CDZ Lindsey Graham Drops out of the race...unfortunate, but not unexpected...

[Stephanie]

WE NEED TERM LIMITS. that is all. how many of these people has made a CAREER of sucking a living off us taxpayers? where half of them are now so OLD we will have to wheel them out on a gawddamn gurney with them giving them heart massages

 

[Arianrhod]

WE NEED TERM LIMITS. that is all. how many of these people has made a CAREER of sucking a living off us taxpayers? where half of them are now so OLD we will have to wheel them out on a gawddamn gurney with them giving them heart massages

Lindsey Graham is 10 years younger than your heart-throb Trump.

He served in the military for 33 years.

Obviously not your kind of candidate.

 

[320 Years of History]

WE NEED TERM LIMITS. that is all. how many of these people has made a CAREER of sucking a living off us taxpayers? where half of them are now so OLD we will have to wheel them out on a gawddamn gurney with them giving them heart massages

??? Do you have any idea how old Ronald Reagan was when he first took office? Are you aware that while in office, he began showing signs of dementia? Do you know that although Mrs. Clinton may become the first female elected president, the nation has already had a woman acting in that capacity for about 18 months?

I'm not necessarily refuting (or concurring with) your remarks about term limits. I am saying that term limits won't do a damn thing if someone assumes high public office and successfully hides their greatly debilitating infirmity, particularly several of the stages of dementia, from the electorate.

One need only consider whether octogenarians and nonagenarians should drive a car on public roads. (Obviously, not every very old person is incapable of doing so, but a great many of them have no business driving, not because they cannot operate the vehicle, but because they aren't able to notice soon enough, analyze the situation effectively and quickly and react to stimuli efficiently enough that it's inherently safe for them, other drivers, pedestrians and property.) If one isn't keen on old folks driving, one should also not want them having a key role in steering not only a car, but even less so a state or nation.

Mr. Trump's 70th birthday will have passed before he can possibly take office. Mrs. Clinton is just one year younger. Bernie Sanders is already 74; heck, if he were to win the Democratic nomination, I'd be equally interested in the policy positions of whomever he designates as Vice President as I would in his. I'm not at all an ageist, but I am not ignorant of the physiological and mental realities resulting from the aging process. For seniors the consequences of aging are as immutable as is everyone's gender. (No medically/surgically effected sex-change comments from the "peanut gallery," please. You know damn well the point I'm making.)

I have two very old parents alive, one 88 and the other 96. Each of them can carry on a social conversation, but engage either in a discussion that requires them to bring to bear acute reasoning skills, and it'll become clear that they have no business making decisions about any of the things that a world leader does. Compound that with the peculiarities of personality and the downsides associated with their great seniority are further amplified. That's more so now than it was 10-15 years ago, but make no mistake, their cognitive thinking skills were beginning to fade even then.

The question isn't how robust is an old person's mental acuity, it's how long will it remain robust enough. It's simply not possible to say, and that's a level of uncertainty that I really don't like having to ponder when considering for whom I'll vote.

 

[Arianrhod]

^Remember what you and I were discussing in the other thread about language skills? It's amazing/amusing to me how many posters here claim to be mature adults with decades of experience in...whatever...and yet they automatically dismiss any public figure over age 60 as "old," the implication being that there's a one-size-fits-all category that everyone falls into on their 59th birthday.

Makes you wonder what they're actually saying about themselves, not the people they're talking about.

Poke them with Reagan's age or Trump's (they're obviously fooled by the hairpiece and the bronzer, because they don't realize he's in the same category they dismiss if it's anyone they don't like) and they get very upset.

 

[320 Years of History]

^Remember what you and I were discussing in the other thread about language skills? It's amazing/amusing to me how many posters here claim to be mature adults with decades of experience in...whatever...and yet they automatically dismiss any public figure over age 60 as "old," the implication being that there's a one-size-fits-all category that everyone falls into on their 59th birthday.

Makes you wonder what they're actually saying about themselves, not the people they're talking about.

Poke them with Reagan's age or Trump's (they're obviously fooled by the hairpiece and the bronzer, because they don't realize he's in the same category they dismiss if it's anyone they don't like) and they get very upset.

Certainly in industries that predominantly are comprised of partnerships, and particularly those that have "up or out" (at least to the point of becoming a partner/principal) approaches to career development, mandatory retirement is a relatively common practice. It's not universal, but it's plenty common enough.

• Mandatory partner retirement and succession planning is a hot issue
  
• Mandatory Partner Retirement Becomes an Issue at Firms
  
• It’s Time to Retire Retirement
  
• Retirement Policies Still Driving Out Star Attorneys - Law360

I'm not going to here go into the details of mandatory partner retirement in partnerships. I'll just say that I see pros and cons for it.

As the idea of older folks working, I don't have a problem with it regarding many jobs. It's just that the job of President isn't one that I think is ideally held by folks 70 and older. Of course there are exceptional individuals for whom it's not an issue, and Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton may be among them. As I intimated before, only time will tell. I believe that for voters it's a matter of the extent to which they are willing to gamble on any one of those individual's being an exception.

 

[leftwinger]

Does this mean he is out of Senate too? hoping.......

 

[jillian]

Senator Graham announced today that he's ending his bid for the Presidency. Sorry to see him go for he is one of the Republicans for whom I have a good deal of respect and whom I think injected some good sense into the race. I cannot say I agree with all his policy preferences, but I can say that the idea of his being president doesn't give me pause.

what did he say that you thought was "good sense"?

 

[jillian]

Does this mean he is out of Senate too? hoping.......

no.

 

[320 Years of History]

Does this mean he is out of Senate too? hoping.......

That aspect was not AFAIK part of the announcement he made.

 

[Arianrhod]

^Remember what you and I were discussing in the other thread about language skills? It's amazing/amusing to me how many posters here claim to be mature adults with decades of experience in...whatever...and yet they automatically dismiss any public figure over age 60 as "old," the implication being that there's a one-size-fits-all category that everyone falls into on their 59th birthday.

Makes you wonder what they're actually saying about themselves, not the people they're talking about.

Poke them with Reagan's age or Trump's (they're obviously fooled by the hairpiece and the bronzer, because they don't realize he's in the same category they dismiss if it's anyone they don't like) and they get very upset.

Certainly in industries that predominantly are comprised of partnerships, and particularly those that have "up or out" (at least to the point of becoming a partner/principal) approaches to career development, mandatory retirement is a relatively common practice. It's not universal, but it's plenty common enough.

• Mandatory partner retirement and succession planning is a hot issue
  
• Mandatory Partner Retirement Becomes an Issue at Firms
  
• It’s Time to Retire Retirement
  
• Retirement Policies Still Driving Out Star Attorneys - Law360

I'm not going to here go into the details of mandatory partner retirement in partnerships. I'll just say that I see pros and cons for it.

As the idea of older folks working, I don't have a problem with it regarding many jobs. It's just that the job of President isn't one that I think is ideally held by folks 70 and older. Of course there are exceptional individuals for whom it's not an issue, and Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton may be among them. As I intimated before, only time will tell. I believe that for voters it's a matter of the extent to which they are willing to gamble on any one of those individual's being an exception.

Medical knowledge and technology have advanced considerably since 1980, and I'd assume any physical examination prior to assuming the office these days would include a battery of cognitive functioning tests.

 

[320 Years of History]

Senator Graham announced today that he's ending his bid for the Presidency. Sorry to see him go for he is one of the Republicans for whom I have a good deal of respect and whom I think injected some good sense into the race. I cannot say I agree with all his policy preferences, but I can say that the idea of his being president doesn't give me pause.

what did he say that you thought was "good sense"?

Well, if in reading "good sense" in my OP you construed that I mean I concurred in the main with his specific policy choices as evidenced by his voting record in Congress and his stated stances, that isn't at all what I meant. Indeed, few are his positions with which I agree. Perhaps "good sense" was the wrong phrase to use?

What I had in mind when I wrote that has more to do with the qualities I haven't observed in him than anything else. Specifically, he didn't routinely use puerile and sensational rhetorical tactics; thus showing that he understood that asking voters to trust him as their leader is about substance not popularity. Consider too his remark about being weary of his conservative peers' prattling on and on about defunding the ACA; it showed to me that he'd rather invest his energies in something that can be achieved rather than doing it for "show value." When he spoke of the interaction between immigration and the nation's workforce, I could see that he saw the matter as more than just one of stopping people from crossing a border and becoming yet another competitor for a low paying job.

Though I wouldn't agree with the approach Mr. Graham would have taken on many issues, I feel confident that whatever direction he led us would be based on more than poll numbers palliating the knee jerk emotions of a citizenry comprised largely of dullards. Maybe it's just me, but were I elected president, I would not be interested in what most Americans think I should do on a given issue because most Americans aren't privy to all of and the same details I would be as president. There's a reason we have a republic and not a democracy. Because we are a republic, one needs to choose leaders who one can trust to do what makes sense even when the decision the leader(s) makes doesn't appear to the electorate to be the best one.

Whereas I may not agree with Mr. Graham's choices, I trust that he would not have led the country on a "one way journey," so to speak, from which there is no return. That is the nature of the "good sense" I had in mind. Mr. Graham isn't the only candidate of whom I have that belief, but seeing any such person leave when there remain in the race one or more loons disheartens me.

 

[Boss]

^Remember what you and I were discussing in the other thread about language skills? It's amazing/amusing to me how many posters here claim to be mature adults with decades of experience in...whatever...and yet they automatically dismiss any public figure over age 60 as "old," the implication being that there's a one-size-fits-all category that everyone falls into on their 59th birthday.

Makes you wonder what they're actually saying about themselves, not the people they're talking about.

Poke them with Reagan's age or Trump's (they're obviously fooled by the hairpiece and the bronzer, because they don't realize he's in the same category they dismiss if it's anyone they don't like) and they get very upset.

Certainly in industries that predominantly are comprised of partnerships, and particularly those that have "up or out" (at least to the point of becoming a partner/principal) approaches to career development, mandatory retirement is a relatively common practice. It's not universal, but it's plenty common enough.

• Mandatory partner retirement and succession planning is a hot issue
  
• Mandatory Partner Retirement Becomes an Issue at Firms
  
• It’s Time to Retire Retirement
  
• Retirement Policies Still Driving Out Star Attorneys - Law360

I'm not going to here go into the details of mandatory partner retirement in partnerships. I'll just say that I see pros and cons for it.

As the idea of older folks working, I don't have a problem with it regarding many jobs. It's just that the job of President isn't one that I think is ideally held by folks 70 and older. Of course there are exceptional individuals for whom it's not an issue, and Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton may be among them. As I intimated before, only time will tell. I believe that for voters it's a matter of the extent to which they are willing to gamble on any one of those individual's being an exception.

Medical knowledge and technology have advanced considerably since 1980, and I'd assume any physical examination prior to assuming the office these days would include a battery of cognitive functioning tests.

We're just going way off the charts of reality here. This is ALL total nonsense. There is NO indication that a person loses mental faculties as they get older. Some may, others don't. People are all different. To suggest that people just turn into jello-brains at age 70 is ludicrous. And it doesn't have anything to do with medical technology. There isn't some required physical exam administered before assuming the office of President! The requirement is 270 electoral votes and it doesn't matter what sort of mental faculties that person has. If they are unable to carry out their duties, the Congress can move to have them removed from office and there is a procedure for that. It's never been done, but it can be. There have been times when the president was incapacitated for a long period and the VP assumed the administrative powers for a while, and they still didn't remove the president. I'm thinking that was the case for McKinley after he was shot..or maybe it was Garfield... one of them was in a comma for a while.

This nonsense about Reagan suffering from dementia in his later days of his presidency is pure bullshit perpetrated by people who hated Reagan and have been trying to destroy his reputation ever since. He contracted Alzheimer's AFTER he was president and withdrew from public appearances. They take that little tid-bit of information and spin it into this unrealistic meme that he was suffering from dementia. It's just pure left-wing insanity.

 

[Boss]

Whereas I may not agree with Mr. Graham's choices, I trust that he would not have led the country on a "one way journey," so to speak, from which there is no return

Graham was an idiot. He was proposing at the debate that we send 10k troops into SYRIA! ...For WHAT? So that we can help radical Muslims defeat ISIS?

When you have your two biggest enemies fighting each other, you don't jump in the middle of it!

 

[320 Years of History]

Whereas I may not agree with Mr. Graham's choices, I trust that he would not have led the country on a "one way journey," so to speak, from which there is no return

Graham was an idiot. He was proposing at the debate that we send 10k troops into SYRIA! ...For WHAT? So that we can help radical Muslims defeat ISIS?

When you have your two biggest enemies fighting each other, you don't jump in the middle of it!

Does the U.S. truly have two enemies, to say nothing of two big ones? Syria may not be an ally, but that hardly makes them an enemy per se. Aside from ISIS/ISIL being "all up in their nation," what threat do Syrians really pose to the U.S? Seems to me the biggest threat associated with Syria is that of the chaos that nation has become opening the door to ISIS/ISIL's gaining a stronger and larger territorial hold.

The point of sending troops to Syria or to any extent using our armed forces there has not to do with Syria and Assad. It has to do with ISIS/ISIL, and the proof that it does is seen in the Syrian armed forces being unable to literally dispense with ISIS/ISIL as we did with Iraq's force in both our wars there. Syrian forces, quite simply are incapable of dealing decisively with the threats that face them.

The matter of what the U.S., indeed the rest of the world, should do about Syria's civil war that is happening concurrently with ISIS/ISIL undertaking a "land grab" there is one of doing what one can to ensure that the lesser of two evils prevails. For whatever one may think of Syria and it's political regime, one cannot deny that the Syria we've known and disliked for years is nonetheless a better "world citizen" than would be ISIS/ISIL and Islamic State were it to overcome the Assad regime.

 

[320 Years of History]

...There is NO indication that a person loses mental faculties as they get older. Some may, others don't. People are all different. To suggest that people just turn into jello-brains at age 70 is ludicrous. And it doesn't have anything to do with medical technology.

There isn't some required physical exam administered before assuming the office of President! The requirement is 270 electoral votes and it doesn't matter what sort of mental faculties that person has. If they are unable to carry out their duties, the Congress can move to have them removed from office and there is a procedure for that. It's never been done, but it can be. There have been times when the president was incapacitated for a long period and the VP assumed the administrative powers for a while, and they still didn't remove the president. I'm thinking that was the case for McKinley after he was shot..or maybe it was Garfield... one of them was in a comma for a while.

This nonsense about Reagan suffering from dementia in his later days of his presidency is pure bullshit perpetrated by people who hated Reagan and have been trying to destroy his reputation ever since. He contracted Alzheimer's AFTER he was president and withdrew from public appearances. They take that little tid-bit of information and spin it into this unrealistic meme that he was suffering from dementia. It's just pure left-wing insanity.

Red:
It's rare that I see someone write a thesis statement that is at once puerile, fatuous, quixotic and absurd, let alone their further attempting to defend it. Rare, and impossible, however, are different degrees of probability. Seeing as the aging process happens in only one direction how and when else could the loss of mental faculties occur other than as one ages? Please do share with us in illusory information that led you to write the opening sentence of your post above.

That you wrote the text in red shows clearly that you ascribe to that conclusion is because you just want to, perhaps just for the sake of supporting one or several political candidates or objectives, or perhaps for some other reason, but whatever be the reason, it's certainly not because there is strong support for your assertion. There is ample evidence -- anecdotal and scholarly -- to the contrary.

• https://www.alz.org/facts/downloads/facts_figures_2015.pdf
  
• Predictors of Cognitive Decline and Mortality of Aged People Over a 10-Year Period
• Rates of Hippocampal Atrophy Correlate with Change in Clinical Status in Aging and AD

Another study found that of "diagnosed 155 cases of dementia, of which 114 (74%) were [Alzheimer's Disease (AD)]. Incidence rates of AD increased with age from an estimated 0.08% per year (95% CI 0.00 to 0.43) in the 60 to 65 age group to an estimated 6.48% per year (95% CI 5.01 to 8.38) in the 85! age group for men and women combined. The doubling time of incidence rates was estimated to be approximately 4.4 years and the median time of conversion from mild cognitive impairment to diagnosis of AD was estimated to be 4.4 years."

Blue:
You are correct as far as I know. That said, do you enter the voting booth and vote for a president or for a vice president? I don't know about you, but when I decide for whom to vote, if I have any plausibly legit mental health concerns about the presidential candidate, the only way I'd vote for him/her is if I equally trust the VP with whom they share the ticket. It's hard enough to conclude rationally about one individual in comparison with their opposer.

Green:
So you say, absent any credible evidence indicating that the man did not in the course of his presidency suffer from dementia. That even as I've earlier shared information indicating he did.

That Regan had dementia has nothing to do with his reputation. It simply is something that befell him. Were you to have any first hand experience with dementia, you'd realize that if there is anyone whose reputations deserve sullying for Reagan's having remained in office with dementia, it's those of his vice president and cabinet members and/or the Congress, either of whom could have taken action to remove him from office.

People who suffer from dementia, particularly upon reaching the so-called "moderate" stage of it, don't at all recognize the true nature and extent of their diminished mental faculties. It may be ethically acceptable to despise their deeds and words, but it'd be cruel to hold them accountable for them. I think that with regard to Ronald Reagan regardless of what I thought or think about the policies he implemented.

 

[Arianrhod]

There is NO indication that a person loses mental faculties as they get older. Some may, others don't. People are all different. To suggest that people just turn into jello-brains at age 70 is ludicrous.

Which is exactly what I said.

You might direct your righteous anger at the emotional 12-year-olds on this board who subscribe to that mindset...except for Trump, of course.

 

[320 Years of History]

There is NO indication that a person loses mental faculties as they get older. Some may, others don't. People are all different. To suggest that people just turn into jello-brains at age 70 is ludicrous.

Which is exactly what I said.

You might direct your righteous anger at the emotional 12-year-olds on this board who subscribe to that mindset...except for Trump, of course.

You wrote something similar in meaning, and I toyed with replying to your post. In the end, I decided not to because the tone of wasn't strong enough, and the limits implicit in your comments not far reaching enough, that I felt compelled to do so. Moreover, what you wrote of dealt with a dismissive penchant among voters and I too don't cotton to the idea of dismissing someone on account of their reaching 60. Indeed, 60 strikes me as a very fine age to assume the office of the President. Seventy, on the other hand, does not.

Lastly, whereas several of BOSS's comments in post #85 were unsubstantiated and/or not generally accepted assertions about the nature, effects and progression of aging, your post consisted of you noting the ironic humor you find in people's making appeals to their own majority and then or on other occasions using that same seniority as a reason to disparage a political candidate/official. Who better than you to note the circumstance you find ironically funny? It doesn't matter if I do too; you say you do, and I accept that you do.

 

[Arianrhod]

^I wanted to agree with that, except I think you're falling into the same trap about age 70 that the silly people fall into with age 60.

There's no arbitrary line - barring something catastrophic like a stroke - where one is intelligent and informed one day and wakes up with dementia the next.

 

[Coyote]

A boatload of posts have been deleted from this thread for CDZ violations - for those that forget:

The Focus of the CDZ is Civil Discourse, regardless of the topic matter.

No Name Calling Or Putting Down Posters
No Trolling and/or Troll Threads
No Hijacking
No Personal Attacks

 

[Boss]

Whereas I may not agree with Mr. Graham's choices, I trust that he would not have led the country on a "one way journey," so to speak, from which there is no return

Graham was an idiot. He was proposing at the debate that we send 10k troops into SYRIA! ...For WHAT? So that we can help radical Muslims defeat ISIS?

When you have your two biggest enemies fighting each other, you don't jump in the middle of it!

Does the U.S. truly have two enemies, to say nothing of two big ones? Syria may not be an ally, but that hardly makes them an enemy per se. Aside from ISIS/ISIL being "all up in their nation," what threat do Syrians really pose to the U.S? Seems to me the biggest threat associated with Syria is that of the chaos that nation has become opening the door to ISIS/ISIL's gaining a stronger and larger territorial hold.

The point of sending troops to Syria or to any extent using our armed forces there has not to do with Syria and Assad. It has to do with ISIS/ISIL, and the proof that it does is seen in the Syrian armed forces being unable to literally dispense with ISIS/ISIL as we did with Iraq's force in both our wars there. Syrian forces, quite simply are incapable of dealing decisively with the threats that face them.

The matter of what the U.S., indeed the rest of the world, should do about Syria's civil war that is happening concurrently with ISIS/ISIL undertaking a "land grab" there is one of doing what one can to ensure that the lesser of two evils prevails. For whatever one may think of Syria and it's political regime, one cannot deny that the Syria we've known and disliked for years is nonetheless a better "world citizen" than would be ISIS/ISIL and Islamic State were it to overcome the Assad regime.

Sorry... I think it's pure stupidity for us to expend human lives in a war there. We have absolutely nothing to gain from that venture. You said it best yourself, Syria poses NO threat to us, they can't even deal with ISIS. Back in 2001, George W. Bush asked the world to stand with us and help us eliminate radical Islamic terror and countries like Syria turned their noses up at the idea. Others chose to politicize his efforts and turn him into a pariah. Fuck Syria... they had their chance! We don't owe them a damn thing, certainly not the blood of American soldiers.

Lindsey Graham is a retarded idiot who wants to put us in the middle of a war we cannot win! ...AND YOU SUPPORT HIM!