Term Limits: The Answer or the Problem with Leadership in America:

What is so bad about term limits anyway?

 

 

 

Sound reasoning or reasons?                                                                         

My guess is that most Americans are grateful for the 22nd Amendment that restricts the number of terms a President can serve to just two.  Indeed, many await the additional limitation to terms for Congress as well.  It sounds reasonable to prevent elected officials from becoming permanent fixtures of the government--"career politicians" as is so often coined.  At the time of its referendum, the amendment was brought by fear that a President--President Roosevelt to be precise--would assume greater power by becoming the habitual default president--more akin to our then enemies in Communist regimes where only one choice was present for election. 

But as with the majority of amendments to the Constitution, the 22nd Amendment has caused, or has the potential to cause, more damage than solutions given opportune circumstances.  A few heads might be tilted at this statement; perhaps there are some raised eye-brows.  After all, who, in America would want perpetual control of the government to fall into the hands of one,  as  was feared with FDR? Unfortunately, like other amendments, when that amendment was proposed, the people forgot who had the ultimate say in any elected official in US government. Not much has changed to fix the amnesia.

The Framers of the Constitution spoke to the concept of term limits in Convention discussions. In fact, they seriously considered it as another check to one branch having dominance over others. The check that won out was The People: In the end, it was far more important to the Framers--even critical--that ultimate say went to The People to determine the term length of any president. The Framers felt it unwise to reduce their power to an automatic default vote.
 
Let’s ask the obvious question:  Does term limits actually provide the solution to the problems associated with excessive terms; or even poor leadership--or even more, nefarious actions of a president? 

Table Tennis, Anyone?

Actually, no.  In truth, in any given term, one set of the population will dislike the actions of the President; then, in another term, another set will dislike the actions of a different president--all based upon their political persuasions.  Each side will argue that the other side doesn't know what they are doing. Each side will defiantly assert their intellectual superiority of conscious and policy over the other.  Which group has the right perspective?  Term limits only serves to stop those whom we disagree with ideologically, philosophically, and/or policy-wise because we see their view as nefarious to the central well being of our country and ourselves.  The effectiveness of term limits does not actually answer the question of who is a bad president and who is not. Term limits serves as reassurance that one party will not dominate (read: control) policy over another for more than eight years. Who has not felt confident that, if nothing else, the policies of Clinton, Bush (either one), Ford, Carter, and any president after F.D. Roosevelt  can only do another four years of damage?  One of the problems with this attitude is the "ping-pong" affect of bouncing from one party to another and back again, every eight years.  This is a symptom.
 
The disease is that we lack faith in our own ability to choose wisely either our President or policies based upon correct Constitutional principles. We acquiesce to the system do our job for us. Curtailing potential damage by a bad officeholder through controlling how long they can be in office is best resolved by VOTING, not by limiting our power to vote. So said the Founders. So the ping-pong symptom shows that, while we are hoping to curtail another's stupid choice for president  (that is obvious to us), the 22nd Amendment actually cuts short our own right to vote as well.  Put another way, and opposite of the Christian injunction, term limits means what we do to others we do to ourselves.  So, the first bad outcome of term limits is arguably the worst: that we are actually limiting our power to rule our government.  This symptom and disease is the common criticism of term limits. But our current circumstances demonstrate the disease of term limits in a much more sinister way. 

Throughout most of the over two hundred years of existence we have taken for granted the idea that the Constitution requires all officers at all levels throughout the entire country to promise by oath to defend and protect the Constitution that gives equity among us.  But what happens if someone decides, once in office, they are not inclined to observe and honor that oath?
 

A mad duck hunter is worse than a lame duck.

We are at the precipice of answering that question. Mr. Obama has already, and repeatedly stated he does not have any loyalty to the Constitution. Indeed, he has openly declared it is a defunct document of outdated ideals.  In this one way Mr. Obama has lived up to his words. In fact, at the Democratic National Convention, it was stated in their platform that the Democrats’ intention is to pragmatism. The political definition of pragmatism is the act of doing what is expedient according to the leader’s interests without obliging a pattern of rule of law. The unpolitically correct, but truthful word for that is fascism. Under these circumstances term limits are most destructive. 

Consider the condition of a “lame duck” term.  The term denotes the inability to make progress by leadership either in legislation, execution of the law, or any other legitimate governance. With a fascist leader, a second term creates the flip side of a “lame duck” term. For a fascist, term limits provides fodder for their objectives because they have four years to do whatever they will, despite the will of the people. They no longer have any reason to fear a negative response from the people since they will be automatically terminated. Caution goes to the wind as does any remote observance of Constitutional rule of law.  Term limits create an avenue for the fascist to reap as much mayhem to a free nation as their physical stamina and the pen will allow. 
 
With the exponential growth in violating constitutional checks and balances that Obama has produced by abusing Executive Orders to create rather than execute laws (as per both Art I, Sec 1 and Art II, Sec 3 of the Constitution); by publicly denouncing the Constitutional authority of Congress; by using bureaucracies as a personal way to bully, threaten, harass and otherwise cajole states and groups of individuals into doing Mr. Obama's desires, allowing him four more years is tantamount to a license to increase this parabola to an irreversible extent.  A leader—a president—who can do whatever he personally desires without answering to either the People or the Constitution can destroy every other liberty we believed we ever embraced quite rapidly. 

The greatest frustration by a free people of governance may be a "lame duck." But the greatest destruction to them is the political equivalence to a mad duck hunter with a rabid dog killing every bird in the pond. To prevent the mayhem that term limits can cause under this circumstance, the people must stop Mr. Obama's opportunity for a second term.  The idea that somehow term limits gives us some assurance that whatever a President does can be automatically stopped eventually is a highly dangerous assumption built upon ignorance  and no working knowledge of world history.

Will the People or Term Limits determine out future?

Even more, term limits for all federal offices, based upon the precipice before us, represents (with little imagination) what our country would look like without fear of retribution by the People. In such a situation,  given that there is no one presently stopping Mr. Obama from flagrant constitutional violations, (probably because they don't know for certain that what he is doing is one*), I seriously suspect that we would not recognize our country in four years. There is very little reason to hope of fully repairing and restoring the massive destruction associated with Obama's practice of constantly usurping power.

The Framers of the Constitution took wise consideration that the best and fullest of liberties should grant more power and say to the People, through various protective mechanisms, not less. Though there are also checks and balances to offset the possible irrational opinions of the People, the duty of the People to vote someone out of office short of their term limits is the surest and most protective device the People have in limiting terms and  the ultimate prevention of destructive circumstances beyond our control.
 
*(Until 2010, when Congress officially opened Session by reading the Constitution of the United States,  an old statistic showed that from term to term, less than 2% of Congress had read the Constitution all the way through.  This is not an admission that reading it once through equates to understanding it, however. But it is a start.)