JOE BIALEK
Registered User
Posts: 2
(2/8/03 7:00 pm)
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TERM LIMITS
"Some career politicians may no doubt be motivated by altruism at the outset, but over time officeholding becomes a job like any other. In its own way, it's as much an entrepreneurial pursuit as nurturing a business. This is why political outcomes should be kept in perspective." ---Jerry Heaster
The key word here is entrepreneurial; the actions of a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. Indeed, that is the primary focus of most (if not all) politicians. There primary objective is self-promotion for the express purpose of rewarding themselves and their financial supporters. With incumbent reelection at nearly 95%, there is a very limited popular "checks and balance" on what they do and little incentive for them to "do the right thing". Barring a major scandal (a la Gary Condit), legislators could occupy the office until they decide to retire. The founding fathers certainly did not intend to allow absolute power to corrupt absolutely {as stated by Thomas Jefferson} but they also knew that any social experiment always sews the seeds of it's own destruction. Our political system has been corrupted by greed and there is once again the need to amend the United States Constitution (as well as all State constitutions). Accordingly, legislators (from city council to congress) should be limited to two consecutive terms in office. This would actually promote greater democracy as it will insure more occupants of the elected office and a greater republic as they will not be loyal to any particular constiuency (over a long period of time). We may actually see the re-emergence of two distinct political parties. The perspective now is that it does'nt really matter which party is in power. Hence the resulting voter apathy. The Democrats and Republicans are like two competing law firms. Some would argue that a cadre of professional politicians is the best choice for a republican government but in a capitalist society only the statesman {philosopher kings} could be entrusted with that much responsibility. Sadly, the statesman are kept out of office by the self-perpetuating politicians. Term limits would be a start towards re-claiming the values this country was founded on.
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