• iopq@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    12 hours ago

    That’s not true. People who are politicians for life have incentives to not be corrupt since it can end their career. A term limited politician has an incentive to trade favors for an executive position after their last term.

    • SippyCup@feddit.nl
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      A: that’s not really ever been demonstrated to be true for any level of crime. Least of all corruption. The type of people willing to take bribes think they’ll get away with it or don’t consider the consequences.
      2: they have that incentive now. Without term limits. That’s a problem we currently face. Term limits won’t change that.

      We need to also bar representatives from taking those jobs when they leave office. Which means we also need to give them a pension.

    • EightBitBlood@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 hours ago

      People who are politicians for life have incentives to not be corrupt since it can end their career.

      No offense, this is an incredibly naive take that is easily disproven by the current US president and the decades of documented corruption he’s practiced in the open that did done nothing to falter his career. He has 34 felonies. He was going to trial for the largest breach of US intelligence in the history of our country.

      He was then elected president anyway.

      Social media has made the concept of political accountability into an impossibility. Any “career-ending” behavior can just be lied about on social media, turned into a firehouse of disinfo, then bots & supporters eat it up.

      Without term limits, people just need to be popular enough to get elected once - then they can use their position for personal gain for as long as they can lie about it in some way. (Forever with AI now).

      I could gesture in any direction in the world and end up pointing to a country this is happening to right now.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Term limits ensures that you always have a new incompetence congress finding their footing before being replaced by new newbies forever out of step.

        Also it can simultaneously be true that term limits increase corruption and we at present are fully incapable of reigning in corruption of any kind because we are bad immoral people on average. Your position is like arguing that cigs don’t kill you because your presently already dying of liver cancer right now.

        • EightBitBlood@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          9 hours ago

          Your position is like arguing that cigs don’t kill you because your presently already dying of liver cancer right now.

          Nope. My position is quite literally that we should limit the amount of cigarettes we smoke so we don’t develop cancer.

          Maybe a pack a week?

          Or a single 12 year term for each Supreme Court justice?

          As proof I’ve simply pointed to how we have completely failed to limit terms in the Supreme Court and now very much have fascist cancer because of it. (Supreme Court going full MAGA and ignoring due process).

          You are making this much harder to understand than it needs to be.

          • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            4 hours ago

            Again you confuse cause and effect term limits could have easily meant justices losing their seats during Bush and Trump bringing about the same effect or worse. If we had gotten luckier or smarter with strategic resignation we could be talking about lifetime appointments keeping the judiciary independent from the president and protecting democracy.

            If the people coming in are corrupt getting new corrupt people every term limit isn’t going to make them less corrupt. It is the fact that lawmakers are so beholden to money to get and stay in office that leads to corruption in the first place. In your alternative America a lawmaker would be expecting to need somewhere to land after they hit the limit and would be more beholden to industry not less.

            Wherein we successfully elect people who aren’t beholden to money we needn’t kick them out right after they learn the ropes if the people keep showing their confidence in them by voting them in.