President Barack Obama — love him or loathe him, give him his due: He sometimes speaks the truth.
At least, when he doesn’t know he’s being recorded.
During a meeting in Seoul, South Korea, President Obama asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for “space” on missile defense issues between our countries, pointing out that, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Much attention has been focused on what this means for U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system. But let’s consider more generally this concept of “flexibility” regarding politicians.
“Where annual elections end, tyranny begins,” was a popular slogan in revolutionary America. The idea being that giving elected officials too long a leash, without an election in the offing, i.e. without the voters back home breathing down their necks, our representatives might sorta start forgetting to represent us and begin to represent themselves.
Our founders were not big fans of such flexibility.
Today, our elected “leaders” regularly attempt to distance their policy decisions from the elections where voters might make decisions of their own canceling out those decisions, or at least, tossing out the politicians who made them.
At our country’s founding, representatives were often officially instructed on how to vote regarding important issues. Today, most incumbents refuse to sign any type of pledge, saying it would tie their hands, denying them flexibility in solving problems.
Elections serve voters; flexibility serves politicians.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
8 replies on “The Fickle Finger of Flexibility”
Time to tie elected officials hands, otherwise it will be arms…
It appears that Obama does not even actually meet the requirements for being elected to the office of president. Fundamentally, he is not a ‘natural born’ citizen of the United States… because his father was not a citizen of the United States.
Further, despite the stonewalling and blockading of the mainstream media, a CBS affiliate gave fair and balanced reporting to the probe by Maricopa Sheriff Arpaio that has determined the birth certificate produced by the Obama administration on the White House Website is a forgery and a fraud. (http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/stunner-balanced-tv-report-on-arpaio-probe/)
Obama is clearly not eligible to be president of the United States, and everyone who participated in the forgery/fraud represented by his birth certificate needs to be held accountable.
Brian, i am convinced you think the earth is flat, global warming doesn’t exist, and evolution is a hoax.
You must be a REPUBLIKOOK. And a first class idiot!!!!!
Paul, this is a core argument AGAINST legislator term limits. It’s the fear of the voters’ wrath that keeps them at bay. Remove the threat and they’ll be elbow-deep in you wallet. Much better than term limits is competitive districts. (CA gave it a try but the effort has been usurped and I fear will make things worse.)
Brian — His father’s citizenship status doesn’t matter. If he was born in Hawaii, he’s a natural born citizen. I haven’t followed this, dismissing it as quacky, but I’ll look at the link.
Werner — I don’t think this is much of an argument against term limits, as the benefits outweigh the negatives. It is an argument for shorter terms. If the President had a two-year term, we’d never have gotten Obamacare. Obama wouldn’t have risked it.
Mr. Jacob shows why term limits are bad: it removes any inhibitions an officeholder might have.
Jeff Daiell
Shorter terms may change the “equation”. The fear I have is that the president would be in nearly continuous campaign mode. The House works for 1 yr and then makes promises the next while running for reelection. (Maybe that’s a good thing: if they’re paralized and can’t act during an election yr then they can only do half the damage.) Need to get rid of the jerrymandering and majority-minority concept (Voting Rights Act?); throw a grid over the state and adjust it for population.
[…] The Looming Threat of Flexibility […]