When last I checked the Constitution (you remember the Constitution don't you?) the qualifications as outlined in Article 2, section 1, clause 5 clearly states...
Neither I nor you will find anything in those words requiring the acquisition of a passport or at least 3 months traveling through the finer nations of the world to see how America 'should be'. That line of thinking belies your elitist hatred toward 'everyday' Americans who "do most of the working and paying and living and dying" in this nation.
I think what people mean is that someone
might not be qualified in the observer's mind, not literally that they don't meet the specific qualifications outlined in the constitution. And i think it's silly of you to think qualifications should be limited to the legal requirements.
This exalting of the common man is...in the words of the common man...hooey. Bull pucky. BS. We want--we NEED--people of exceptional talents, and exceptional insights. I'm not saying we often get that, but by damn, we have a right to seek it.
Look, travel (to use your example) can and does give a person greater insights into the world, and isn't that important for our leader?
In the Galapagos, my daughter and I saw an island where evolution in finch beaks was observed to have occurred within only a 24-month span. As unusual weather changed the seed mix, birds with beaks best suited to husking the newly-dominant seeds reproduced more successfully than those whose beaks specialized them for eating seeds that had disappeared in the drought. The population shifted quickly to those birds, birds selected naturally to better prosper in the new conditions.
In Thailand, my brother and I met with workers at large multinational corporations and discussed with them how their workplaces successfully integrate employees from three, and frequently four, of the world's great religions.
In India, my daughter and I observed poverty and hardship that simply could not be seen...could barely be imagined...to anyone with feet planted permanently in the states. We were changed.
Motivated by an upcoming trip to Australia, i read at length about the horrific treatment of that continent's aborigines (men, women and children rounded up and slaughtered--in just the last century--by Europeans operating under laws that did not recognize those people as human beings.) Yes, someone could stay in any state in the U.S. and read that same history; seeing the state of aborigines on the streets of large cities and small towns--seeing the consequences that past has had on them--seared that "book learnin'" into me: the meaning of the knowledge, the way it would affect my thoughts and behavior, was unarguably altered. If the experience of living in a state "near Russia" can be cited as meaningful, then by gosh, these travel experiences can shape--for the better--a politician.
And to go back to India, before i drop this train of thought: we visited the palace where the Taj Mahal's Moghul designer and builder resided. Walking where leaders of vast empires walked brought history off the pages. Realizing the scope of power and wealth of these leaders--and then
seeing and feeling their palaces empty now, because within several centuries the empires grew, prospered, dominated, and failed--reminded us of the impermanence of governments in a way that mere reading could not.
I have the greatest respect for, in your words, "'everyday' Americans who "do most of the working and paying and living and dying" in this nation". But I have the greatest disdain for anyone who argues that
that constitutes grounds for their leading us through incredibly complex and dangerous times, or that we are wrong to want--to demand--more from our leaders.
