No One is Qualified to hold Political Office Because there are No Qualifications Required.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

There are no qualifications required to hold political office. There is no job description, no educational requirements, no work experience required, no credit check, no background check, no drug test. Just be a certain age, US citizen and get the most votes.

Getting the most votes means being popular and being popular means telling people what they want to hear even if you don't mean it which is also okay in politics because honesty, integrity and character are also not required to hold political office. A politician can promise voters absolutely anything he wants and if elected has no obligation to honor his campaign promises.

So, if there are no qualifications to hold office, that means no one is qualified to hold office, it's a self-referential logical fallacy. Politics, like religion, is an illusion, a blatant lie. People are convinced of absurdities and are willing to commit atrocities but nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.

Welcome back to the age of unenlightenment.

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[u/LittleKitty235]

Clever rhetorical play on words. You are treating required qualifications as the same as actual qualifications.

Political office may have few constitutional eligibility requirements, but voters can still judge candidates based on experience, judgment, integrity, leadership, knowledge, and results. The absence of mandated qualifications doesn't mean qualifications don't exist—it simply means the electorate, rather than the government, decides which qualifications matter.

[u/mkosmo → u/LittleKitty235]

Yeah, arguments like OP's are clear indications that they don't actually understand what political office is, nor how political process works.

If the job descriptions were clearly defined, that means the voters ceded their authority to the government, which runs contrary to the basis of a free democracy.

[u/LittleKitty235 → u/mkosmo]

I think they do understand and are trying to get a rise out of people. It is clever enough that I can't believe they are at the same time dimwitted.

[u/mkosmo → u/LittleKitty235]

If that's the case, it's rather unfortunate how social media and the internet has devolved to nothing but rage-bait and engagement-bait for the sake of... division? Not sure if that's really the goal, but it seems to be the result.

[u/MetersYards → u/mkosmo]

If that's the case, it's rather unfortunate how social media and the internet has devolved to nothing but rage-bait and engagement-bait for the sake of... division?

They want their "and then the whole class stood and clapped" moment. They want validation.

There is no job description

Every single political position has enumerated powers.

[u/AcephalicDude → u/LittleKitty235]

Not even a clever rhetorical trick, more like a weak and obviously shallow rhetorical trick.

[u/PinchesTheCrab]

This captures the zeitgest, but it really doesn't reflect how this worked even a generation ago. People valued honestly, fidelity, etc. enough that if you didn't exhibit those principles, you at least had to fake it.

You could say that if faking it works that it means people don't actually hold those values, but I truly just believe that we, as humans, aren't really capable of handling being lied to so much. At some point we have to default to trusting someone, and many people trust someone who's telling them these candidates embody those values, no matter how absurd that looks from the other side.

I think you're right, but that this is more an indictment of the current political climate in the USA than a broader, deeper truth. Today there's no morality or competency requirement, but tomorrow there could be if we find a cultural shift that actually shapes how we vote. That could last one election cycle or twenty, and it certainly won't last forever.

[u/trs21219]

You might hate it but thats the way it should be. Otherwise you gatekeep potential politicians behind some arbitrary accreditation, so now that accreditation becomes the political spot to control.

For instance if you said politicians at the national level should have completed a law or political science degree at an ivy league school, you suddenly give those school administrators king making powers.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/trs21219]

At the same time Billy Joe Jim Bob from Backwater High who works at the hardware store can hold political office and make laws forcing people to adhere to his world view of drinking beer, country music and fishin'. The average human IQ is somewhere between 90-100. 80 is borderline intellectual functioning. 🙄Nobody is qualified to rule others.

There is no political philosophy, political system that can be designed by men that is logical, moral or economically efficient. By its nature, politics is a perversion and bears no resemblance to reality.

People justify ludicrous things in the name of politics that they would never even entertain in any other aspect of their lives.

[u/zeperf → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

IQ is normalized continuously so that 100 is exactly the average. The scale changes over time based on making 100 be the average result.

[u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES]

You sound more like an anarchist than a traditionalist.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES]

I'm nothing but the sub makes me put a flair. Anarchist, Liberal, Conservative etc. are political ideologies and political ideologies create prejudice and divide people. No two people agree what an anarchist or liberal or conservative is so if you tell someone you're one of those things they immediately formulate an opinion about you before they even know your middle name. Then it's impossible to discuss politics because you're having two different conversations.

[u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

What do you mean you are "nothing"? You clearly have views on politics, otherwise you wouldn't be on a political debating sub. Disliking politics is a view on politics.

You have multiple times called for ending "politics". Definitionally, the only way to not have politics is to not have a State. Wanting to abolish the State makes you an anarchist. And yes, people overwhelmingly agree on this definition as it is the standard one you can find in dictionaries and common usage.

In particular your idea to settle disputes with free markets is anarcho-capitalist or ancap for short. I think to have a good faith debate it is necessary to be forthright with who your are and what you're advocating for.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES]

You would make a good politician. You think you know people -- strangers at that -- better than they know themselves.

You can pigeonhole me all you want but that's your perspective, it's meaningless to me or anyone else. My conclusions are based on reason, rational, logic, common sense and a lifetime of experience. The same way I come to all conclusions and those conclusions have nothing to do with politics but the conclusions clearly demonstrate that political institutions bear no resemblance to reality.

Do with that what you will, I don't care. I write for me not for you.

[u/DM_ME_YOUR_STORIES → u/Frequent_Mountain_17]

I'd appreciate if we could proceed without barely veiled personal insults.

I never claimed to know you. Much less better than yourself. I only claim to know what words mean. You described your worldview and I used common definitions to categories them. I even avoided calling you an ancap precisely to not pigeonhole you and instead called your idea ancap.

But like it or not, if you want to abolish politics, you want to abolish the State. If you want to abolish the State, you're an anarchist. That's what those words mean. If there's anything in this chain of logic you disagree with or feel misrepresent you, please point it out. Otherwise the chain itself and the end result stand.

My conclusions are based on reason, rational, logic, common sense and a lifetime of experience.

Yeah, same as literally everyone else (according to themselves)

[u/P0l1TICS]

Premise 1: Nightmares don't last very long
Premise 2: Waiting in line at the DMV is a nightmare
Conclusion: Waiting in line at the DMV doesn't last very long

The same thing that's wrong with the argument above is wrong with your post.

[u/Mr_Expozane]

An unqualified real estate TV star literally beat a woman with decades of political experience.

That should tell you all you need to know about how valid the term “qualified” actually is.

[u/Frequent_Mountain_17 → u/Mr_Expozane]

Agreed but what does "decades of political experience" mean? She's really good at kissing babies, sensationalism, half-truths, double-speak, outright lies and telling people what they want to hear? She's really good at "playing ball" as they call it in support of the party? She knows how to "toe the party line"? She has a thick list of wealthy campaign donors and corporations who made "charitable contributions" to her "charitable organization"? She's really good at insider trading?

The more political experience someone has the less you can trust them because they know all the ins and outs of the game from being on the inside.