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In that case, how about requirement of being between the ages of 40 and 65 to run for presidency?
No, there are far too many examples of people who are still brilliant well into their so-called senior years. The upper limit should not be based on chronological age, but rather mental fitness.
The current teenagers will be living past age 100; many if not most of them will live to see the 22nd Century. They will have augmented bodies, augmented brains, and incredible treatments to forestall or cure Alzheimers and other ills.
There is no evidence or trends to support this. There have always been people who lived past 100. We have a much larger population so more people are living past 100. The statistics do not support the fact that most people are living past 100.
I would prefer that we don't have two candidates who are currently 74 and and 78, but we don't need a Constitutional amendment to set an age limit. Let the electoral process handle it.
There is no evidence or trends to support this. There have always been people who lived past 100. We have a much larger population so more people are living past 100. The statistics do not support the fact that most people are living past 100.
I would prefer that we don't have two candidates who are currently 74 and and 78, but we don't need a Constitutional amendment to set an age limit. Let the electoral process handle it.
Reread my comment, for God's sake.
With medical advances continuing apace, children today can expect to live well beyond the age of 100. That's assuming we don't kill ourselves off with a biotech or nuclear war.
A biochemist friend of mine, a researcher, assures me my kid will likely live to see the year 2120, conservatively speaking. At a certain point, we will understand how and why cells age, and ultimately how to stop or mitigate the process.
Regarding the current leadership, 73 is not that old. I'm 61 myself and still feel like I'm in the prime of life, running 6 miles a day, working a great job, raising a family, staying active. There are millions of others like me!
To say that the clock stops ticking at 70 is ridiculous and ageist.
With medical advances continuing apace, children today can expect to live well beyond the age of 100. That's assuming we don't kill ourselves off with a biotech or nuclear war.
A biochemist friend of mine, a researcher, assures me my kid will likely live to see the year 2120, conservatively speaking. At a certain point, we will understand how and why cells age, and ultimately how to stop or mitigate the process.
Regarding the current leadership, 73 is not that old. I'm 61 myself and still feel like I'm in the prime of life, running 6 miles a day, working a great job, raising a family, staying active. There are millions of others like me!
To say that the clock stops ticking at 70 is ridiculous and ageist.
I read your comment and there is no evidence to support average life expectancy reaching 100. I agree with the second part of your post, however. I'm 65, play basketball, lift weights, and have run at least race from 5 miles to marathon every year since 1994. I also try to finish a book every week on topics such as politics, history, business, and economics. I don't believe I have lost any mental ability over time. I'm not expecting my clock to stop ticking at 70.
This article from the WSJ describes the problems with average life expectancy increasing;
Quote:
Perhaps the biggest reason why humans can’t expect to routinely live to 100 is this: Life expectancy is a population metric, and it gets harder to move the needle the older we get.
Adding one year to life expectancy when it is 80 is orders of magnitude more difficult to achieve than when it is 50. Attaining a life expectancy of 90 requires the equivalent of cures for cancer, all cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, infectious diseases and accidental deaths. Getting to 95 requires the elimination of all known causes of death short of aging. And getting to 100 requires not only that we slow aging, but that survival time would need to be added to the lives of people aged 70-plus at a rate faster than it was added to lives of children born at the start of the 20th century.
These links provide graphs of average life expectancy at various ages such as 65 and 85.
To change the age requirement for president and vice president, you have to amend the Constitution. This is an arduous process, needing a majority of states to ratify the change. I am not optimistic about doing this.
IMO, the upper limit for running for president should be about 68. If she is seeking a second term, maybe lift the limit to 69?
With medical advances continuing apace, children today can expect to live well beyond the age of 100. That's assuming we don't kill ourselves off with a biotech or nuclear war.
A biochemist friend of mine, a researcher, assures me my kid will likely live to see the year 2120, conservatively speaking. At a certain point, we will understand how and why cells age, and ultimately how to stop or mitigate the process.
Regarding the current leadership, 73 is not that old. I'm 61 myself and still feel like I'm in the prime of life, running 6 miles a day, working a great job, raising a family, staying active. There are millions of others like me!
To say that the clock stops ticking at 70 is ridiculous and ageist.
But would you want the responsibility of the oval office at 70 rather than enjoying your leisure time during your retirement?
No, there are far too many examples of people who are still brilliant well into their so-called senior years. The upper limit should not be based on chronological age, but rather mental fitness.
The problem is when someone runs for the presidency and they have a team handling them. Its possible to mask their shortcomings and keep them out of situations where those shortcomings could be exposed. Reagan clearly was not all there his final years in the white house but the stories came out way after that. And he was probably not all there when he was running for reelection. But we did know how old he was. You can't hide the number.
I would be fine if there was some sort of mental acuity tests that every candidate had to take. But that will never happen.
The thing is, we've had some younger presidents who were absolute disasters.
Warren G. Harding, for example, became President at age 56 (in 1921), and is known for the disastrous Teapot Dome scandal and atrocious levels of corruption during his single, truncated term (he died in 1923). He had a lot of sleazy friends whom he elevated to public positions, where they proceeded to rip the public off at unprecedented levels.
Jimmy Carter was 53 when he assumed office, and despite his charm and intelligence was widely considered a failed President; his Administration had almost no professionals, no consistency in foreign and domestic policy, and botched nearly everything he tried to accomplish. He lost reelection by one of the biggest electoral sweeps in history.
Lyndon Johnson became President in 1963 at the age of 55, and proceeded to mire the country in a disastrous, bloody war while pushing hugely expensive "great society" programs that mostly proved ineffective. The country was nearly bankrupted by the 1970s and the scars of the war are still with us today.
First put an age limit on running for the House and Senate, and see how that works.
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