Should there be a mandatory law for a female Pres?

Welcome, and please do not feed the animals . . .

I am really at a loss as to where you would find material for the first topic. My personal reaction is that such a law would be antithetical to the notion of a genuine repubican democracy.

As for Hussein, i rather doubt that we will be able to anything other than to turn him over to the Iraqis--lynch mob or not.

Welcome, Kerry.

If I understand your question correctly then the answer is no, just as a law for a male President, or a Caucasian President, or a son-of-a-wealthy-scion President should not be mandatory.

The criteria to be eligible to stand for the office, as well as the process by which (s)he is elected, is set forth in the Constitution.

Seems to be working pretty well to me.

(You are welcome to quote me without attribution.)

Second question: Yes.

1) What sort of law would there be for a female President? That she can't be of child-bearing age? Then what happens if a woman has had a hysterectomy in order to run? Or that she should have had military service? There are plenty of women who fit the bill, but we don't require this for men. That she should be married? Unmarried? Gay? Straight? Have kids? Have no kids? Be able to make a pot roast?

I can't conceive of there being any need for any particular law for female Presidents that would not violate Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

2) Saddam should be tried in an international tribunal. The US does not appear to have jurisdiction. Very likely this trial would be held in the Hague, and it would probably involve a panel of judges, many if not most of whom should be Iraqis.

PS Welcome to able2know!

I think Kerry is referring to a law that would require a female president -- a quota sort of thing.

I hate race/gender quotas with a passion.

However, for the sake of your debate, you should use the law.

Loook up gender quota laws for other jobs, and find a way of applying those laws to the position of president.

It would be easier to argue it as a numeric requirement for party nominations - that they had to select a certain percentage of females vs. males to enter the primaries.

The idea of making new laws based on old rulings is called precedent.

Re: Should there be a mandatory law for a female Pres?
Kerry's Girl:

What exactly are you trying to do? Are you trying to find out whether it would be a good idea to actually do these things, or have you been assigned a position to defend and are now looking for reasons to defend it? I assume it is the latter.

The standard argument for quotas is that political out-groups such as blacks and women are trapped in a vicious cycle. They have trouble getting influential positions because they have no role models and because these positions are protected by self-perpetuating old-boy-networks. And they can't get role models or call "one of the girls" because no "girl" has yet broken into that circle. The argument is that quotas break this vicious circle and leapfrogs the equalization process over this hurdle. I am no expert on feminism, but feminist websites like equalitynow.org should get you started.

To take a position as extreme as a quota for president, you'll have to add a lot of rhetorical sound and fury. Soundbites I imagine: "Even muslim countries like Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh had their female presidents. It's time America gets one too." "Women in this country have been good enough to vote for 80 years not. But when it comes to getting voted for, we're still hitting a glass ceiling. We're sick and tired of that."

War criminal. Plus: Iraq has no recent history with fair trials, and America didn't fight for democracy to have the former president convicted in a monkey trial. Better do it in the International Court of Justice in Den Haag. It's a nice gesture to the UN too.

I'm sure there are other ideas, but these are the ones I came up with from the top of my head.

Re: Should there be a mandatory law for a female Pres?


Wow, Thomas. Who do you work for? *shivers* you are errily good at sounbyting. Seek career as contemporary artist, politician's aid, or in advertisting!

My question is, how are you going to enforce a law like that? It's kind of ridiculous. It's all about freedom of choice. Besides, if such a law existed, wouldn't that imply an automatic shoe-in for a female candidate running against a male candidate? Where is the democracy in that?

What I don't understand is where people are getting the quota idea. It isn't mentioned in her post at all.

I'm not sure WHAT she means... would be interested in clarification.

I was going just from the title; "Should there be a mandatory law for female Pres?"

Kerrysgirl, care to clarify?

She did in her first post. She needs to argue -for- the position for her debate class. That's why I was mentioning that she could argue from a preliminary quota standpoint.

As for actually requiring such a thing, that would be just as bad as other race/gender quotas, only much more public.

If there were a quota, what about transsexuals? That would really muddy the waters!

What she really needs to do is her own homework!

I'm all for helping out a student with other opinions, but she also asked for web sites to help back up any arguments she would present. Now that is something she needs to do for herself!

agreed

Thank you everyone who gave your honest opinions on my subjects. I came in second place and am now going to state. So thank you all very much. You are greatly appreciated, and for you all who said I need to do my own homework. Next time you need not post, because this was an extracurricular activity F.Y.I.

Congratulations, Kerry.

Post any time you have a question, and encourage your friends to do so as well.

All of us learned from someone, too.

Since I was the only one who stated it, I guess your comment was directed at myself.

You did not state it was an extracurricular activity. Your second question was one that made me question how much you were doing on your own since the answer should be one you could easily find on your own. I have encountered students before who do as little as they can for assignments. If a student doesn't try to obtain answers on their own, what is the point of learning?

I still don't know what your debate was about. Your initial question about a mandatory law for a female president wasn't very clear. And judging from the responses, I was not the only one who wasn't clear on the nature of your question.

Congrats. So, what angle did you use?

First of all I think I said "Debate Team" that sounds pretty extracurricular to me. Don't you think?




This is kerry'sgirls teammate in the Debate team. I have been reading the posts and I helped her write the last on to thank you all and the one replying to the whole "we should do our own homework." As far as you saying that you didn't quite understand the meaning of a mandatory female president. We didn't either. We got a sheet of paper that had our debate topics on it. And what we posted was exactly what the paper said word for word. So we were kinda confused too. And this is me trying to be polite. We are hard working students and next time instead of being judgemental, why don't you just ask us are we doing our own work. Because if we made it to state we obviously worked hard to get there.

Thank you,
Caprice :wink: