Purely Political, James Buckley
That’s it. We’ve reached the breaking point. The collective “we” do not want to see or hear another septuagenarian or octogenarian politician speak another word, or worse, pontificate on what ails the planet and offer their “solutions” to those problems.
They are what ails the planet.
They are the problem.
Lifetime politician and now U.S. President Joe Biden is 78.
Lifetime politician and now Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is 81.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is 72 and has spent his entire life from the age of 23 in public office.
There are just too many old people in charge of everything, who hang around much too long. Most of these people have been in or close to power for the past, oh let’s just say 50 years.
In that time, the U.S. has gone from a financially solvent proud superpower to insolvency under their watch.
And they have the easiest job in the world: spending other people’s money. Except for personal gain, they have nothing worthwhile to brag about.
Don’t get me wrong, I revere the wisdom and experience of octogenarians and nonagenarians (Warren Buffet, for example, is 91), but as our doddering president would say, here’s the thing: This pampered well-fed, well-groomed, well-dressed, well-traveled, well-protected crowd should be tending gardens, babysitting grandchildren and doing exercises in tepid waist-deep water. They shouldn’t be running anything.
And they shouldn’t be berating anybody with “save the planet” bromides as they jet around the world stomping yeti-sized carbon footprints as they go.
Get them out of here!
Go home, tend to your flowers, paint, practice yoga, work on your shuffleboard game, but for God’s sake, leave the rest of us alone.
Let’s review the Constitutional age requirements for serving in Congress and the White House.
It is right up front in Article 1, Section 2:
“No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”
Section 3:
“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”
Article 2, Section 1:
“No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
That’s it; those are the age requirements for serving in Congress or in the White House, as written by young men (mostly in their 30s and 40s) in an age when life expectancy was probably somewhere around 50, if that. Statistics are hard to come by before the mid-1800s.
In any case, we do know that some of the founders lived long lives, such as John Adams (90), Thomas Jefferson (83), and Benjamin Franklin (84). But the average life span was considerably shorter. The Constitution’s drafters understood how important it was to have had some life experience before becoming an elected official at the highest level in the land.
They lived; they served; they left.
And that’s the way it ought to be.
We now have a gerontocracy in the United States, circa 2021. They’ve been there forever and just won’t give it up. They cling to the power and the perks, and their tenacity is making life hell for the rest of us.
When the heck are they going to leave?
Haven’t they done enough damage already?
Their “leadership” has made a pauper of our once wealthy country. They resemble a pack of deadbeat relatives scouring the old mansion for valuables they can steal and then sell after the old man dies.
Nancy Pelosi has served in the House of Representatives since 1987, some 34 years, going on 35. When is enough, enough? Do we have to see her with a walker slowly making her way to the podium to pound out yet another barrage of slanderous lies against her political opponents?
When and where does it end?
President Joe Biden will be 79 in November, but he looks and acts to be 90 already.
Thomas Jefferson was 58 when first elected in 1801 but was in his mid-30s when he helped write the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
John Adams was 62 when he was elected president (1797), but he too was a young man when he helped draft the Massachusetts Constitution — the model for the U.S. Constitution — in 1780.
George Washington was 57 when he became our first president in 1789 and served as general of the Continental Army at the age of 42.
In all those above cases, our presidents had the good grace to retire to their respective homes, though available for consultations and advice whenever needed or called upon.
Our current platoon of office holders doesn’t seem to be ready to head back home any time soon.
And that’s a shame because most of them are simply in the way. It’s understandable that Majority Leader Schumer, President Biden, Speaker Pelosi and gang don’t want to give up the advantages of office: the limos, the planes, the Secret Service protection, the prestige. All paid for out of the public purse.
Only Donald Trump, now 74, had pretty much everything he ever wanted before running for office, so he can continue to enjoy a rich and colorful life away from the Washington limelight.
It’s time for all these people to move along. And, if they had any consideration for others, they would.
But if they actually had any consideration for others, they wouldn’t have stayed in Washington that long in the first place.
James Buckley is a longtime Montecito resident. He welcomes questions or comments at jimb@substack.com.
