Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building, and fired. She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files, and depriving her of secretarial support. Staff have described Judge Newman in their interactions with her as “aggressive, angry, combative, and intimidating”; “bizarre and unnecessarily hostile”; making “personal accusations”; “agitated, belligerent, and demonstratively angry”; and “ranting, rambling, and paranoid.” Indeed, interactions with Judge Newman have become so dysfunctional that the Clerk of the Court has advised staff to avoid interacting with her in person or, when they must, to bring a co-worker with them.
This didn’t happen overnight, if it’s this bad now then her judgement has been compromised for a long time.
We need term limits, because once these (completely normal) mental changes start happening, the person will almost always react with aggression and refuse to ever step down.
We have a thing called senior citizenry.
It’s an age at which we decided old folks can start skimming funds off the top to make ends meet, because they are otherwise unable
It is absolutely unconscionable to be collecting social security while simultaneously holding office.
No one over the age of 65 should be allowed to hold any office. Ever.
I don’t think age needs to be the limiting factor. I’ve met plenty of 70+ year olds who are mentally capable of performing any job. My grandfather is in his 80’s and he’s a kick ass doctor.
I strongly feel that it needs to be test and check up based. Something impartial treated with an air of dignity so that people are raised respecting that it’s perfectly alright to not pass it. That should help avoid stigma while ensuring people like that judge are a non-issue if not nearly a non-issue.
But there is a HUGE difference between living a healthy, active, and fulfilling life and holding a public office deciding extremely sensitive and important things that will decide the outcome of someone’s life or the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
What if 50% of people above a certain age have a mental of physical disability(example), then would an age limit be justified? There are probably more 25-30 year olds than 70-80 year olds that are mentally and intellectually sound enough to hold office.
Tests would be a pretty bad idea. It is easy to imagine the ways that someone could use that to attack their political opponents. Similar things were used to disenfranchise voters in the past. Also, it is too easy to corrupt the legitimacy of such a test. All a person would need to do is get a heads up of how the test works and practice for it. Or, have the test designed to be too easy to pass. It’s easy to say “make it impartial, scientific, and dignified”, but that doesn’t mean it will be. I seriously doubt any governmental body ever has or will be that trustworthy. An actual age limit would be objective and clear though, making it much more practical.
I don’t want an 80 year old as a doctor. My luck he’d be hit with Mega Alzheimer’s right in the operating room and rearrange my insides to look like a Christmas tree because he thought he was 25 again and decorating one with his first born son again.
It should be easier to whistle blow if someone thinks a worker is losing capacity to do their job, but having an arbitrary age at which you’re no longer allowed to work in office doesn’t serve its purpose. Some people can have dementia starting in their 50s, and other people in their 70s are excellent in higher level positions due to how much experience they’ve amassed.
If anything, there should just be better peer performance reviews across the board.
So we shouldn’t give social security to people unless they have dementia?
We already have an arbitrary age set. We should stick to it.
I’m still game for removing someone earlier than that if they are unfit. But after 65? You’re not fit. Even if you “are.” You’re too far removed from the policies you’d be enacting. It’s just nonsense.
The problem is that you’d need an objective, unbiased, incorruptible review process. I have zero faith that any government is capable of providing such a thing, particularly in a situation like this, where there’s so much room for interpretation.
Selecting an arbitrary age has its own problems, but at least it’s much simpler and harder to argue with.
Anyone who’s dealt with someone with early dementia will recognize this behavior. I can empathize with those suffering from it, because my own mind slipping away would be incredibly frustrating. But if you’re a danger to yourself and others someone needs to stop you, whether its to keep you from driving or to keep you from presiding over trials.
We need a mandatory retirement age for federal appointees, fucking immediately.
I work in higher education, coordinating advanced degree programs. This situation makes me think of half a dozen research faculty I know personally that behave the exact same way.
I’m not of the opinion that people of advanced age are automatically less competent, but it’s a fact that age-related cognitive decline is a thing. People persisting in important decision-making positions after such decline cause immense and compounding problems.
It’ll never happen, but I’d love for us to collectively decide that a particular age range is the end of a person’s professional life and the beginning of something new and exciting and also dignified. I’m aware of the cultural reasons that it can’t happen in this particular time and place, but it would improve things a lot if it could.
Why do these old people constantly feel the need to work? I’m trying to retire the moment I can and enjoy the rest of my life.
Power. The moment they retire they give up the ability to control people’s lives.
You ever heard the phrase “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”?
Well some people love being abusive pieces of shit.
Then create a culture that isn’t reliant on working to make money just for basic necessities.
It should be possible considering we have some money hoarders hoarding enough that we shouldn’t have people going hungry and enough houses that people shouldn’t be homeless.
Yet we do.
Tax the rich.
Part of it is because you still need a gig to keep the retirement funds rolling. You don’t want to live it out on pea soup and bread.
Part of it is because after a certain point every bit of your body, from your bones to your brains, is only available on a Use It or Lose It basis with no warranty for service blackouts.
And part of it is because, and l guess this is due to the collapse of the extended-family model, lots of people don’t have anyone or thing to go home to; they’re divorced or widowed, kids have moved out, and their social network has literally died out.
Towards the end of his life my father only had ONE surviving peer from grade school. Imagine how it is to call your only surviving friend on a regular basis and to wonder, each time, if today’s the day you learn you’ve already heard their voice for the last time.
Yup. A lot of people here don’t get that when you retire the funds are finite. And you could still live another 20 yrs, even up to 35 more years but completely alone and with no income. If you have someone telling you to quit as you round up to 65 when you have another good 20 yrs of cognizance to pull income, you won’t go quietly.
And you shouldn’t.
Retirement right now is still expecting you’re going to pay your way or live worse than prison conditions. Even worse if you’re a person with disabilities or early onset issues, diabetes along with other things from a lifestyle habit of consumerism pushed on all of us by capitalists that don’t give a shit what happens to you down the line.
it’s not to say someone shouldn’t retire eventually when they can no longer work. It’s to say that assuming you’re as incompetent at 60 as if you’re 96 is just plain refusal to recognize the human condition and it’s ageism. The article is about a 96 yr old. That’s past 30 yrs retirement age. It’s only in her recent years this is happening so the fact she made it to 90 cognizant is actually very impressive either way. So just saying yeah, she should retire now. But blaming her for not retiring at 65 when she’s 30+ past that age is a misnomer argument at this stage. If anything we should all be so lucky to make it past 70 with our cognitive abilities with the current American diet slowly killing our organ function.
I quit at 35 and am now 58. My only regret was being too afraid to do it earlier.
How ? I long ago was able to to differentiate needs from wants.
I do own my own small house. Each year I have excess funds, some is rolled over and reinvested, some is donated to charity, because the small investments I do have earn way more then my needs.
I’d consider euthanasia if I had to return to work because of some unforseen reason, after deaades of freedom Arbeit macht frei is prison.
Why do they not want to ? Ego and or indoctrination mainly. (Work itself has worth for being work, power over others, you’re an attention whore and fear obscurity, or some combination ). There’s also a stigma with being retired.
I retired at 35 and am now 58. My only regret was not stopping earlier.
Imagine you go to court and this fossil at 96 is the one who determines your fate. Imagine if you catch her on an off day and she thinks you stole her computer, her files or other nonsense she’s accused court staff of doing (the only thing that’s been stolen is her marbles, and it looks like they went a few years back)
Get these shocking people out of the courts and into the nursing home where they belong
