Are we past the time when anyone can grow up to be president?

Do you have a driver's license? Did you have to study for it; pass a written and/or road test? Is being a member of Congress or the President more or less important than driving a vehicle?

Do doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, and almost every profession, require practitioners to have years of training, education and/or experience and qualify for and receive a license to legally practice their profession? Are any of these professions less critical to the well-being of the citizens of the US than being a member of Congress or the President?

Proud Boy, Steve Sack cartoon

In the United States, "The following classes of people are ineligible to possess, receive, ship, or transport firearms or ammunition:

• Those convicted of crimes punishable by imprisonment for over one year, except state misdemeanors punishable by two years or less.
• Fugitives from justice.
• Unlawful users of certain depressant, narcotic, or stimulant drugs.
• Those adjudicated as mental defectives or incompetents or those committed to any mental institution.
• Illegal aliens.
• Citizens who have renounced their citizenship.
• Those persons dishonorably discharged from the Armed Forces.
• Persons less than 18 years of age for the purchase of a shotgun or rifle.
• Persons less than 21 years of age for the purchase of a firearm that is other than a shotgun or rifle.
• Persons subject to a court order that restrains such persons from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner.
• Persons convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.

Persons under indictment for a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year are ineligible to receive, transport, or ship any firearm or ammunition. Under limited conditions, relief from disability may be obtained from the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, or through a pardon, expungement, restoration of rights, or setting aside of a conviction."

It appears there are fewer restrictions on being eligible to run for and be elected to Congress or become President than to own a gun or ammunition. The sections below are taken from the Constitution:

• No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
  — U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 2, clause 2
  


• No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
  — U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 3


• No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained.
  — U.S. Constitution, Article II, section 1, clause 5

Just off the top of our head, in light of recent events in several state capitals and in the nation's capital, we raise the question of whether the current situation makes sense and whether we have adequate safeguards to protect ourselves from those who would become dictators or start an undeclared nuclear war.

The world has changed substantially since the founding of the US. There has been a substantial broadening of those classes of persons eligible to vote. Shouldn't there be a conscious and careful reconsideration of the eligibility requirements of those we would have represent US at the highest levels?

A Song: Lying is an occupation

By Laetitia Pilkington

Lying is an occupation,

     Used by all who mean to rise;

Politicians owe their station,

     But to well concerted lies.

These to lovers give assistance,

     To ensnare the fair-one's heart;

And the virgin's best resistance

     Yields to this commanding art.

Study this superior science,

     Would you rise in Church or State;

Bid to Truth a bold defiance,

     'Tis the practice of the great.

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