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> For me, the biggest issue is that politicians who lose their jobs are left without any pay. For me, the biggest issue is that being an elected official is co

by pdonis 6y ago

> For me, the biggest issue is that politicians who lose their jobs are left without any pay. For me, the biggest issue is that being an elected official is considered a career. It shouldn't be; it should be a temporary thing that people do for a limited time to contribute for the good of society, afterwards returning to whatever they did before serving. A policy that required private sector employers to give leave of absence to people who wanted to serve as elected officials would help to support that. It would also help if the power and scope of what an elected official is expected to do were drastically scaled back, by limiting our expectations of what we expect governments in general to do. Then we would not require elected office to be a career just so politicians could have enough time to learn how to play the political game.

pm90 6y ago
Absolutely not. You don’t expect a programmer to work in the software industry part time and then work somewhere totally different. Human beings improve their skills in fields with more practice and experience. Politics is a career: there are people who are good at it and we should most certainly expect them to work on it full time. It’s not like there’s any shortage of problems to solve.
- zepto 6y ago
  > You don’t expect a programmer to work in the software industry part time and then work somewhere totally different. For some programmers I think that would be a great option. Granted there are programmers who are going to do their best work by focusing on code and little else deeply for years on end. But there are a lot of people who’s decision making would be improved by having other experiences as well as coding. And.. coding is decision making.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
labster 6y ago
The fundamental problem is that politics needs a career track for people to become good at it. Would you consider term limits for programmers, after which they get to go back to their normal jobs in the humanities? When politicians are inexperienced, it just lends power to the lobbyists, the entrenched money, and the civil service.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > The fundamental problem is that politics needs a career track for people to become good at it. This assumes that there are people who are good at it. That's the assumption I'm questioning. I don't think anyone is good at politics. Many politicians are good at using their positions to enrich themselves and their cronies, but that's not the kind of "good at it" that we citizens need.
marcinzm 6y ago
Someone will always play politics if playing politics gives them access to power or money. If you weaken politicians in their ability to play politics than lobbyists, corporations, career bureaucrats and so on will gain in power. Politicians you at least have the option of not voting for next election while the others you don't even get that option.
- pdonis 6y ago
  > Someone will always play politics if playing politics gives them access to power or money. Well, then the obvious solution is to make it so playing politics doesn't give them access to power or money. And not allowing politics to be a career seems like an obvious thing to do to move in that direction.

by pdonis 6y ago

pm90 6y ago

Absolutely not. You don’t expect a programmer to work in the software industry part time and then work somewhere totally different. Human beings improve their skills in fields with more practice and experience. Politics is a career: there are people who are good at it and we should most certainly expect them to work on it full time. It’s not like there’s any shortage of problems to solve.

zepto 6y ago
> You don’t expect a programmer to work in the software industry part time and then work somewhere totally different. For some programmers I think that would be a great option. Granted there are programmers who are going to do their best work by focusing on code and little else deeply for years on end. But there are a lot of people who’s decision making would be improved by having other experiences as well as coding. And.. coding is decision making.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

labster 6y ago

The fundamental problem is that politics needs a career track for people to become good at it. Would you consider term limits for programmers, after which they get to go back to their normal jobs in the humanities? When politicians are inexperienced, it just lends power to the lobbyists, the entrenched money, and the civil service.

pdonis 6y ago
> The fundamental problem is that politics needs a career track for people to become good at it. This assumes that there are people who are good at it. That's the assumption I'm questioning. I don't think anyone is good at politics. Many politicians are good at using their positions to enrich themselves and their cronies, but that's not the kind of "good at it" that we citizens need.

marcinzm 6y ago

Someone will always play politics if playing politics gives them access to power or money. If you weaken politicians in their ability to play politics than lobbyists, corporations, career bureaucrats and so on will gain in power. Politicians you at least have the option of not voting for next election while the others you don't even get that option.

pdonis 6y ago
> Someone will always play politics if playing politics gives them access to power or money. Well, then the obvious solution is to make it so playing politics doesn't give them access to power or money. And not allowing politics to be a career seems like an obvious thing to do to move in that direction.