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This is the kind of thing one can expect when their leaders are so far removed from the people that they govern. Joe Biden has been in office since 1973. I'd wa
by Kynlyn 14y ago
This is the kind of thing one can expect when their leaders are so far removed from the people that they govern. Joe Biden has been in office since 1973. I'd wager that's longer than many of the HN readers have even been alive. When you have politicians who have been running around in the Washington circles that long, some really bad things will come of it.
So, at the time he proposed that, he had been in Washington for nearly 20 years. Shouldn't surprise anyone that he was pushing an agenda for a larger, more powerful federal government.
- tptacek 14y agoThis statement would make sense if you could provide examples of (at the time) younger Senators who actively opposed crypto regulation so we could compare their track records as well.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Kynlyn 14y agoRepresentative Bob Goodlatte was a proponent of relaxation of encryption controls; pushing for a law in 1999, only 6 years after assuming office. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Goodlatte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Goodlatte Conrad Burns was a sponsor of the PROTECT Act which was an attempt to overhaul encryption regulations, including prohibiting domestic controls of encrypted software. He did this after being in office for about 8 years. http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong106/encrypt/19990414burns.htm http://www.techlawjournal.com/cong106/encrypt/19990414burns.... edit: Goodlatte was a Rep, not a Senator.
- declan 14y agoNot sure Rep. Bob Goodlatte was a senator. :)
- canttestthis 14y agoJohn Kerry was anti-export control and pro-encryption rights at that time, and he's been a senator since 1985, so I don't think this is true.
- mtgx 14y agoTerm limits would solve most of the lobbying/bribing/corruption problem in Washington. It wouldn't fix for good, but it would make paying for passing new laws a lot more expensive for companies. Also if everyone could only run once, they'd be a lot less worried about begging for donations for the next campaign. According to Larry Lessig representatives spend up to 70% of their time trying to get donations for their next campaigns, instead of doing their job properly, and passing laws for the actual benefit of the people.
- biesnecker 14y agoI think term limits only make sense if you believe that you don't get better at being a legislator with experience. If you don't, then yes, absolutely, term limits will make buying votes far more expensive, but if you do, then you're constantly running the country with a team of redshirt freshmen, which may well be worse than corporate interests being able to influence policy decisions.
- fpgeek 14y agoAnd those redshirt freshmen would be dealing with experienced professors of lobbying. I don't think term limits would do much (if anything) to lessen the influence of corporate interests and could easily make the problem worse.
- yuhong 14y agoBut it does reminds me of this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3161455 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3161455 Why didn't any country try this?
- anigbrowl 14y agoWe have term limits in California, along with a reputation for one of the most dysfunctional state legislatures in the nation. Term limits are not the panacea people seem to think they are.