572
Haley Questions if Trump Is ‘Mentally Fit’ After He Confused Her With Pelosi
(www.thedailybeast.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
572 points (96.7% liked)
News
23361 readers
3785 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This could be weaponized as a tool of discrimination to keep minority groups or the impoverished out of office by constructing purposefully confusing questions. Just like the Jim Crow Era laws requiring people pass literacy tests to vote.
I get the problem, but I don't think it's really applicable. Voting is a basic right of every citizen of the country. Presidency is not for everyone. You wouldn't want a translator who doesn't know the languages they're supposed to translate? Why would you accept a president who is, let's say mentally challenged?
I could understand objecting to specifics, like why should mental aptitude get tested, but I don't understand being against the whole idea. IMO presidency is like a job and like most jobs there are specific requirements that a person needs to meet to be fit for that job. I don't think it's unreasonable to have certain expectations of people who are running for president.
It’s a good idea but completely meaningless because the “tests” will be biased and run by sycophants on both sides.
Wow. I never thought about this. I doubt there will be a time anytime soon where I'd be ok voting for a president who isn't fluent in english. I'd almost be ok with a grammar test including diagramming sentences from the Constitution.
But since I'm a liberal I'd accept the test also being done in a relevant First Nation's language.
Think about it this way. Many LGBTQ+ identites have been considered to make people "mentally unwell" (even to this day, the way stuff like being trans or asexual is talked about is.... >.<). Or what about, say an autistic person who may do exceptionally well in one part of the test but fail some other parts (or even be unable to complete them).
This isn't even starting on the issues of socioeconomic and cultural biases (which have been discussed elsewhere in depth).
The problem is "mental competency" is a pretty damn flexible concept and one that is frequently weaponised en-masse against various groups of people to strip away agency >.<, as it is often based on ideas which have primarily been from very specific perspectives, which can be malicious (see disenfranchisment of black people), or dehumanisation (see the fact that the Double Empathy Problem associated with autistic people was only really acknowledged in the past 10 years when they actually considered how their behaviour could appear from autistic people's perspective, and only really because autistic autism researchers got some publishing and papers <.<), or simple incompetence, or any combination.
There's many more examples of this, that I haven't even started covering. The fact is that any "mental competency" requirement for a public office implies some kind of testing and barring process, which is ripe with all the flaws listed many times :p
Just publicize the questions results, judges/proctors, etc.
This makes sense when it comes to voting restrictions. I'd say anyone seeking office in the U.S. should be able to speak fluent English (as that's the language their job will be conducted in) and be able to pass an aptitude test.
This test should be taken alone, in public view, and on camera, probably only after winning an election and failure means the runner up gets the position assuming they can pass the test.
It has to be before even filing to run for office if we bother with such a thing. I'm skeptical of the idea as a whole, but doing it after the election would cause a crisis of faith and legitimacy in the government. Not only are you depriving voters of the chance to learn the mental fortitude of candidates before they cast their vote, but you're also invalidating their votes after the election.
You might be right, I'm skeptical as well that anything like this could actually be accomplished while minimizing corruption. There would be a different set of problems if done before the election.
COULD, not WOULD.
If you don't make any rules that the fascists might want to abuse, you don't make any rules.
Your slippery slope fallacy does not invalidate the need to make sure that public officials are fit to carry out their duties.
pretty sure the last century of American politics has borne out that any statutes related to politicking that could be weaponized HAVE BEEN. nice try tho!