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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.
I'm fully in favor of having better representation in our elected offices but limiting it based solely on age feels bad a like solution when the problem is based on problems that may happen with age.
For example, let's say you were a berry eater who loves wild berries. You go out and eat a berry and notices that later on it gave you indigestion, after several more times that berry has consistently done it but other berries do not, would you stop eating wild berries or identify the one giving you indigestion and stop eating those?
It's a silly example, but it works. If someone is capable of performing the position without issues they should be able to. That's why I'm advocating for a solution that's based on identifying those solutions after they appear so that anyone who is capable and has the desire can work as they like.
For those capable people, a fulfilling life can be defined as working the position. Why stop them from it?
I understand what you are saying.
However, why shouldn't there be a lower age limit on elected office? Plenty of capable people for it. If they are capable of performing the position without issues they should be able to.
It has to go both ways because the exact same arguments can be made for each end of the age spectrum.
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.
there used to be tenure with sanity; it was rare for faculty to stay on after their abilities started to wane. Then came the boomers.
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
How many people have been wrongly convicted or harshly sentenced because of this woman's dementia?
In this case I don't think any, because she worked in patents. But don't take that as me defending nonagenarians still working in government.
None. Could you at least read the article before making a dumb comment like this?
Should just make the retirement age for these people 65. Everyone. Senators. Presidents. Want to get a job in an advisory role after that? Cool, at least then we have a filter for the madness and your dementia can't fuck anyone over directly.
Is the occupation of judge so badly compensated, that you can’t retire? What the fuck is wrong with this lady?
I assume she's got nothing else in her life, actually quite sad
She's in severe mental decline? I thought the article made that pretty clear.
I'm sure there are financial benefits being a federal judge
Let's ask ... Clarence Thomas, shall we?
I think for her it's the ego trip not the money. Same thing Bader-Ginsburg did which gave us Kavanagh.
What's wrong with the system?
Geez. Just step down and run for Congress or the Executive at this point.
Presidential material right there
There needs to be an age limit for these positions. Sounds like she should have retired 25 years ago.
Sounds like dementia. My father in law has dementia and all of a sudden started accusing me of stealing his $5 sunglasses and being super aggressive at my mother in laws birthday party. Shit sucks when it progresses to this stage and someone in charge of people's lives should definitely call it a day.
People don't realize that Judge Judy isn't even a caricature. It is shockingly easy to just up and up become a judge.
I hope she doesn't drive a vehicle to work.
Term limits
Quick solution for situations like this: compulsive retirement.
65 years old? Get out of here or get thrown out.
Disagree-ish.
I would suggest that, instead, after a certain age or catastrophic loss (such as that of a lifetime partner) we should all be receiving regular competency / cognizants evaluations. I think that compulsive retirement would be dehumanizing, a potential trigger for senility, dementia, or suicide, and a negligent misappropriation of the experience and institutional knowledge, that many of our seniors hold.
Where are these Obama Death Panels and FEMA Camps?!
You don't need to be 96 years old to become a Putin and invade a Ukraine