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06.06.13
The White House (public domain)
The last few presidential elections have prompted debates about age limits on politicians.
In today's political climate, it's hard to find thoughtful, respectful discussions online, especially when people disagree on an issue. We've all seen the way public discourse can break down into personal attacks, partisan stereotypes, logical fallacies, and other things that limit our ability to hear and understand one another's perspectives.
However, we have important issues to discuss as a collective, and when we find examples of public discourse where people with differing opinions voice their thoughts and make their arguments reasonably, it's worth looking at. When someone on Reddit asked, "Would limiting the age of the President to 65 be something you’d support? Why or why not?" thousands of responses came in, and the discussion was remarkably civil.
from AskReddit
Considering the fact that the two most recent presidents have been the oldest to ever serve in the office, were both well past the average retirement age for Americans when they were elected, and both had their cognitive abilities publicly questioned during both of their terms, the question of upper age limits on the presidency has become more relevant than ever. Hopefully, this discussion will offer some good food for thought as the average age of our politicians at the federal level still sits close to retirement age.
YES—arguments for presidential age limits
The folks who advocate for an upper age limit on the presidency cite the greater possibility of cognitive decline as people age as one reason, but that's not all. Some point out that the people making decisions should be the ones who will have to live with them long term and that politics needs fresh ideas and perspectives. Some point out that the chance of a president dying in office increases with age, and some say it's only fair to have an upper limit since we have a lower one.
President Trump and President Biden are the two oldest people to be elected U.S. president.The White House (public domain)
Here are some of the affirmative responses:
"Yes, if there is a young age limit then an older one is justified as well."
"I’d support age limits for all politicians. Asking someone to live a while in the world they create is a fair ask, in my opinion."
"I recently read: 'Someone whose time left on this earth is best measured in years should not make decisions with an impact over decades.'"
"I think the young age limit is bulls--t anyway. We need more people in power who'll live long enough to experience the outcomes of their decisions."
"There is a minimum so a maximum makes sense. 35-70 seems reasonable. A 70 year old running for election would finish the term at 74, maybe 75 depending on time of birthday of course. Just for discussion sake."
Should eligibility for the presidency be limited to age 65?Photo credit: Canva
"If the average US citizen dies at 74-76 and retirement age is 65 then the max age to be elected should also be 65. I know humans can live well past 100 but the US culture of health spits in the face of aging gracefully."
"I think the dilemma is that experience grows with age but so mental abilities decline. Finding that point where the mental decline is no longer acceptable is tough. Especially with a role like the presidency where really you should be relying on the expertise of other.
Still I support a max age limit. And you could let the older more experienced politicians work as advisors if they want. They don't have to get out of politics but they do have to let someone younger have the final say in things."
"People should be retired from politics at retirement age. As in you can’t run for office after you hit retirement age. And while we are at it, lowering retirement age back to 65 sounds great."
Joe Biden was the oldest person to become president at age 78.Giphy GIF by Election 2020
"As someone who actually interacts with 70 year old people, I can honestly tell you the mental 'slow-down' really doesn't start until the late 70s or early 80s.
65 is a little too safe but I would absolutely agree with not being able to run past 70. That would make the oldest member of the exec/leg branches 74. Five years might not seem that different but that's what I'd choose. Granted, I'd definitely support 65 over there not being an age limit.
SCotUS, on the other hand, should be forced to retire at retirement age, whatever that is. I feel that each of them needs to have more of their finger on the pulse of where the country is, due to their more impactful position; 1 of 9 vs. 1 of 100/435."
"75 by Election Day I would support 100%. I would almost definitely support 70 by Election Day."
"Agree. 75 by election day is fair. I work in healthcare and people over 65 should have an opportunity to be represented because they have a drastically different set of needs than people who are 55."
The president of the United States is one of the most powerful positions in the world.Photo credit: Canva
"I get that many people are able to work effectively at advanced ages, but there is a difference between being a professor, insurance agent, or retail worker and being President of the United States. Warren Buffett waited until an advanced age to retire, beyond what most corporate boards would tolerate, but Berkshire Hathaway doesn't have any nuclear warheads. Presidents Reagan, Biden, and Trump have all shown signs of age-related cognitive impairment while in office without any 25th Amendment action being taken, so we need some sort of additional safeguard."
"I support age limits for both physical and mental wellness reasons; 75 by Election Day seems reasonable to me, just because it would have to be somewhere. If nothing else, after 75 the chances a president will die in office go way up, and it’s always better to avoid that.""Yes. Regardless of one's ability to perform, new ideas need to come into government. The added bonus of weeding out people who have aged out of their competency is second."
"Absolutely yes. They should be young enough to have to live with the consequences of their actions."
The only age requirement in the Constitution is that the U.S. president has to be at least 35 years old.Photo credit: Canva
NO—arguments against presidential age limits
The people who say there shouldn't be age limits cite the fact that cognitive decline or impairment is not guaranteed with age and that plenty of older people are sharper than people many years their junior. Some cite the need for people of all ages to have representation, including the elderly, and others point out that a long life an experience can be an invaluable asset in a world leader.
Here are some anti-age-limit arguments:
"No, I've met people in their 50s who would be too incapacitated for the job, and yet met people in their 90s who would be. As long as they are mentally fit then it's fine."
"No, because that's ageist, and elderly people need representation too. Our issue isn't the fact we have presidents over 65 years old; the issue is we keep voting for presidential candidates(even in the nominations) that are over 65 years old."
"There is a pretty wide range on health from individual to individual. In theory voters should be able to judge whether the person's health is a concern. That of course assumes transparency on candidate health though."
"No. The issue is mental decline, not age. Different people experience mental decline at different ages. Some lucky people don't experience it until their 70d and 80s. Let the people decide who is fit to serve by our votes."
Some argue that the voters should decide whether a candidate is too old at the ballot box.Photo credit: Canva
"Why? Just vote for a younger candidate next time. You're literally advocating for limiting your own democratic choice... Why?"
"Age ain't always about the number, ya know? Like, got some folks in their 70s sharper than a fresh pencil and others in their 60s feeling like grandpa needs a nap. Suppose depends more on the energy and ideas they bring than digits in their age. We gotta vet 'em on their vibe, not just the year on their birth cert, IMO."
"No. I know too many people over 65 who are some of the smartest and hardest working people I have ever met. It's not the age. It's the attitude and ability.
And the experience in a lot of cases. The type of experience matters. If you have someone with experience making the lives of others better - they will continue to be able to make the lives of others better, even if they are in their 80s (see the notorious RBG). If they have experience with bankrupting companies and not paying their bills, they will continue to be able to bankrupt companies and not pay their bills even if they are in their 80s.
I know more folks over 65 (heck, over 75) who want good education and national healthcare and guaranteed parental leave and higher minimum wages than folks under 40."
The United States has very few requirements to be eligible to run for president.Photo credit: Canva
"No. It's not going to change the quality of candidates and it's an arbitrary cutoff. People can get dementia at 50."
"I don’t know that age limits are fair. My mother-in-law is 90 years old and she is sharp as a tac and still in great physical health, believe it or not. Not that she’s interested in running for president. Lol. However, competency tests may very well be in order. I could certainly get behind that."
"No. The president needs to have experience, a long knowledge/understanding of current events domestically and geopolitically, and a deep reservoir of alliances, leverage, etc. for getting things done at home and negotiating on the world stage. Biden, for example, had served in Congress forever and was remarkably effective at getting legislation passed despite Republican blockades: a lot of this effectiveness was due to Biden, Pelosi, Schumer's long experience and behind-the-scenes understanding of how to get things done.
Joe Biden had decades of experience in governance when he was elected.Giphy GIF by GIPHY News
I agree that we need more young voices in government but there is ENORMOUS value in having some representatives who are long-entrenched and have an infrastructure and savvy to harness.
This is especially important for diplomacy, which is arguably one of the President's most important jobs. Biden, for example, had been actively involved with foreign affairs for decades and the value of that cannot be understated. Ukraine owes a great deal to the fact that Biden, his cabinet, and his intelligence agencies outplayed Putin at the outset of the invasion, and to the fact that Biden was on a first-name basis with so many world leaders, who he called upon personally to unite with sanctions, Ukraine aide, etc.
Frankly, a young president who only knows of the Cold War from history class would get eaten alive by Putin at the negotiating / leverage table. How can you be taken seriously interacting with world leaders if you were still a kid when they were fighting battles and moving world politics?"
John F. Kennedy was the youngest person to be elected U.S. president. Photo credit: Canva
"No. If someone spent 20 years as a teacher, in the military, being a doctor, etc before getting into politics and then got the experience to actually make a run, they’d probably be in their 60s and we could miss out on a genuinely good candidate who wasn’t a lifelong politician. But I would say the oldest I’d prefer would be voting for a 70 year old for their re-election as president. I’d prefer they be younger, but if they’re a good leader I wouldn’t say no over their age at that point. But by 75 they should have no business trying to run the country."
"Personally I want term limits for all branches of government and routine cognitive tests for people 65 and over. I do believe older people should be represented because ageism can exist. As long as you are sharp, you should be able to work."
"In and of itself an arbitrary age limit is meaningless. What we need is yearly cognitive tests with mandatory independent verification and publishing results."
"Absolutely not. While some people have significant cognitive decline past 60, plenty do not. Politicians don't need to have the reflexes of a pilot or motor skills of a neurosurgeon so citing other mandatory retirement ages doesn't follow. We'd be removing decades of experience for potential candidates. Solving the problem of entrenched politicians and stagnating perspectives is going to be much trickier than adding an age limit."
Adding an age limit for the U.S. presidency would require a constitutional amendment.Photo credit: Canva
What would it take to put an age limit on the U.S. presidency?
The eligibility requirements to become president are set in the Constitution, so it would require a new constitutional amendment to add an upper age limit. That means two-third of Congress in both the House of Representatives and the Senate would have to vote for it, and then 38 out of 50 state legislatures would have to ratify it. The chances of those majorities agreeing on anything of that great a significance is highly unlikely, but the same could have been said for many of the amendments we've passed in the past. But it's hard to say if a presidential age limit is even something most Americans really want, which is why seeing the pros and cons being argued is so interesting.
Canva Photos
There is a three hour window of time when most dying people pass away.
Death is hard to think about and harder still to talk about. Some people get panic attacks just imagining the inevitable end of their life. It's an extremely uncomfortable and inescapable fact of living. For some people, learning as much as they can about what it's like and how it works is the one thing that brings them a little bit of comfort.
That's where Julie McFadden comes in. McFadden has been working as a hospice nurse for nine years. She has been educating people about the dying process on social media for almost as long, racking up millions of views with her gentle, reassuring, and highly informative FAQs.
In a recent video, Hospice Nurse Julie tackles a big, scary question: What time do people usually die? And can we actually predict someone's time of death?
"When is the most common time to die? I think you might be surprised what research says," she begins the video.
McFadden says even she was surprised when she started digging into the data and research. She noted that in her own work, she hasn't really seen a trend, but after poring through studies and speaking to colleagues throughout the hospice industry, she was taken aback to discover there was a clear answer to her question.
"Research and anecdotal evidence... it does show that most people die between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.," she says. She explains that some professionals refer to this window as the "letting go hour."
Other studies and experts have a slightly different take, citing the most common time as 6 a.m.—8 a.m., or even peaking at 11 a.m. But the truth remains that there is a definitive pattern of a high percentage of people passing away in the wee hours of the morning or middle of the night.
- YouTubewww.youtube.com
"So, why does that happen? That's where my brain went. And to me, the reason why is the most fascinating part," she explains.
There are a few different factors, McFadden says, that explain such a narrow death window. The first relates to the normal cycle of our body's energy and alertness.
"Biologically, we have a circadian rhythm... And between the hours of two and five, that is when our body's energy level is the lowest. Our temperatures drop, our blood pressure drops, and our breathing slows."
She mentions that those late night/early morning hours are also typically very quiet, without a lot of interruption and stimulation that might unwittingly keep a patient engaged with the outside world. "There's less people kind of trying to hold you there."
The dying person's personality also plays a role. McFadden says she sees over and over that some patients will wait until the entire family arrives before they "let go," while others will wait until things are quiet and they're alone. More outgoing people may wait to be surrounded before they pass, while introverts may prefer to pass in solitude. For the folks who prefer peace and quiet, those nighttime hours make a lot of sense.
Learning about death is uncomfortable, but it helps us in the long run. Photo by Sijmen van Hooff on Unsplash
McFadden then shared a pretty wild story of a patient of hers who "chose" when to die. Viewers then chimed in with their own.
Most people who have lost a loved one absolutely insist that dying people are aware of, and have some level of control over, when they decide to let go. You should watch McFadden's video to hear her best story, but the comments were full of even more.
"My good friend Donna was dying in hospice from a brain tumor and a week before she passed things looked pretty grave so she wasn't expected to last another 2 days. Her sister was by her side and said it's okay you can go but she opened her eyes and said no I'm not going yet I'm waiting for my birthday, I'm dying on my birthday. Her birthday was a week away and no one thought she would make it but she did. Her sister whispered in her ear 'today is your Birthday Sis you made it' and then she passed within the hour," one user shared.
"My grandmother was actively dying for two weeks and held on until the wee hours of the first of the month. She was concerned about getting her social security check to help the family," said another.
"About a week before my 93 year old mom died, she adamently said a few times to me and others she was leaving the following Tuesday. At first I thought she meant she's going out... That Tuesday comes and it was clear she was probably not going to make it to end of the week. I was aware of her comments from the week before but didn't think it would happen that day. She died at 11:12 pm that night, on the day she said she was leaving. She knew."
"While not quite the same thing as 'predicted,' my mother said 'they' told her when she was going to pass away -- to the minute. 'They' being the people visiting her and promising to help her during her visioning experiences. She said they had shown her where she was going to go. She died at exactly the time her visioning-visitors had told her."
The stories shared by the hundreds in the comments to McFadden's video are heart-wrenching, but ultimately extremely hopeful.
@hospicenursejulie Replying to @skinnysketch19 the transitioning phase #hospicenursejulie #caregiversoftiktok #dementia #education #medicaltok #learnontiktok #science #STEM
McFadden doesn't want her viewers who may have a loved one who's dying to be more anxious and nervous during the night, worrying and potentially losing sleep.
"People are going to do it when they do it. Their body is going to let go when the body is ready to let go. All you can do is be there for your loved one the best you can."
She reiterates that, even for someone like her who has seen and helped many patients cross over from this world to the next, that death is a mystery. As much as we can continue to learn and understand new aspects of it, we'll never fully know what it's like until we experience it ourselves.
A diet misconception ignited a fight between friends.
Listen, there are a lot of diet groups and sub-groups out there, and it can be difficult to keep track of what they all mean. Especially when you get into any diet group that eliminates some, but not all, animal products.
After all, unless you’re a certified nutritionist, you’d likely not know all the various sub-groups between vegetarianism, which abstains from consuming all animal flesh products, and veganism, which abstains from all animal products entirely—including the lacto-ovo-vegetarian diet (no meat but allows eggs and dairy), the lacto-vegetarian diet (no meat or eggs but allows dairy), the ovo-vegetarian diet (no meat dairy products but allows eggs), and so on.
Because not everyone is aware of these subtle nuances, it can lead to inevitable misunderstandings at food gatherings. Which brings us to the age-old “are eggs dairy” issue.
As one woman shared online, she had been trying to be generous by bringing over a dessert to her friend’s dinner party. The friend in question asked that she make a dessert without dairy, since her daughter had recently stopped eating it.
Easy peasy, since the woman knew a “great cake recipe with no dairy.” She brought said cake. It was “a hit.” And everything seemed to go off without a hitch…until the woman was asked to share the recipe.
No good deed goes unpunished.Photo credit: Canva
"My friend asked for the recipe and I told her. When I got to the eggs her daughter became upset and ran upstairs. My friend asked why I put eggs in the cake. I said the eggs were responsible for the spongy texture. She said the cake wasn't dairy free. I said it was. There is no milk or milk products in the cake, no cheese, no butter, etc…" the woman wrote.
When her friends insisted that eggs were dairy, the woman was understandably confused, and stated that, to her understanding, only milk and cheese products were considered dairy. The friend then argued that diary is “anything that comes from an animal.” Although, when the friend asked if, under that logic, honey was considered dairy, the friend said “no, because bees are insects.”
As one person suggested, next time she could just bring wine. Photo credit: Canva
The woman ended up apologizing for upsetting her friend, and wondered if she had been in the wrong.
In case you’re not sure who is in the wrong here, we can say definitively, without an iota of doubt that no, eggs are not dairy. They are both animal products, and are often both sold in the dairy aisle in the grocery stores, leading some folks to group them together. But they are not one and the same.
Folks in the comments largely sided with the cake maker on this one, and suspected that the mother actually meant to request no animal products, rather than no dairy.
Another case for why words matter. Photo credit: Canva
"I think that mom is confused about the terminology,” one person wrote.
Another plainly stated that “she needed to say vegan because that is not the same as dairy free,” while another surmised, “Yeah, it sounds like she didn’t want to say her daughter is going through a vegan ‘phase’ and instead said no dairy, like to sound like an allergy almost?”
Obviously ethics play a big part in someone’s alternative diet choices, as well as painful intolerances. So when wires get crossed, it can be emotionally jarring. However, as one person put it, “in the age of Google” it really behooves us all to make sure what words actually mean to avoid unnecessary tiffs and hurt feelings…or tummies.
Mail carriers are a vital part of our community.
People in service jobs can become really bonded and connected with the people they serve—as well as their animals.
For a Georgia-based UPS driver, his last shift meant having to say goodbye to two sweet Brittany breed pups that greeted him along his route over the past 10 years. Bidding that decade-long friendship farewell was nothing less than a tearjerker.
In a touching clip shared by @ABC News' TikTok on June 23, the UPS driver (named Mario) makes his way to the house, package in hand, as the dogs welcome him with full tail-wagging excitement. Honestly, without the sniffles of the dog mom capturing the video, you’d probably think nothing of this interaction.
A Brittany puppy.Photo credit: Canva
“Hey Mario,” the woman says, overcome with emotion. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Mario whispers back, also verklempt.
“I love you man, I really do,” the woman says, to which Mario replies, “Thank you I love you too.”
While the dogs don’t audibly say anything, the love they feel for Mario is also very visible. The entire video is five seconds shy of a minute, yet it packed quite the emotional punch in very little time.
“This should be a UPS commercial," one person wrote.
Even the official UPS TikTok account chimed in, saying “You never expect a goodbye to hit this hard.”
So many people shared their appreciation for some truly positive interactions, especially in such dark and uncertain times.
“THIS is what our world needs,” one person wrote, while another echoed, “this is what this world is supposed to be like, nothing but love.”
“I needed this today. There's so much hate in this world. My heart really hurts,” added a third.
Indeed, there might be many unsavory things happening right now, but so much of the world also looks just like this, full of harmonious coexistence, shared appreciation, easygoing friendships, and love for one another. Those things might not always make headlines, but they do exist, and sharing these moments gives us reason to keep going.
A mail delivery carrier.Photo credit: Canva
It also just goes to show how mail carriers provide not only a vital service, but a sense of much-needed community to animals and humans alike. As folks in the comments suggested, Mario, the woman, and the doggos can hopefully continue their friendship even if his time at UPS is ending. After all, why rob these pups of their BFF?