Resolved: The XXII Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be repealed.

I find that allowing a President to serve an indefinite amount of terms creates a multitude of harms that outweigh any potential positives. The first harm I will bring up is making corruption in the office more likely. This is because term limits are an essential check on the President"s power, removing this results in more power for the President, thus more chance for corruption. To understand the importance of checking the President"s power, you have to understand the extent to which the President possesses power, and thus the chance of corruption. The President, being the commander-in-chief has control over the largest, most powerful, and feared military in the world [1], as well as advanced cyber warfare capable of taking over nuclear facilities with the most lethal malware ever created [2], and drones that can take out any desired target at a moment"s notice. Surveillance has also become an asset marking the post-9/11 era, allowing the President to have access to any citizen"s email, text messages, location, web history, etc. [3] The ability for a President to hold this amount of power over long periods of time, indefinite amounts of time can be dangerous, thus a check on the President"s power, a term limit, is important to prevent corruption. A past President, Calvin Coolidge testifies, "It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshippers. They are consistently, and for the most part sincerely assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exaltation which sooner or later impairs their judgment." The entire concept of the role inherently leads to corruption after long lengths of time. The longer a person holds power, the less they are able to understand the perspective of those not in power (citizens) [6], as well as the more opportunities they have for shortcutting the law. And once you cross the line once, the line begins to fade. Abolishing term limits would result in an increased chance of corruption at the presidential level, which extremely dangerous to the welfare of the American people. Another reason term limits should be retained is to lower entry barriers. If a president serves after a long period of time, the people grow used to obeying the leader, and the leader grows used to commanding. This makes sense if you have the same leader for over a decade or so. As well as because the longer a President serves, the more likely they are to become re-elected again the next term due to, "opportunities to preside over school-opening ceremonies, and meet likely contributors. Their tenure in office also allows them to build support by performing casework for constituents and to put themselves and their positions in the news by giving speeches in Congress, issuing statements, holding press conferences, or appearing on talk radio or television programs." [4] This creates an established incumbent in the nation, which is bad for many reasons. Firstly because it creates a barrier to entry for potentially good candidates. Districts may prefer the new candidate based on policy agreement but did not notice them on the ballot because of the high entry barrier created by an established incumbent. More evidence of this is in empirical research done that shows that an established incumbent holds an advantage of 10 to 12% of the the national vote starting off [4]. Retaining term limits lowers the entry barrier, which results in increased competition in legislative and executive elections. This increased competition broadens and hones the issues debated by candidates to those held by the voters, thus resulting in candidates elected that represent the American people, which wouldn"t necessarily happen with an established incumbent. The final point I want to bring up, and the most important, is the corruption of the Supreme Court. If a President is able to be in power for three, or four terms, they would be able to appoint many of the judges on the SC; which would tip the balance of ideologies in favor of the President, which is detrimental to the integrity and objectiveness of the court. Having a corrupt SC (one that favors the President) is extremely detrimental because the SC has power over all other branches. A corrupt SC is the worst thing that could possibly happen to our political system. This is why retaining presidential term limits is crucial. Focusing now on Kasmic"s first point, he argues that a President who has already served two terms in office should be allowed to serve for a third term because he/she is the most experienced candidate. While this makes sense initially, that an experienced candidate would make a good president, it's not necessarily true when we actually analyze it. John Tures investigated the issue, and when he ranked all of the past US presidents in order from most experienced to least experienced, and then compared it to the Political Science Quarterly ranking of most effective presidents; he found that there was no correlation between experience and effectiveness. Actually, the presidents with the least amount of experience were significantly more effective than those with substantial experience [7]. What we can draw from this is that the idea that an experienced candidate makes a good President is not necessarily true. Thus, the idea that there is a negative impact from barring a president from seeking a third term based on experience is unfounded. The second point Kasmic brings up is that the people"s sovereignty is violated when they are not allowed to re-elect a President for a third term. Yet this creates a paradox; if the argument is that the people"s sovereignty is violated by being unable to re-elect a past president, their sovereignty would be violated even further by repealing the 22nd Amendment, as 81% of Americans support the amendment [8]. Sources in comments