Should politicians take a vow of poverty?

[BicycleTree]

Given that the job of politicians is to legislate on important issues, what does a politician's ability to understand Washington have to do with anything except his career advancement?

Granted, some high-ranking politicians must also be diplomats. However, these are a minority.

Understanding of foreign affairs is important, and it would be the politicians' job to do so. If they don't do it well, you vote them out of office, as you do now.


Basically, anyone who argues against me must take the stand that there are less than a thousand good, smart people willing to give their lives for their nation in all the USA. Is that really true?

 

[Pengwuino]

Well now you have to differentiate between legislators and other politicians. Anyone other then the people who are locked up passing bills all day need to understand how the system works in order to best make use of their positions. Remember, a politician is anyone who administrates in a governmental capacity. Many politicians are not voted on and simply 'come with the package'. A secretary of commerce might face difficulties if his only goal is to build a better economy and doesn't understand various organizations he works with like transportation and environmental committies and such. Let's say you have a secretary of defense and the head of the EPA at odds over a new military base. If they just tried to take their stands, we'd get nowhere. A good politician would know how to do all that "you scratch my back, i scratch yours, things get done" crap.

Legislators are actually the only people who coudl really be affected by such an idea as it is true they are only suppose to be there to stand up for what they (and by implication, the voters) believe in.

 

[Pengwuino]

Basically, anyone who argues against me must take the stand that there are less than a thousand good, smart people willing to give their lives for their nation in all the USA. Is that really true?

The real stand is that you need to find probably a good 10,000 people who exhibit the following qualities.

Honest, willing to do one of the toughest jobs a human can do, willing to spend very little time with their family, willing to take personal abuse, willing to lose almost all sense of privacy, willing to have a microscope inspection of every word you speak, all at minimum wage for a few hundred million people who think politicians are slimeballs simply because they don't get their way all the while having no chance of advancing in the world and living in a nice home and living the 'american dream'

 

[BicycleTree]

Well, I suppose I was really only considering legislators. It would be much more difficult to tear out the corrupt politicians from offices where you really need to be an insider.

The criteria you describe leave out the important thing that the job the people would be taking would be in the highest ideals and would be very important. I think you could find 10,000 of those, easy, but 1000 is all you would really need to fill congress. When you reach a certain point in your life, you stop worrying about material gain and start thinking about more meaningful things--and because of your age you don't have a lot of other concerns in the way. Such people, I think, would be quite willing to give up material wealth in return for living meaningfully.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well if the people around the US are anything like the people i know, good luck.

 

[BicycleTree]

I have edited.

 

[Pengwuino]

lol my opinion still stands. But i must add that i only know younger people so that's probably a big reason i wouldn't be able to find even 1 fit for the job.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Doesn't that sound a little like the politicians' "respective groups" to you?

I am not saying that defending one's group is corrupt, but it is not altruistic.

I do think politicians should be made slaves of the state. The sacrifice of the freedom of the few is sometimes needed to ensure the freedom of the many.

No. The community is not their "group", it's the people to whom they are responsable. When you better education you better it for everyone not just democrats or just republicans. The same goes for fixing roads and the economy and so on and so forth. These are not things that only help certain groups, they help the entire community.

At any rate, as already pointed out by many, you are considerably hindering these people. How are they supposed to have a wife? How are they supposed to have a family? How about friends and just a regular social life. How about hobbies? Just about every employer realizes that their employees need to be happy and need a life outside of work or their productivity will decline. My own employer encourages us to take vacation and gives us plenty of vacation time. A person needs to enjoy their life or they will not be a productive individual. Even if a person enjoys their job every one still needs something beyond that.
Also you may want to consider that most of the people out there that vote like to see candidates you have a family and are married. The set up you have makes this all but impossible and would probably ruin just about any marriage.