alt Hacker News> How realistic is this though? Getting elected to Congress usually means having some other prior government experience, or your opponents attack you with "why would you give this person responsibility at a congressional level if they've never even worked in local politics?" Not to mention you need name recognition, a history in government that people can use to understand your values as acted, relationships in government to accomplish anything.
I would contend there are plenty of people in lower levels who can move up or not. Was the mayor of the next town over any good and thus I want to send them onto state congress? Was a library board member two towns over good and I want them in the US house? For that matter, do they run a good honest business (there are lots of businesses) that I can check out locally and thus I want to risk them.
The real key is that term limits need to apply to everyone and so nobody will bother asking about experience as there isn't anything more on their side to fall back on.
Though in the end you are probably right - doesn't mean I like it.
> As I get older it seems that liberal democracy basically requires career bureaucrats to function.
I agree, but the people in congress should not be the career bureaucrats.
> For that matter, do they run a good honest business (there are lots of businesses) that I can check out locally and thus I want to risk them.
It's always funny to me how much people hand wring over politicians and then they somehow believe that putting someone who currently and actively has large personal interests and incentives to make government worse for people for their own gain is somehow a good thing
If you think politicians doing things to affect their bottom line through stocks is bad, surely you recognize how crystal clear and more direct the incentive is to do that kind of thing when your "asset" is your own business that can't be easily pivoted and depends on labor being cheap and desperate?
Nevermind that those kind of people just usually have radically different worldviews about what a government SHOULD do, and that worldview almost never allows for government preventing them from harming people for profit