Do you think NASA scientists were told in 1961 that they would get fired in 1969? I suspect most of them thought the space program would continue far beyond. Not to mention that most people working on the moon program were working for private companies. Lots of them got fired when the project concluded, but that was always the way of the defense industry.
I don’t understand what the heck you’re saying here as it applies to senators and congressmen. The Constitution set their terms between elections, but where are you getting this allegation that the Constitution originally included term limits, as in a ceiling on the number of times that a congressman could run for re-election? Or are you trying to play some cutesy word game with what a “term” really means?
No, I’m trying to get people to realize that limiting the term of ruling parties to a specific time period followed by new elections was unique in the formation of this country, and we shouldn’t be messing with it. The current concept of limiting the ‘number of terms’, not the terms themselves is an attempt to undo democracy. Representatives, Senators, and the President have limited terms, and we can toss them out of office at the end of those terms. The term ‘term limits’ is itself akin to the ‘Patriot Act’, neither of which means what they say.
Ok, you’re just playing word games. I thought as much.
Tis not I who was playing the word games. I’m trying to a stop to them.
Yeah, I hadn’t thought of this. Term limits for office holders can only begin to work if they are balanced with term limits for lobbyists and managers and representatives of large corporations.
That would come as a surprise to the members of the English House of Commons, whose three year terms ended as a result of the Triennial Acts, passed starting in 1641, and the members of the British House of Commons, whose seven year terms ended as a result of the Septennial Act of 1715.
Agreed. Do we really need more Strom Thurmonds in the Congress? Keeping people with fresh ideas coming in is a good thing, not to mention it would cripple the good-old-boy, business-as-usual crap that goes on now.
You are probably correct. England was on it’s way to democracy. But were colonial Governors subject to term limits? Did democracy succeed anywhere else in the world?
Never-the-less, I’ll modify my rhetoric to include that fact.
misposted
Surely, that’s for the voters of South Carolina to decide.
I do recall Jesse Helms objecting to giving the District of Columbia full representation in Congress because the people of D.C. “weren’t ready” to exercise their votes responsibly. To be fair, at the time, I thought the same thing about the voters of North Carolina – I thought it would be a fair exchange to keep D.C.'s status quo if North Carolina was willing to give up its own representation until it “learned” how to vote properly.
What year was it he could get away with saying that?! It sounds like a classic defense of Apartheid or some third-world dictatorship.
Suppose Strom Thurmond had been term limited. You would still have had the same voters. Voters who voted for him repeatedly. So isn’t it likely that they would have elected someone similar in his place?
Term limits won’t stop people from making stupid choices.
It was Jesse Helms, so anywhere from the time he was first elected to office in 1858, up to his retirement.
Come to think of it, the fuckwad actually did say things just like that about Apartheid.
If I may inject a quick historical note here, all of the 13 colonies had representative assemblies with annual elections. So they had one year terms. In Rhode Island and Connecticut the upper house of the legislature and the governors were elected as well, also annually. These colonies retained their governmental structures as they became states but the others adopted constitutions (before the federal constitution) and all of these states had set terms for all legislators and governors/presidents.
Term limits were not uncommon at the time. Six states had some term limits while seven did not. At the time the practice (known then as “rotation in office”) was considered democratic rather than the reverse in that more people would serve as high officials. The more conservative constitutions did not rely on them.
The governors were appointed by the crown if I understand correctly. Here in Rhode Island we dealt with that by legislating all the authority to the legislature, which holds to this day. That’s the main reason we are a welfare state.
Actually as I said in Rhode Island the governor was elected to a one year term even in colonial times. RI continued to use their colonial charter until they drafted a state constitution following Dorr’s Rebellion. The crown appointed the governor in crown colonies. In proprietary colonies the proprietors appointed the governor (normally one of themselves) and a deputy governor who actually traveled to America to govern. Appointed governors did not serve definite terms but served at the pleasure of the people appointing them.
I’ll have to go do some research. I’m not a native Row Dilander, and my local history has come primarily second hand.