We, society, have inconsistent views on aging and how we treat elders regarding their choice to work or not. Depending on the circumstance, a worker or family member may start to receive serious ‘old’ treatment as early as 55 years of age. To almost everyone trying to make a career change, if you’re older than 45 or 50, you’ll be significantly marginalized. For that purpose, you’re already a fossil. Your past experience will count for nothing and your ‘new’ status in the career places you back with the kids just starting out, except with full strength ‘old’ prejudice. However, if you’re content simply for a job that only requires nominal training and you’re also OK with nominal wages, there’s probably a place for you. Quite a few retire or faux retire in their fifties, and a third of workers retire at the early stage, at 62. A person working a career into their seventies may be seen in a positive light, as a maverick; they may be seen as an unfortunate soul forced to continue working, or they may be a politician.
There are natural reasons why few people continue work into their seventies, half associated with the physical and mental demands of the job and half with the physical and mental limitations of the worker. A very few have unique abilities matched to a specific job. Nevertheless, some work longer than they should to a point where they’re diminished. It’s common for industries that have high stress demands to mandate a specific retirement age, for the safety and the wellbeing of people that would be affected by the limitations and miscalculations caused by an older worker. This principle makes it hard to justify the presence of three very old and failing elected officials. President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Biden 79, Pelosi 82, and Feinstein 88 are not just in their golden years; all three have been documented to have serious cognitive decline. All three have abundant video showing each of them significantly struggling with speech, thought, social awareness and engagement. All have abundant reports from their own staffs voicing deep concerns over their state of mind and judgement. All three have done official acts or made egregious statements that had to be corrected. Of the three, Biden is by far the worst and of the greatest consequence; to the point that most of us understand that most Presidential policies and decisions are carried out by others, by shadow officials, by Barack Obama and his intermediaries.
It’s not the number of years that are the ultimate factor in the forced tenure of these three and others. The Supreme Court provides a fair example; many justices age intellectually quite well even into their 80s, but what sets them apart is that they seem to know when to retire. Leaving aside the questionable judgement of Ginsberg over disease that did not cloud her mind, but which resulted in her death while at the bench, I do not believe there’s a single example of a Supreme Court Justice holding on until senility. It seems probable that the justices, both left and right, exercise some degree of mutual self-regulation among themselves, to at least advise and consult among themselves about retirement.
In addition to the practical necessities, there’s moral imperative to either decide for oneself or to collectively decide at least among close peers, that an official should step down. Its wrong for an official to keep inflicting their constituency with the effects of their cognitive decline. The Democrats have flagrantly abused this responsibility.
It’s easy to see how this necessity, this concept, would quickly evolve into another farcical abuse in a hyper-political environment. Anyone of any relatively old age that was perfectly of sound mind but is very effective as a partisan would automatically be slapped with the senile label as a means to begin public discussions of termination. Clearly, this is not the case with Biden, Pelosi, and Feinstein. My point is, that if the non-aged majority within a party had any morals themselves and expected it of their own, we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in now where the living are metaphorically rope-tied to corpses that don’t have the faculties to actually lead. The Democrats 2020 were so desperate to be seen advancing a pretend centrist that they chose the Biden-corpse as their ride. Look where that ride has taken the party. Wonder if anyone there wants a do-over?
If a majority want sentient leadership and demand it instead of habitually compromising against it, the old will eventually get the signal, get out of the way, and let the future arrive.