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Constitutional Amendment 28 (Proposed)
Before sending this to my respective U.S. Representative and Senator, I invite the Ricochet community to read, reflect and comment on the following proposed Amendment XXVIII to the U.S. Constitution:
As pertains to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5; and Amendment XXII, Section 1:
“No person shall be eligible to the office of President who shall have exceeded the age of seventy-two years by the time of inauguration to the first term of service.”
It’s simple, direct, and addresses a multitude of problems. No candidate, no matter how seemingly hale and hearty, would be eligible if they have exceeded by two years the age of mandatory Social Security (seventy). The high physical and psychological demands of the presidency are indisputable; hoping that the normal and expected consequences of aging will not affect an individual’s capacity to perform the duties of President is wishful thinking at best.
If passed by Congress and ratified by the states prior to 31 December 2023, it would apply to the 2024 General Election. Both political parties would have sufficient time to adjust to the new requirement. Both sides of the “Blue-Red” divide would have the means to “save face” by turning aside from superannuated “senior leaders” whose “best days” are behind them.
Thoughts?
Published in General
35 minimum is correct.
I think not. Age is important, but mental clarity is the issue, not age. Many people remain mentally clear, insightful, retentive and creative into their 80s. This might just be the man we’re looking for one day. Even a wheelchair is not prohibitive, so why should age be?
And just as a side thought, what if a great president was turning 72 a month before his second term were to begin? People would know if he’s good at the job or not. He has a proven track record for good or bad to refer to. Why should he be limited just because of his age.
Maaaybe psych evaluations* should be mandatory for all candidates, and mental status exams* mandatory over a certain age. But we’ve seen that used against viable presidential candidates before, too.
*And who’s to say we would ever find a candidate who would run for president and who could function as a good president who didn’t have a psychiatric disorder? Or who may have some mental disfunction that is benign and could be treated and/or dealt with? And what would the disqualifying diagnoses be, and then what would the disqualifying severity be?
When you start getting into disqualifying personality or mental attributes and their severity, you can see that it’s not nearly as simple as saying that a 73-year-old is by definition uniquely unfit to be president.
Why on earth should eligibility for the highest office in the land have ANYTHING to do with the age of “mandatory Social Security”? That doesn’t even make sense. What’s the connection?
And the number this revolves around, 72, seems all the world to have been chosen to allow Ronald Reagan but not allow Donald Trump.
So it doesn’t sound like this proposal is being made in good faith.
This proposal also assumes that the American people are UNABLE to recognize dementia when they cast their vote.
I don’t believe that. And you haven’t made a case for that.
So you want to counteract election fraud with an age limit? That doesn’t sound like an optimum approach.
Whether unable, or just unwilling, they apparently didn’t recognize it.
Or, far more likely, some mechanism doubled the number of actual Biden votes.
Emphatically “NO”!
Repeal the 26th.
This idea has merit. I personally would require all candidates for office to have completed their military service.
Of course, someone would take this to court, as violating the ‘equal protection’ clause … I’m surprised they haven’t done this for the limit at the other end. No doubt they will when they have packed the Supreme Court.
BUT … isn’t this re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?
We’re swirling down the drain, still slowly, but the direction of motion is clear. We have finite resources, only so much energy. Is this what we should put our energy into?
However, I congratulate the author on thinking outside of the box. We need more such thinking. Soon.
And Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln. To name a few more that the requirement to have been a governor would have eliminated.
Also #21.
You guys are dreaming. A second Trump term will be more of a disaster than was his last year. I love the guy and admire all that he did through April 2020, but after that he was a dumpster fire. Our best bet is to get a Trump-light figure, such as Governor DeSantis, into the POTUS.
I would suggest the age of 80.
While I get that Biden’s recent fall off a bike, due to those stupid toe protectors, is seen as a kind of metaphor for his presidency, I don’t think a younger, more mentally with it person would necessarily have remembered the toe protectors and avoided the accident.
I also don’t think a president has to be all that physically fit to be a good President. Roosevelt wasn’t. Judging by pictures, Prime Minister Churchill, over in Britain, wasn’t in great physical shape either. He was still a great prime minister.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think Biden is a horrible President , or that I think he hasn’t shown real signs of not being in his right mind.
Military service would get watered down to “service.” And then every lefty activist voluntary activity would qualify. Think a 2 year internship with BLM would prepare someone to serve?
When you make that an Amendment to the Constitution, it doesn’t matter. You can’t say something in the Constitution in unconstitutional. Not that someone won’t try to do so.
Way OT, but toe clips aren’t for protecting the toes. When used properly, they increase efficiency by allowing the rider to pull back at the bottom of the pedal stroke and pull up on the upstroke. Now, of course, they’ve been replaced by clip-in pedals and cleats.
Ehh…Carter was dull- in spite of being a nuclear engineer- and naive. Clinton was crooked as a dog’s hind legs. Neither was what I would call a loon…while in office.
Hard to recognize cognitive ability when the candidate campaigns from his/her basement.
Or maybe Beiden didn’t win the popular vote. Because people saw he was cloudy.
Maybe it’s actually a good sign of cognitive inability, but it shouldn’t arbitrarily be used as a gauge of suitability, either.
This seems not to be aimed at Trump, but at Beiden. But what makes 72 a reasonable cut-off age compared to say, 65 or 68? Trump was in his early 70s and he wasn’t constantly fatigued or addled or physically weak. People knew Beiden wasn’t mentally with it, and they ostensibly voted for him anyway (or did they?).
But if you’re right, that age 72 is a sign that someone isn’t capable of thinking or acting correctly, then by the same reasoning they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, or campaign for others, or own a gun. Who wants to empower a 72-year-old with a deadly weapon? Does the experience of a lifetime mean nothing? Apparently it does.
What I would suggest is blocking corrupt politicians of any age. What more dysfunction does the age 72 display than past criminal corruption?
And if we’re going to start limiting candidates from the presidency, why not actually do something that shows an arguable reason for the limitation? Like having them take a battery of psychological tests or mental acuity tests. People have been advocating the former for years now.
Of course, psychological test results can be politically engineered, too.
To all who have commented thus far: THANKS – I appreciate the critique!
To several specific points:
Toe protectors? Is that what they’re calling them?
My younger brother used to do some bicycle training and racing, and what they used weren’t for protecting the toes, they were called cleats, and they were to hold the foot to the pedal so that you could increase power and speed by PULLING UP on the pedals as well as pushing down.
There was a notched/slotted part that attached to the bottoms of their shoes too, and “snapped into” the rest of the cleat apparatus. Which meant you couldn’t just lift your foot from the pedal, you had to “disengage” it. Even experienced riders would sometimes forget, and fall over because they couldn’t quickly move their feet out.
It might, if BLM still meant Bureau of Land Management.
It would have to be convictions of corruption, and that rarely happens even to the most corrupt politicians.
Yeah, that’s the down side.
All politicians – past and present – must report for Carousel on their 71st birthday.
Nicely done.
We did too recognize it and so did the Dem voters. He’d never have made it through the primaries if they hadn’t cheated him through. What I’d like to see is a law stating that no bill can have a bunch of extraneous pork in it that has nothing to do with, and at times even clashes with, its main point and intent. And it can’t be 2,000 pages long either. The Democrats always do this. They have a bill that everyone likes and approves of on both sides but they add a bunch of partisan crap that they know the Republicans won’t like. So we could have a law against kicking puppies with an added paragraph at the end forcing every company to hire a black blind trans woman in a wheelchair as CEO, the GOP would vote no, and then Pelosi and Schumer would get in front of cameras shouting “The Republicans hate puppies!”
They don’t even have to actually put in the part about puppies. It can be just about the black trans woman but it’s CALLED the “Puppy Protection Act” and that’s enough.
In the infinite complexity of intersectionality (just like the use of the commerce clause) anything can be justified.