BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Electorate can impose "term limits" with votes

Susan J. Ward. "Term limits won’t help; an educated electorate will." Las Vegas Sun. April 18th, 2011: "It is the responsibility of an informed citizenry to impose term limits on our elected officials." If they are not capable of voting somebody out that deserves to be voted out, then that is their own fault, and a fault of their own ignorance and lack of self-education regarding issues of state.
Career politicians get complacent; new ones work hard.

Career politicians get complacent in their jobs after ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years in office. They feel that they are at less and less risk of losing their jobs, and generally just lose the impulse to try to work hard and impress their constituents with productivity. Newly elected politicians are much different, feeling a desire to work extremely hard and achieve great things. Term limits fosters this new energy, vitality, and work ethic.
Career public servants tasked with understanding citizens.

There is a great deal of demonization of multi-term career politicians coming from the advocates of term limits. They believe that career politicans are disconnected from the reality of average citizens and of the businesses in the private sector. But, how could this be the case? If anything, career public servants spend their professional lives trying to speak with and understand the concerns of citizens, businesses, and organizations that they are charged with representing. Perhaps more than any other career, public servants are centrally tasked with understanding the real world faced by citizens. It is wrong to argue, therefore, that they are cloistered away and disconnected from reality.
Nothing wrong with career politicians.

Those that demonize career politicians have it backwards. Politicians are public servants, making significantly less money than many other members of society in a largely self-less and thankless career field. This is more often than not driven by a desire to do good for one's country, state, community, etc. This should not be spat at, but celebrated. If a public servant does a good job, why not reward their service with a positive vote and more time in office.
Term limits existed in ancient democracies.

The council of 500 in ancient Athens rotated its entire membership annually, as did the ephorate in ancient Sparta. The ancient Roman Republic featured a system of elected magistrates—tribunes of the plebs, aediles, quaestors, praetors, and consuls—who served a single term of one year, with reelection to the same magistracy forbidden for ten years. (See Cursus honorum) Many of the founders of the United States were educated in the classics, and quite familiar with rotation in office during antiquity.
Term limits reduce government size, spending, deficits

Caroline Baum. "For Smaller Government, Elect Shorter Lawmakers." Business Week. February 03, 2011: "The road to real deficit reduction, not a cosmetic nip and tuck, runs through term limits. If Americans are truly interested in shrinking the size of government -- one of the takeaways from the 2010 midterm election -- they can start by limiting the amount of time lawmakers are allowed to serve. [...] Unless you believe in fairy tales, a prerequisite for smaller government is short-term legislators."
Term limits counter career politicians, favors citizen leg.

Paul Miller. "Arlen Specter and the Case for Term Limits." American Thinker. May 6th, 2009: "If Madison knew in 1788, when the Constitution was ratified, that the United States would be inundated with career politicians, at all levels of government, with similar stories as Arlen Specter, I am confident that he would have reconsidered the idea of term limits and it would have become part of our Constitution over 200 years ago."
Voters have consistently supported term limits.

"Whenever statewide term limits is on a ballot, it wins overwhelmingly. This phenomenon may be due to the voter's native common sense. This may be the most powerful argument in its favor. In other words, it appears that voters instinctively know that term limits is better for voters than unlimited terms. In the 23 states that have the Initiative Process (where voters can petition to place issues on the ballot), 21 states have voted for and won statewide term limits. Whenever politicians have tried to end term limits, they have been resoundingly defeated."[14]
Term limits undermine value of experience in governance

Ezra Klein. "The folly of term limits." Washington Post. January 4th, 2010: "California already has term limits. And they're a disaster. Virtually everyone I interviewed for that piece named term limits as a contributor to California's fiscal crisis. Imagine, for instance, that you elect a well-liked local physician's assistant to the state Assembly. Doesn't matter the party. Our hypothetical legislator might know a lot about medical care. But she probably knows nothing about the budget. This stuff takes awhile to learn, after all. And remember, she's not studying budget politics full time: She's raising money and dealing with constituent service and reading up on other bills and traveling back-and-forth from her district. So how long till our doctor-legislator really gets the budget, understands the legislative process, and matures into the sort of seasoned assemblywoman we'd want responding to a devastating fiscal crisis? Eight years? Twelve years? More? Too bad. Six years and she's out."
Term limits pushed by those that don't like who voters elect

David Averill. "Term limits still a bad idea." Tulsa World. December 8th, 2010: "Term limits are presumptuous. Turnover was not a problem in the Oklahoma Legislature, especially in the urban areas. In 1990 only 10 percent of House members and 20 percent of senators had served more than 12 years. The problem for the Republican proponents of term limits was that the senior-most members — those who kept getting re-elected over and over — tended to represent rural or small-town districts and they were mostly Democrats. The term-limits advocates were essentially telling rural voters, 'We don't like the people you keep electing to office so we are going to restrict your ability to elect them.' Term limits, for better or worse, have outlived their usefulness to their original advocates. The movement in Oklahoma was driven almost 100 percent by Republicans who wanted to root out entrenched Democrats who they hoped would be replaced by Republicans. That is exactly what happened, and there is no doubt that term limits helped speed the Republican takeover of the Legislature. It will be interesting to see if Republican zeal for term limits remains as strong as it was back before they were in control."
Founding fathers struck right balance with term sizes.

Gregory A. Hession, "Term limits - still a bad idea." The New American. May 25th, 2010: "When our original constitutional Founders deliberated term limits 223 years ago, they decided that elections every two years for Representatives in the House, four years for the President, and six years for Senators would strike the right balance. They anticipated that these elected officials would often hold office for more than one term."
Term limits driven by hatred of politicians/government.

Term limits are driven by an odd hatred of government and politicians. They imagine that all politicians become corrupt over time, that they lose their moral compass to the influence of interests groups, that the process of understanding the various needs of citizens and companies through interests groups is evil, that only the private sector has virtue, and that government and government spending is generally bad. This perverse understanding of government and politicians is the core problem with the pro term limit movement. It forgets that all politicians are elected by voters and that voters can decide to boot out politicians if they cease to fulfill their promises and duties. In general, therefore, it perverts and diminishes our entire understanding of what democracy actually is, replacing the will of the people with arbitrary limits that may have nothing to do with what the people want and what is in the best interests of society in general.
OK for politicians to listen to interest groups.

Interests groups are often demonized, but they are, as a matter of fact, simply the mouth piece of citizens, citizen-organizations, and businesses expressing their various interests to politicians. Career politicians have a good sense of these many different interests, as they should. There is nothing wrong with this. It's a good thing. New politicians do not have the same grasp, and so are more likely to make decisions that do not consider all interests involved.
Long-time incumbents more efficiently execute voters' will.

"Term limits: Yea or nay?" The News Star. April 14th, 2011: "there is great value to keeping someone in office who's done a good job and is executing a vision the voters support. We've seen the benefits and disadvantages of establishing term limits in the Louisiana Legislature. While it has infused new blood, new vision and new energy into the legislative process, career politicians merely switch chambers. And when you've got chambers filled with newly elected legislators, there can be a lot of wasted time and effort while these folks learn the ropes."
Founding politicians had other jobs, but now is different.

It is true that the Founding Fathers had other careers and jobs outsize of government. But, this is hardly instructive. At that time, the government was just getting off of the ground, the country was in debt, and many politicians had careers spanning before the revolution (when British government made having a career in politics impossible). Now, in a mature democracy, a developed country such as the United States requires robust government services, which require politicians that spend an entire career focusing on these issues. Thank goodness that it is possible to be a career politician now. With all the issues we now face, the Founding Fathers would certainly approve of the level of focus and expertise career politicians are able to direct to national interests.
Washington falsely indoctrinates that government is good.

James L. Payne, author of a 1991 book "The Culture of Spending", says: "What goes on is a socialization process: a nicer way of saying indoctrination. One is surrounded by people who have a biased reason for arguing that federal spending is good, necessary, wise and proper. There’s no reason for anyone to enter this process if he believes it’s unwise or unethical.”[4]
Not easy for voters to 'vote out' powerful incumbents.

"Term limits: Yea or nay?" The News Star. April 14th, 2011: "In today's world, it's naive to say 'the voters term limit by their vote.' While 'throwing the bums out' is a popular term today, it's far more difficult than it looks. An incumbent who's done a fairly decent job usually has name recognition and a campaign fund that may scare off a political neophyte with great ideas and a passion to serve. And incumbents who've served multiple terms can become career politicians by virtue of the campaign funds they're able to build."
Term-limited politicians spend extra to win new offices.

Kevin Price. "Congressional term limits may make you feel better, but will not solve power problem." Renew America. July 21, 2009: "An even bigger problem is [term limits'] potential impact on government spending. Take the lowly citizen (whom we will call 'Mr. Smith') who decides to run for his state's legislature. It takes an enormous amount of time, energy, and money to get elected. Upon getting to the House, he realizes he wants to do more and help more people, and do it without the pressure of having to run again every two years. He gets elected to his state Senate and before he knows it, Smith wants to put his sights on the US House in Washington, DC. Once he gets there, he notes the new term limits and he knows that eight years will be here in no time and he immediately begins to focus on statewide office... the US Senate, Governor, or other office. In order to have 'a name' through out the state and favors to bear, Mr. Smith will send pork to the entire state from day one. As candidates feel forced to run for higher office, they will feel forced to share the wealth."
Politicians become increasingly arrogant/corrupt over time.

"Charlie Rangel makes the case for term limits." USA Today. September 9th, 2010: "Seeing Rangel about to face an embarrassing public trial for his ethical lapses after 20 terms in Congress has caused me to look more suspiciously on the unlimited terms for members of Congress. Only a precious few can bask so continuously in the reverential deference of so many and manage to retain their honesty and, even more important, their humility."
"Happy holidays" covers all the holidays of the season

Hanukkah and sometimes Eid al Fitr fall in the same period as Christmas. Hanukkah as a Holiday predates the Christmas holiday by almost 200 years [4] as it dates from the 1st Century AD. Christmas was forbidden by the early Christian Church and created a Holiday coinciding with the pagan Feast of Sol Invictus by the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great, in the 4th century AD. A significant portion of the US population, over 20%, are non-christian.
Merry Christmas is acceptable in multi-cultural society

Leslie Scrivener. "The case for Merry Christmas." December 24, 2002: "Being greeted with Merry Christmas doesn't distress Ph.D. student Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims, who is Baha'i, either. 'I'm not offended when someone says `Merry Christmas.' I say `Merry Christmas' back. I just recognize we're living in a multicultural society that's predominately Christian.'"
"Happy holidays" advocates are not against Christmas.

Many have framed this debate as if the people encouraging the use of Happy Holidays or Seasons Greetings are trying to secularize Christmas. This is an improper formation of the debate. Googling "Keep Christ out of Christmas" finds virtually no websites dedicated to "secularizing Christmas." However, "Keep Christ in Christmas" results in thousands of web pages with many advocacy groups. Some of these groups call for a boycott of retailers who are using the more inclusive greeting of "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas."
Cheering "merry Christmas" is not cheering against non-Christians

Ross Day. "I'll say it: Merry Christmas." Keizer Times. December 17, 2009: "why stop at Christmas? In America, Super Bowl Sunday has become something of a holiday. However, by calling that day 'Super Bowl Sunday,' aren't we recognizing and supporting fans of professional American football and risking offending fans of college football, high school football and even fans of soccer (which is called football outside of the United States)? I propose we simply refer to Super Bowl Sunday as 'football Sunday,' just to be politically correct."
"Merry Christmas only" camp is over zealous

"Say 'Merry Christmas' -- or else! 'MC-only' zealots insist." USA Today, Faith and Reason. November 27th, 2009: "We're heading for December when zealous guardians of the 'Say-'Merry Christmas'-or-you'll-be-sorry' movement will be in their glory, defending Christianity from a fictional 'War on Christmas.' Among the early blasts of 'MC-Only' wrath for 2009, is one directed at Best Buy. The electronics superstores, in a horrifying burst of inclusivity, printed Happy Eid Al-Adha' in their Thanksgiving Day sale circular. This year, the Eid dates, which shift with the lunar calendar followed by Islam, coincide with the Christmas and Hanukkah shopping stampede. [...] Best Buy is standing by these best wishes despite a drubbing from the American Family Association, which treats 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings' with the outrage normally reserved for profanity, flag burning or flogging puppies."
"Merry Christmas" doesn't usually offend non-Christians

Don Feder. "The Jewish Case for 'Merry Christmas'" Front Page Magazine. December 7th, 2006: "The Best Buy website offers 'unique gifts for the season.' According to Liberty Counsel (a Christian legal action group), a company spokesman claims the use of the word 'Christmas' is disrespectful. Disrespectful to who? The 5% of the American people who don’t celebrate Christmas? But how many of them actually care? (For years, people said 'Merry Christmas' to me, without inflicting severe emotional harm.) Would it be disrespectful for a clerk in Tel Aviv to wish someone a 'Happy Hanukkah'?"
"Merry Christmas" can offend non-Christians.

Organizations and businesses that have a policy of saying "merry Christmas" risk being seen as favoring Christians. A non-Christian that receives the message "merry Christmas" could certainly, therefore, feel their faith is being excluded or just under-considered, and could thus react very negatively to the message. Subsequently, while "merry Christmas" certainly makes Christians happy, it carries the risk of offending non-Christians. No matter what the intended "spirit" of "merry Christmas", this risk is real for non-Christians. "Happy holidays", in so-far as it is less likely to offend, is therefore in better keeping with the Christmas spirit.
"Merry Christmas" should be taken in good spirit

Frydman-Kohl, a rabbi in a large conservative synagogue in the United States, said in 2002: "If someone doesn't know I'm Jewish and says `Merry Christmas' to me, it's not time for a lesson on how one might greet people. It's time to accept it in a good spirit and wish someone well. I don't want to be the Grinch who stole Christmas."[2]
Progressive tax systems recognize income is partly a collective good

"For progressive taxation, or against being against it". amerikanbeat. 11 Nov. 2008 - "Wealth is a privilege for which the state is largely to thank. There is the related criticism that being 'taxed more' is a 'punishment for being successful.' Again, this is a natural enough way to look at it, if you aren’t thinking hard. Warren Buffett used to say that he could never have become a billionaire in Bangladesh. And he could only be one in the U.S. due to a whole network of conditions not of his making, and for which the government is largely to thank."
Other means than tax policy should be used to help the poor

Andrew Sullivan. "'Progressive' Taxation". The Daily Dish, The Atlantic. 27 Jun 2008 - "Government's primary concern is to raise money as efficiently and as leanly and as equally as possible. I'm happy with the government then setting up programs to assist the poor, to provide better education for those at the bottom, safety-net healthcare and better policing. i.e. to gear spending toward social ends that might help the poor the most. These are measurable, practical goods. What I'm not happy with is the assumption that tax policy should really be about redistributing wealth, and engineering substantive economic outcomes. Yes, of course, at lower income levels, a 20 percent flat income tax will be more onerous proportionally than at higher incomes. So what? Why should that even concern a government that is not aiming to socially engineer more substantive equality? and the alternative - skewing taxes to target success - is an absurd set of incentives to put into a growing society."
The wealthy pay more taxes, but aren't given more voting power.

Justice in representation. Economic equity is sometimes used to argue against progressive taxation, on the grounds of representation being out-of-proportion to taxation: While the top 5% in income in most countries pay over half the taxes[22] they only have 5% of the voting weight. This argument can be reversed into the plutocratic case that if tax is to be progressive it should be accompanied by greater say in elections for those who contribute most.
Progressive taxation is socialist wealth redistribution and state theft

"Immorality of Progressive Income Tax". The Frugal Libertarian (Libertarian). 14 Oct. 2008 - "I am certain that most people would agree that stealing would not be considered a moral act, even if what was stolen was given to someone who needed it more than its original owner. Imagine someone walking into your home and taking $10,000 off your table, walking out the door, and giving your $10,000 to someone else. There are few who would stand for this, but every year we allow the federal government to essentially do the same thing with little more than a grumble on tax day. We would fight off a burglar in our home, but do nothing to fight off the government burglar who pilfers from our coffers."
Progressive taxes adjust for winners and losers of globalization

Kenneth F. Scheve and Matthew J. Slaughter. "A New Deal for Globalization". Foreign Affairs. July/August 2007 - "Globalization has brought huge overall benefits, but earnings for most U.S. workers -- even those with college degrees -- have been falling recently; inequality is greater now than at any other time in the last 70 years. Whatever the cause, the result has been a surge in protectionism. To save globalization, policymakers must spread its gains more widely. The best way to do that is by redistributing income [through such policies as progressive taxation]."
Progressive taxes help increase employment rate

Erkki Koskelaa. "Tax progression is good for employment in popular models of trade union behaviour". Elsevier Science B.V. 1996 - Using three popular models of trade union behaviour — the monopoly union, the ‘right-to-manage’ and the efficient bargain model — as the framework for analysis, this paper provides the unambiguously negative answer that under plausible assumptions an increased tax progression lowers wages and is good for employment in all three popular models of trade union behaviour. This means that the effects of taxation appear to be very sensitive to the structure of labour markets."
Flat tax helps lower income families get out of poverty

Steve Doughty. "Flat tax 'helps the poor'". Daily Mail. 11 Aug. 2006 - "Its report said: 'Flat taxes have often been seen as a means of reducing the tax burden on people with higher incomes who pay top-rate tax. However in Britain the most severe losses to the taxman from additional earnings are encountered by families on lower incomes: these stand to gain the most from a flattening of income tax rates.'[...]A flat tax has gathered support in recent years following the success of the system in encouraging economic growth in Eastern Europe. Tories flirted with the idea last year.[...]The system proposed by the Rowntree Foundation would mean families with children in 'modest to middle' income brackets seeing their income rise by 10%, while families without children in the top-earning tenth of the population would lose out by around 8%."
The Flat Tax is proving successful in many countries

Neil Reynolds. "The spreading hegemony of the flat tax". The Globe and Mail (Canada). 19 Dec. 2007 - We begin this progress report on the global flat tax revolution with the curious case of the Pridnestrovie Moldavian Republic [...] it has adopted a flat tax - at a rate of 10 per cent - on all personal and corporate income. In doing so, it becomes the eighth jurisdiction from the old USSR to opt for a flat-tax regime. (The others: Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Romania and Russia itself.)[...]More importantly, Poland will be the next European country to adopt flat taxes."
Progressive taxation is not necessarily good for employment

Clemens Fuest1 and Bernd Huber. "Is tax progression really good for employment?". Science Daily. 12 Jan. 2000 - "We show that the positive employment effect of tax progression can be generalized to a model with a positive labour supply elasticity of individual workers. However, the wage-moderating effect of tax progression does not unambiguously carry over to a world where the union may fix both wages and individual hours of work. In this framework, the union reacts to tax progression by cutting individual working time."