While I support term limits, I can foresee it causing the destruction of the 2nd Amendment. Term-limited politicians will have more backbone to vote for gun control than careerists.

Smitty wrote: …but I predict that the 22nd Amendment is expanded upon to cover Congress, and perhaps even the SCOTUS, in the next couple of decades

Trouble is: we don’t have decades.

The rubber has, indeed, met the road. This is the moment where the fate of The American Experiment hangs in the balance. Will we choose Empire or Republic?

I’m past thinking there is any sort of soft grounding before us. I hope, as usual, I’m wrong, but this 100 year anniversary of Wilson is likely to be remembered as The Year That Sucked.

We no longer share a common vision for the country. Fresh from the ideas written about by the Enlightenment writers, the country was founded on the notion of individual liberty and equality of opportunity. And during the Civil War, both sides believed they were fighting for those principles. The northern abolitionists said treating enslaved blacks as property was antithetical to liberty. The pro-slave south said that they did not create the slave system, they inherited it and that enslaved blacks were human chattel. To the slaveowner, asking him to free his slave was like asking a northerner to relinquish the title to the land he owned, or to set free the chickens that supplied him his eggs or the dairy cow that supplied him his milk and butter. It’s harsh to think of it in those terms, but I think that’s the reality.

As perverted as it may seem to us today, both sides went to war believing they were fighting for their concepts of liberty and opportunity.

Republicans and limited government folks, generally, share the founding vision for individual liberty and equality of opportunity. To me, redistributionist policies, no matter how noble or humanitarian they seem on their face, are antithetical to both liberty and equality of opportunity. As Milton Friedman described it, “when A&B (legislators) decide how much to take from C to give to D”, you’ve created a system that relies on the coercive force of government to deprive C of his property (his liberty) not for public consumption but to benefit D exclusively. So the redistributionist vision is diametrically opposed to liberty and equality of opportunity. Instead, its equlity of outcome that is important to the redistributionists. The way I see it, if one party is travelling east, and the other party is going west, there is only one point on the line where they share common ground, and we’re well past that point. There is no longer common ground. One side has to surrender their worldview, and the numbers appear to favor the redistributinists.

What do you do about the staffers? They’ll become the permanent governing class — the “fresh faces” we elect will be steered to hire the “best people” and they’ll get handled into conformity.

Let them eat cake.

Unfortunately it has to pass a gauntlet of politicians who have a conflict of interest in the voting/ratification process of that amendment before it goes to the states. .

Honor is a concept that has been lost both by the politicians and the people. When an immoral people rise to power, they don’t long keep it. A strong man will come along that will buy them off, and they’ll march into the slaughter house like the sheep they are.

“incumbency has bread a Ruling Class…”

I say, make toast of all thus bread. [Or bred, for that matter.]

“I predict that the 22ndAmendment is expanded….” Ah me, ah my, Smitty, Smitty, Smitty…. unfortunate lad. You still do not perceive just how deeply the fix is in. To get the fix out will not require time. It will require ammunition and high explosives.

Instead of limiting the terms of the congresscritters, why not limit suffrage to land/homeowners, or some other attributes that ensure the voter has skin in the game?

You can’t fix Congress until you fix the folks who vote for Congress.

If people are taxed, they should have a say.

Whoops! Thank you. I hate to blow my argument with inane typos.

Damn well put, QM.

I shall allow you to hope for, as the poet says, “Hope is the thing with feathers.”

On the other hand my old grand pappy used to say, “Son, hope in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.”

Ah yes, the favourite programmes of Maggie, her Iron Ladyness.

By the way, California has had term limits for its legislature for about a quarter-century. For its governor and judges, even longer. So ya’ gotta ask, how’s that workin’ out for California?

Term limits isn’t the answer to lazy voters.

You betcha. I expect to be getting a vote by mail ballot from every locality I’ve paid hotel tax in.

My expectations are frequently frustrated. /sarc.

Seriously, is paying a tax sufficient “skin in the game”? Maybe not. Justice requires that a voter faces real consequences for casting a vote for stupid stuff other than sticking around or paying a price (in hassle, if nothing else) to pull up stakes and flee.