An Essay on: Term Limits

I was listening to the Good Morning Bartow show this morning on the radio with David Paul and Melissa Huneke from Bartow Politics at www.bartowpolitics.com and the all new Georgia Politics at www.georgiapolitics.org  During the show, someone called in on the issue of term limits, and it reminded me of an essay I had written when I applied for the Patriot Academy. 

Patriot Academy required each applicant to write:

"3 Short (450 words or less) Essays, answering these questions:

• - Do you think that elected officials should be term limited?
• - In your opinion, should the U.S. Constitution be considered to be a living document, the interpretation of which changes with circumstances? Why?
• - Give a secular argument in favor of the “Defense of Marriage Act”– the bill that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman. You may not quote or reference the Bible in this particular essay. "

So, I thought you all might like to read one of the three essays, and since term limits was fresh on my mind, I selected that one.

Destiny Palmer

4/30/13

Do you think that elected officials should be term limited? . . . .

To answer this question, I want to give you a hypothetical situation. Let's say you own a large business. You can't handle all the work yourself, so you hire salesmen to do business on your behalf. You tell them what products you want them to present and how you want them to be presented, and then their job is to carry out your business for you. How would you feel if one of your managers told your salesman that they had worked for you for the max amount of time allowed and fired them? You thought they were doing a great job at representing you and they were very productive in their work. Wouldn't you be upset with the fact that your employee was fired by someone who worked with them rather than by you who hired them? It simply doesn't make sense.

Now take that same scenario and apply it to the government. You co-own this country, and you elect officials to represent you and run it on your behalf. You tell them what kind of bills you want them to create, support, or vote against. Then they do their best to serve you and their other constituents according to the loudest voice they are hearing. We have the right to replace them if they are no longer keeping a common interest with the people.

There is already a process in place for limiting elected officials' terms. It's called elections! And it's important to have them often! The whole purpose of elections is for the people to have a chance to evaluate who would best represent them and then vote accordingly. It's like having an interview. The one who wins the approval of the majority of the people gets the job. Although they work in and with the government, they ultimately work for us, the people. We are essentially their boss, and it is up to us, not the government, to choose when our elected officials should be replaced. It is our decision to make when they have become ineffective or are no longer holding our interests before their own. Their term ends when the people decide they aren't doing business on their behalf anymore, and they lose the election.