoning for this is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. So this is why term limits for the President and members of Congress are necessary.

I have no objection with this. As I said on my first post on the topic, I support term limits and I think it goes a long way to addressing many of the issues we are having. I don't mind if a candidate gets elected at 72... however if this candidate, thanks to his new found political power is stacking the decks in his favor and stays in power for 2 decades until he dies in office at 92... I am less of a fan of that system. If the voters think that this candidate at 72 is sharp enough, energetic enough, and is capable of representing the voter's wishes... then he is a person that should be given the chance to run and win. And that goes for any age... age is just a number. Term limits will go a long way to purge out those that become demented while serving... The voters have the duty to purge out the ones that are demented prior to running .

The best leaders can do so without any sort of degree. Asking for a degree, in order to be a president, is just stupid.

A degree just means you went to school and weren't completely daft.

Why don't they just have a university degree called "Presidential qualifications"? It'd be about as dumb.

Agree. Not to mention it does not help for anything. You think the Bushes and Clintons are not going to be sending their kids to Harvard to obtain that degree?
Believe it or not, Matt Gaetz is a lawyer... that does not prevent him from breaking the law, acting criminally, abetting criminals or ignoring the crimes of others (Trump?). I don't see how a degree qualification would have made any difference what so ever.

[Politics_Observer]

@XogGyux

The voters take care of screening mental/emotional fitness, it is not a rigorous evidence-based system, but it is good enough for this.

The voters are not qualified to determine mental and emotional fitness. They voted in Donald Trump. Somebody who is a dangerous narcissist. Probably a sociopath too. The US constitution was lucky to survive the massive attack by Donald Trump and his followers, whom he manipulated into following him.

A trained psychologist is qualified to give a mental and emotional health evaluation of a candidate with the pre-requisite qualification of earning degrees in public policy and foreign policy. Of course, most individuals in public are self-interested and do not care about the public interest and only care about their selfish interests. So, they are happy to just throw in any unqualified Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street that will be their tool to serve their selfish interest rather than the public interest. This is how constitutions, republics, and democracies are destroyed and turned into authoritarian dictatorships. This is how you get a Nazi Germany, a Putin's Russia, a Xi's China, or a Stalin's Soviet Union.

[Politics_Observer]

@XogGyux

Here take a look at this. Here is an example of a guy not qualified to hold public office. Ron DeSantis. Somebody who knows how to manipulate people. Currently, he is destroying Florida's public school and university education system. At the rate Ron is going, degrees from universities from the state of Florida will be worthless, and nobody will want to attend universities in Florida anymore.

In addition, he might run Disney out of Florida, one of the biggest employers, and leave Florida taxpayers holding the bag for Disney's debt. Yet, people in Florida are happy to vote for him despite the fact he is destroying their future and the future of their children. The reason is that he is an excellent manipulator who can use people's emotions against them. This is one of the things exceptional con men do. Not the mentally and emotionally stable kind of guy you would want to ensure the public interest.

A new bill overhauling Florida universities to match Gov. Ron DeSantis’ vision for higher education would shift power at state schools into the hands of the Republican leader’s political appointees and ban gender studies as a field of study.

The legislation, filed this week, would also require that general education courses at state colleges and universities “promote the values necessary to preserve the constitutional republic” and cannot define American history “as contrary to the creation of a new nation based on universal principles stated in the Declaration of Independence.” It would prohibit general courses “with a curriculum based on unproven, theoretical or exploratory content.”

The bill makes good on DeSantis’ pledge to ban colleges and universities from any expenditures on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs. In a news conference earlier this month, DeSantis, who is weighing a 2024 presidential bid, said such programs create an “ideological filter,” and his office described them as “discriminatory.”

The article continues.

The Republican governor has also installed a controversial new board at the New College of Florida, a public liberal arts college, with a mandate to remake the school into his conservative vision for higher education.

Presidents of Florida’s two-year community colleges last month committed to not teach critical race theory in a vacuum and to “not fund or support any institutional practice, policy, or academic requirement that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality, or the idea that systems of oppression should be the primary lens through which teaching and learning are analyzed and/or improved upon.”

The state’s education department characterized the move as a rejection of “‘woke’ diversity, equity and inclusion [and] critical race theory ideologies.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/politics ... index.html

The U.S. Department of Education has warned the universities in Florida they could lose federal funding. That is because the Feds don't want to fund worthless degrees, and of course, due to lack of funding, part of the costs of education that federal funding would cover will now be passed down to students.

The U.S. Department of Education has warned Florida officials, in a letter sent on Thursday, that forcing the state’s public colleges to seek new accreditation, as required under a bill passed earlier this week, could mean losing access to federal student loans, Pell Grants, and other forms of financial aid.

“Proposals to amend state law must be drafted and implemented carefully to ensure that they do not put institutions and the students they enroll at risk of loss of eligibility for federal financial-aid programs,” says the letter, which was sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who is expected to sign the bill into law. Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for the governor, said DeSantis continued to support the legislation. “We love the bill — higher-education institutions should be held accountable,” Griffin wrote in an email.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/educa ... ederal-aid

[late]

I can see that you have a severe case of pro-Biden obsession

Biden was near the bottom of my list during the campaign. A powerful senator named Clyburn threw his support, and that quickly ended the campaign, the rest was going through the motions.

I was not happy. The best person, the way I saw it, was Liz Warren. Her smarts have smarts.

Turns out I was wrong. Biden has been an excellent president. I'd place him in the 2nd tier. Historians rate Washington, Lincoln and FDR as the best. The 2nd tier has guys like Eisenhower.

The entire freaking world was a mess the day he became president. He shaped an effective fight against COVID. During the economic crisis, he kept things from crashing. Republicans would not have. But in addition he did things like reduce child poverty by 50%. We have millions of poor, and working poor, who are never far from crisis. He took care of them.

Not only did he do that, he did it against a Republican party that has it's head so far up it's butt that they saw daylight and went back up their own butt a second time. They feel comfy there.

That's not obsession, that's relief.

[Politics_Observer]

Put somebody in office that is actually qualified to do the job of serving the public interest?! No siree! We don't want that! We want some random Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street that we think we can easily control, throw them into office so that we can use them as a tool for our own greedy selfish interests even if we know it comes at the expense of the public interest. Then we can just blame everybody else when we get a Hitler, Stalin, or Mao that rises to power. That is if we are lucky enough not to end up in a concentration, or re-education camp ourselves or the Gulag.

[XogGyux]

@XogGyux



The voters are not qualified to determine mental and emotional fitness. They voted in Donald Trump. Somebody who is a dangerous narcissist. Probably a sociopath too. The US constitution was lucky to survive the massive attack by Donald Trump and his followers, whom he manipulated into following him.

That is irrelevant, that is what democracy is. Although ours is flawed, at least we have one and what Churchill said still holds true, democracy is the worse form of government except for all others.
Just like the patient that does not have medical qualifications, they still get to do the decision. There are women that die from menstrual bleeding because they refuse a simple blood transfusion that will save their lives because of religion (or other reasons), how about we override this because we know better? No. How about parents of a newly minted adult, a 18 year old guy or girl... do they parents continue to have absolute control of their kids because they know better? Should mom and dad decide who you marry at 19 because they have more experience than you? I am sure they can objectively select a better mate, a better career, a better apartment, and better friends for you....
It is the price of autonomy. You can imagine that an artificial intelligence could be designed within the next couple of decades... We already have ChatGPT causing worldwide sensationalism, it is not hard to imagine that in the next couple of decades, almost certainly by the end of the century we could have a far better one that will surpass any and all humans in decision making.. how about we just do a benevolent dictatorship of the AI instead of wasting time with democracy and shit?
We are going to make mistakes, YES! that is what humanity has been all about. Don't allow perfection be the enemy of good.

@XogGyux

Here take a look at this. Here is an example of a guy not qualified to hold public office. Ron DeSantis. Somebody who knows how to manipulate people. Currently, he is destroying Florida's public school and university education system. At the rate Ron is going, degrees from universities from the state of Florida will be worthless, and nobody will want to attend universities in Florida anymore.

Ron DeSantis has a law degree from Harvard and also attended Yale. The guy is extremely well-educated. To say he is not qualified would be ridiculous, he is indeed qualified for his job. He is a populist asshole and/or has pretty shitty political ideas but it is not due to lack of education of qualification. You are basically proving my point that qualifications does not really make things better.

[Tainari88]

@XogGyux wrote:

I rather stay away from vilifying people in general. The job of being a politician means you have to compromise because everyone wants different things. Compromises usually make all parties less happy than if they had gotten exactly what they wanted. Add a little bit of corruption, self-interest and just human stupidity to the mix and you think the guy/girl in charge is a devil from hell, when in reality you might have not done much better yourself in their shoes. That is not to say we shouldn't put pressure to have them do a better job, but seeing how they enter their job and how they leave years later, you can realize that the job itself is corrosive and difficult.

You do not have to go far in analysis to find what the problems are in the US government. Follow the money. And how many lobbyists hang out day and night in the halls of Congress? Those two lead you to the truth. Citizens United the US Supreme Court decisions opened the floodgates to corrupt and LEGAL politics.

Grover Norquist man did not want taxes raised on corporations or the rich. He wanted government to be drowned in a bathtub long ago and has been working hard for many decades along with the black PAC money people to undermine the democratic system the USA had in place before all this huge inequality problems.

Compromise does not happen because the rich and corporate have everyone BOUGHT OFF. The Rich are not the majority of the people in any country on Earth. If you got a one man and one woman voting system and majority voters and majority opinions on solutions are supposed to RULE? Then most of what most Republican voters and Democratic voters agree on should have been passed LONG AGO. It has not. Why?

Because the compromise bullshit you think is happening in the Hill does not happen. Period. Why? Because those people get millions of dollars and billions now of dollars in campaign contributions from Super PACs who control what legislation gets introduced. Real bills that are good for American citizens gets killed fast. Why? They don't control the political money campaigns. You are dealing with cowardly, self serving pieces of shit mostly. Lawyers who are used to being bought off and corporate hacks who when they finish their stints in the congress or senate? Go and get jobs directly from the donors to their campaigns. They ignore regular voters and what they want.

They don't change laws regarding the senate. Like changing filibusters. Changing PAC money. Changing corruption in the system. They are going to wait for VIOLENCE. And people burning shit to the ground and people doing mass shooting at political rallies of the opposing political party.

You combine that with stupid pendejos who watch Fox news tropes all day and conspiracy theories about the ALIEN race of Mexicans and Latinos overrunning their society with diseases from having lived in a Third World country and how speaking Spanish is something to be ashamed of? You got a recipe for explosive shitty results.

What needs to happen are organized pressure groups by the MILLIONS going and pressuring these people to the point of exploding their cushiony rip-off bribed lives to kingdom come. Mass protests for weeks till the politicians squeal and give up power.

If you compromise your principles forever in order to survive politically Xog? You should not be in Washington DC. You won't be affecting any change worth preserving.

And most of these politicians are there surviving politically and are hamstrung severely in doing anything that is productive. Why? Citizens United and Black Pac money and political campaigns that cost millions and billions to be able to keep a seat.

The SCOTUS decided due to corruption of legal interpretations of law due to POLITICAL prejudices, to open the political arena for very wealthy and influential corporations, banks, arms dealers and all the rest to be considered the same as an individual voter. Why? How do you think these decisions get reached Xog? The wealthy don't believe in democracy per see. They believe in raw power that needs to be favored over the needs of the little insignificant grunts that are the regular taxpayer. Big corporations need to pay zero in taxes and the wealthy pay little or nothing. And then spread the burden to the vast majority that make less than 100k a year in income. That is what is happening.

Gerrymander districts and create voting laws that restrict black, brown and other minority districts from getting equal representation. Keep power and make it really hard to get a fair shake. If they believed in all that bullshit of fair voting rights and democracy they keep lying about? Their behavior would be different.

Grover man laid it out.

[Politics_Observer]

@Tainari88

Yup, the Republicans and even some of the Democrats have been complicit in voting for policies that would take the U.S. into becoming like Mexico where everybody is poor and work their asses off but never get ahead and stay extremely poor no matter how hard they work. This causes some people to turn to crime because honest work doesn't pay. Honest work has to pay. It doesn't pay in Mexico and if the Republicans have their way, honest work won't pay in the United States either. If honest work doesn't pay then people turn to crime to get paid.

If honest hard work doesn't pay then that leads to the corruption and decay of society and society begins to break down you have organized crime and gangs running most of society and people fleeing the country who are able to flee. But you got to watch some of those Democrats like Manchin too though who sometimes vote for policies that are not good for working people or for society in general.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88

Yup, the Republicans and even some of the Democrats have been complicit in voting for policies that would take the U.S. into becoming like Mexico where everybody is poor and work their asses off but never get ahead and stay extremely poor no matter how hard they work. This causes some people to turn to crime because honest work doesn't pay. Honest work has to pay. It doesn't pay in Mexico and if the Republicans have their way, honest work won't pay in the United States either. If honest work doesn't pay then people turn to crime to get paid.

If honest hard work doesn't pay then that leads to the corruption and decay of society and society begins to break down you have organized crime and gangs running most of society and people fleeing the country who are able to flee. But you got to watch some of those Democrats like Manchin too though who sometimes vote for policies that are not good for working people or for society in general.

People in all countries get tired of these corrupt freaks Politics. Mexico had the same political party for years and years in power. The PRI. They had another party called el PAN in power but both had incredible corruption at the highest levels.

Now, the ex secretary of state Genaro García Luna is indicted and tried and he will be sentenced soon by the same judge in the USA that El Chapo Guzman drug dealer got sentenced by. García Luna got convicted of all five charges he was charged with.

Who was in charge of that dirty asshole man who was in charge of going after organized crime in Mexico? Peña Nieto and Vicente Fox. Two ex presidents who are associated with huge neoliberal and corporate money in Mexico. The Sinaloa cartel was paying off Garcia Luna to let them smuggle the dope into the USA. It is like the head of the CIA and FBI being paid off by the Mafia and the drug cartels to look the other way.

He tried to argue that the people testifying against him were drug dealers trying to get a lighter sentence by working with the district attorney. The problem was for Garcia Luna was he was supposed to make some modest salary and he had a lot of multimillion dollar homes in the USA. Where did all that money come from? He tried to launder the dough but he was not smart about it. He got caught by really heavy circumstantial evidence. The Mexican government in the past with the Peña Nieto and Fox and Felipe Calderón presidency were super corrupt. They both came from extremely conservative and neoliberal parties.

It is getting fiery in the Mexican senate....look.

MORENA is happy. Because AMLO stated for years that Felipe Calderón was in cahoots with the cartels. They are right. They lost a lot of power in the Mexican senate and the legislature because people got tired of 60-plus years of these corrupt assholes and violence in the streets with impunity with these powerful drug cartels paying off all the top leadership. All of them without exception were wealthy right-wing neoliberal elitists who were HATED with a passion.

They fought tooth and nail to hang on to power in Mexico and they LOST. They got their asses kicked hard in 2018 and the anger was so acute that they were warned. You either leave the power seats or there will be serious repercussions. The pressure was so bad they were ousted effectively after hanging on to power with lies, stuffed false ballot boxes, buying off votes, and lying for years. The people got fed up and got rid of them Politics.

The same can happen in the USA. But the difference is that Mexicans are not lulled by all the bullshit about the powerful on top representing the working class. None of the Mexicans making shit for wages or working in the informal economy in Mexico believe those fairy stories. In the USA and their media bullshit lies on the airwaves 24/7 they have a lot of people fooled badly.

Got to wake up and oust those people on the Hill doing the corrupt crap day and night.

They don't pull any punches there in that Mexican scene....the PT is hard left. There are murder accusations against that PRI horror party and their buddies. And corrupt accusations against the PRI man.

[Steve_American]

People, if you are thinking of the US, the Constitution lists the qualifications necessary, and the USSC has ruled that we can't add more with a law. So, we'd need an amendment. That would cost the US about 1 billion dollars and take at least 6 years. It'll never happen.
.

[XogGyux]

@Tainari88

Yup, the Republicans and even some of the Democrats have been complicit in voting for policies that would take the U.S. into becoming like Mexico where everybody is poor and work their asses off but never get ahead and stay extremely poor no matter how hard they work. This causes some people to turn to crime because honest work doesn't pay. Honest work has to pay. It doesn't pay in Mexico and if the Republicans have their way, honest work won't pay in the United States either. If honest work doesn't pay then people turn to crime to get paid.

If honest hard work doesn't pay then that leads to the corruption and decay of society and society begins to break down you have organized crime and gangs running most of society and people fleeing the country who are able to flee. But you got to watch some of those Democrats like Manchin too though who sometimes vote for policies that are not good for working people or for society in general.

I don't disagree with the sentiment of the politicians being corrupted and self-serving. Hence, why I support term limits to curtail to a degree all this corruption. But don't take away the culpability of the individual either. I'd give at least 50% of the blame to the people as well. They are irresponsible, they have not developed an appetite to learn about money/personal economy, they are insatiable for more expensive shit, etc.
Let me tell you a little bit of a personal story. I immigrated to this country at 17 going to 18 years of age. The first ~6months I lived with my grandparents but when my mom got a job, I moved with her to a townhouse a few miles away. My mother's salary was that of a receptionist, making just shy of $12/hour. I was in college at the time but I had a part-time making $9.25/hour and I'd work maybe 15-20h a week. That's it, that was our income for a 2 people household. At the time, I felt we lived super comfortable. After all, I was used to cuba just a few months earlier. Just having air conditioning 24h/day, warm water and 24h electricity was luxury. But we also had internet and a computer that I could use for gaming, oh... and I had a car! not my mother's car, but one all for myself. It was a gift from my father, and it was a 10+ years (at the time) honda civic that had 120k miles on the odometer and consumed more oil than gasoline... but it was MINE. Despite our near minimum wage (and truly I was partime, so it was only 1.5ish minimal wage) we were still living comfortably. I noticed something interesting, the "manager" of the store that employed me, who really did not make a lot more than I make, was buying herself luxury crap... brand new infinity car, coach purses, sunglasses.... all other employees (also making minimal wages) would start every day by buying a $3+ dollars starbucks and during lunchtime they would go to the mall foodcore and blow $10 fast food. It was a women shoe store that I worked in, I worked in the backroom but every other employee were women. When they got their mentrual cramps, they would go to the CVS and buy one of those convenience pack that have 1-2 doses but cost like $2 meaning each foking pill was like a dollar, when you can buy a 500pills bottle for less than $10.
Back in my house, our couch was a hand-me-down that a friend of the family found from one of his neightboors that was going to throw it away. You know how many years of use we gave that couch? at least 6 more years. We finally got rid of it after moving 2x when my mother bought her house, and then we gave the old couch to yet another family of imigrants.
Even today I drive a honda acord, it is great, I did buy it new so it was a bit of a splurge for me... but all my co-workers? forget the doctors... the nurses are all driving BMWs and Mercedes, there is one that has a 100k+ spec that is so massive that probably generates a gravitational field of its own with moons and planets going around it. People are ignorant of money, our culture has made it a taboo to talk about money, we have whole generations that will not have retirement because we don't talk about money. People go into debt because they don't know better, because talking about money is taboo.
I am not going to say it is easy, but even with minimal wage you can live in the US and your quality of life is better than in many other countries even as a minimal wage. Minimal wage won't allow you to live in manhathan unless you are willing to share a janitor closet with 2 other roomates, but outside a handful of stupidly expensive cities such as NY, San Francisco, LA, Downtown miami and a few others... you certainly can live as long as you are not doing stupid shit like buying $3 coffee and buying your ibuprofen by the pill on individually wraped envelop... you know you gonna get your foking period every month around the same time, get a foking bottle of ibuprofen on walmart and put it on your fucking purse (and better not be a fucking coach or gucci purse).

[Tainari88]

People, if you are thinking of the US, the Constitution lists the qualifications necessary, and the USSC has ruled that we can't add more with a law. So, we'd need an amendment. That would cost the US about 1 billion dollars and take at least 6 years. It'll never happen.
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Get ready for being ruled by a minority and by force of bribes and obstructionism and the corporations and the powerful players forcing their shitty politics on the masses forever then. The USA is going to be agitated and violence-prone if the shit continues for the next thirty years Steve.

The costs are high, the salaries are flat, and the rights are being eroded. To the point of rolling back most gains for working people and people who played by the rules.

Do corporations think they are in control forever? The Mexicans that were corrupt and elitists all thought they were invincible too. They got their asses kicked. Hard.

Every dog has his day Steve. The USA Republican far Right is going to get a beat down and it won't be forever and a day to get it to happen.

The sixties happened and soon, another period of upheaval will happen. Once it does? The rats are not gonna make it across the planks of the sinking ship.