Like IQ tests will not measure mental sanity and lucidity,
age does not measure mental proficiency.
age does not measure mental proficiency.
The Constitution was largely written as a departure from the monarchical British system. By not allowing presidential candidates younger than 35, this would prevent hereditary transmission of the presidency. Past 35, a candidate is more likely to stand on their own merits rather than their family or connections.
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/why-does-a-presidential-...
Here in ye olde Europe (and I believe the same for the U.S.), it is unfortunately common to see extremely young, as in literal college students, parliamentarians -- most of them handsome, well-spoken and opinionated; and some also coincidentally the children of famous politicians or businesspeople :-)
I.e., your statement is translated to "that large masses of possibly unqualified people choose wrongly qualified people as having power over other people, with important regard to people in their right mind". It is not a value; it is a concern tackled in systemic planning.
All governments, democratic or despotic can only govern with the consent of their subjects.
It's thus reasonable to dislike the precise mechanisms by which that consent (explicit and implied) is achieved in any particular country.
I'll have to look more into the 'seasoning' islands full of slaves in the Caribbean during the slave trade years. IIRC they were treated as bad as you can get, were the majority, and didn't consent yet practically didn't overthrow their dictator in most circumstances (Haiti might count as an exception).
That's the definition of a despotic government - ruling without consent. Any rule comes from the end of a gun.
The maximum age is a different consideration.
while it is very much possible that an aged individual is mentally proficient.
An old person may have accumulated tremendous valuable experience in their field but it is increasingly hard to start over in a new field.
This is even before our mind and health decays and some of us get to walk the earth as shadows of our former self.
Also, there is no required experience or competence. There should be but there isn't. Aging to 35 helps very little.
That doesn’t mean no 80 year old is more mentally proficient than the average 60 year old, but we want more than average here.
So, no, decline is fully independent from state, just like a derivative, a trend, does not determine a value. There exist GDP growth of 15%/yr: they do not indicate a big GDP.
Nobody has greatly declined and is still among the best choices. I’d happily set the same standard at say 75-80 for Congress and Judges here, but Presidents need to be able to quickly deal with complex and novel issues. That’s exactly the kind of problems where age has the biggest impact.
Would that occasionally reject some still capable people? Yes, but there’s over 330 million people in the US, we can pre filter and still have plenty of options.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump, and Biden are all showing significant issues and they aren’t getting better over the next 4 years.
So the end result of those age requirements is that you prevent people from getting the necessary experience to become good leaders, resulting in way older politicians than most countries. Politicians being too young isn't an issue anywhere, politicians too old however...
...and Biden will be 82 at the end of his term.
Trump would be ~6 months older than Biden in 4 years.
If you're too old and your memory is faltering, you're "loosing experience". If your conginitive function is declining, your maturity is also essentially declining, all but in pedantic "maturity=age(ageism)" sense