Reply #18: a historical perspective [View All]

This is a little bit rushed, but: once upon a time, there
was a Roman Republic. They started having problems --
barbarians at the fringes of the empire, enemy foriegn
powers, etc.

The Senate's first solution was to appoint military leaders
and grant them some short-term extra powers to manage a crisis
(remember: big empire, no telephones -- "delegation" had a
whole different meaning back then.)

Then they started appointing crisis managers to ten year
terms and giving them pretty much total political and
military power during that period. At the end of the
ten year period, back to normal business.

Then these "dictators", as they were called, started getting
longer and longer terms, and the Senate starting handling
less and less of the Republic's business.

Then along came a guy named "Augustus", and they started
having "dictators-for-life". And the Senate turned into a
body that rubber-stamped whatever the dictator decided.

Yep, term limits are a modification to pure democracy.
But history shows that unchecked power is highly corrupting,
and I for one am very glad that we limit Presidents to 8
years in office.

J.