Remember When?

Let's get nostalgic today. Were you alive when the following events occurred:

• 1955 - Elvis Presley appears on television for the first time.
• 1959 - Ford discontinues the Edsel.
• 1962 - The Beatles record their first song.
• 1963 - President Kennedy is assassinated.
• 1965 - The second season of the New York World's Fair opens.
• 1968 - McDonalds introduces the Big Mac

These events occurred a long time ago. Prior to the Internet, iPods, cable television, fax machines, email, hybrid cars, personal computers, Google, microwave ovens, cell phones, disco, death of disco (thank heavens), prior to any terrorist attacks, prior to when we knew there were Kurds/Shiite/Sunnis, and prior to Jon and Kate.

Now consider the following, recent office holding politicians:

• John Dingell - first elected to the House in 1955 (54 years ago)
• Robert Byrd - first elected to the Senate in 1959 (50 years ago)
• Ted Kennedy - first elected to the Senate in 1962 (47 years ago)
• Daniel Inouye - first elected to the Senate in 1963 (46 years ago)
• John Conyers - first elected to the House in 1965 (44 years ago)
• Ted Stevens - first elected to the Senate in 1968 (41 years ago)

I am a great believer that if you are not part of the solution then you must be part of the problem. Given how poorly the country has been run over the past 40 years or so, (we still have a drug problem, we still having failing public education, we still have rising health care costs, we still have no national energy program, we still have Social Security and Medicare heading for bankruptcy, etc.) could it be that these folks and others like them that have long tenures in office are part of the problem? They were elected in totally different eras of world history, eras that are long gone.

Thus, one of the most important steps in "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" is to limit the length of politicians' tenures in both the Senate and House. This step will ensure that 1) fresh ideas, minds, and viewpoints are constantly passing through both chambers since keeping the same minds in office decade after decade does not seem to be working and 2) it would hopefully remove much of the corrupting money that goes into election campaigns since politicians would only get one term, possibly freeing them up to make the tough decisions that benefit America rather than the short term, selfish reelection campaign financing decisions they make today.