I've been slowly reading Socialism by Ludwig von Mises. It's a marvelous book, albeit dense with philosophy and logical inferences and induction. I'm into its third chapter, "The Social Order and the Political Constitution".
In this chapter Mises examines the great advantages that democracy and (classical) liberalism bring to social order; namely, that they collaborate and cooperate to bring peace:
[Classical] Liberalism, recognizing that the attainment of the economic aims of man presupposes peace, and seeking therefore to eliminate all causes of strife at home or in foreign politics, desires democracy. The violence of war and revolutions is always an evil to (classical) liberal eyes, an evil which cannot always be avoided as long as man lacks democracy.
(I've added "classical" to this quotation because Mises uses the term "Liberalism" and "liberal" in their 19th century sense in this work which is from the late 20's, early 30's. We today have had to append "classical" to the term "liberalism" to distinguish it from its currently accepted meaning.)
He goes on to describe democracy and comes to this conclusion:
"The essence of democracy is not that everyone makes and administers laws but that lawgivers and rulers should be dependent on the people's will in such a way that they may be peaceably changed if conflict occurs."
Very neatly put.
So here we come to the part of the text that made me smile so much that I thought that you all would get a charge out of it, too. Mises extends the "essence of democracy" in this engagingly provocative way (emphasis mine):
Democracry is not less democracy because leaders come forth from the masses to devote themselves entirely to politics. Like any other profession in the society dividing labour, politics demands the entire man; dilettante politicians are of no use.
I almost laughed out loud! Here is the ultimate justification for someone to become a professional politician: amateurs aren't very good at it! With one stroke Mises turns on its head the idea that there should be term limits and that politicians should emulate Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus. All of our railing against "professional" politicians and the harm they cause is shown to be nothing more than howling at the moon because our society, our economy, our method of governance, and the division of labor principle itself all point to -- dare I say "demand"? -- the development, care, and feeding of professional politicians.
I think that people that are opposed to the imposition of term limits are missing the boat when they rely almost solely on the argument that the voters would be deprived of selecting whom they wish. "Division of labor" quantifies the logic and necessity for professional politicians without making it sound like they're whining about not being allowed to vote for whomever they wish.
I found Mises' declaration to be wonderfully iconoclastic. It brought me up short and made me really think about the small-change clichés I toss around regarding limited government and the "evils" of professional politicians.