Our Platform for Outlining Colorado’s Future

Reasons to Agree : We just want to create a good place for our people to live. America should focus on internal prosperity rather than expanding its global influence. Empires historically collapse due to overreach. Rome, Britain, and the Soviet Union all fell when they stretched too far. Military expansion is financially unsustainable. Global military bases and interventions cost trillions of dollars, money that could be used for healthcare, education, and infrastructure. Republican values oppose imperialism. The U.S. was founded on self-governance and democracy, not ruling over other nations. Empire-building creates unnecessary enemies. Intervening in other countries often leads to backlash and long-term instability. Reasons to Disagree : A strong global presence ensures national security. The U.S. deters threats by maintaining military bases and alliances worldwide. Economic dominance benefits Americans. U.S. influence in global trade and financial systems helps maintain...

The numbering system below describes a system that scores groups of people within a range of 1 to 10 by how much they value equality. These people undervalue equality. People who value equality at a 1, do not value equality very much. These people are willing to accept inhuman, or even unnatural cruelty to others, or specific groups of people. They do not value all life equally. People from their group (family, race, nationality) are acceptable, however they give little or no concern to those from other groups, or actively seek to harm those from other groups.                   These people over value equality. Someone who overvalues an otherwise positive value like equality would be willing to sacrifice other good values in order to satisfy equality. These people not only are willing to steel from Peter to give to Paul, but are willing to trample all over such concepts as "freedom of choice", the "law of the harvest", justice, or reason...

Let's face it - we are inundated with information. The problem is, much of it isn't organized in a way that helps us make better decisions or gain deeper understanding. In the current landscape, we have a situation that I like to call "manufacturing confusion". Imagine a system where each reason to agree or disagree is tagged, organized, and classified. You could trace the genesis of an argument, finding the first person who made that claim, or discover more eloquent ways it has been expressed. Each post would carry a wealth of associated information: better or more succinct ways of expressing the same idea, the inception of the argument, and references to books, songs, and statistics that support or challenge this perspective. To cut through the noise and make real progress, we need not just more, but better organized information. We should be brainstorming common interests and opposing viewpoints, and generating alternative solutions. I've been toiling away at t...

As anyone who follows history and politics knows, there has always been a very healthy debate on the issues in our country. Yet, now that conservatives are expressing their disapproval of President Obama's proposed health care plan, liberals are suddenly very critical of dissent and debate. Earlier this week, Speaker Pelosi accused honest citizens expressing their views on health care of being "un-American." And why? Because they disagree with her on the need for a new government insurance program. Our Founding Fathers would be very surprised by Speaker Pelosi's attempt to clamp down on dissent. This nation was founded by patriots who staged the ultimate protest in declaring their independence from a distant and out-of-touch government. The rights to peacefully assemble and petition our elected officials are guaranteed by the Constitution. What Nancy Pelosi doesn't understand is that our differences and disagreements don't make us weaker; they make us stron...

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/07/cambridge-police-profiling-still-a-grim-reality-for-harvard-faculty-assholes.html Guest Opinion by Professor John Evans Evans-John Harvard School of Harvard Faculty Asshole Studies Harvard University When I first learned of the arrest of my colleague Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates after he stood up to the fascist jackboots of a declasse, ill-educated Cambridge police officer, I was of course angered -- but scarcely shocked.  L'Affaire Gates  simply aired, in public, the dirty 100-thread-count table linen of an American culture where Harvard faculty assholes still face a daily struggle against profiling, abuse, and insolence. It will come as no surprise that Skip's arrest was the talk of the Douchebag Room at the Harvard Faculty Club last Friday. I and a group of colleagues had assembled for our weekly lunch; I opted for their competently-prepared Ahi Tuna Tartare and an amusing glass of '05 Hospices de Beaune P...

Reasons  to disagree People who say, "It takes a village" really want power. They don't think you should be allowed to run your life the way you want to, and so they want to get groups together, and then they want to lead that group's decisions. They people to make decisions as cities, towns, and governments, not individuals and families, because if we let individuals and families make decisions, they don't get to be involved, but they can get their hands into government.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books." Thomas Carlyle Ideas   We should allow users suggest  books  as  reasons to agree or disagree  with an idea. Now start thinking ahead what an  algorithm  could do, if someone says that a book agrees with their beliefs. Data is readily available from  Amazon  or  E-bay  or the  New York Times  best selling list of how well a book has sold.   So there would be three fields. One place where you submit the item that agrees or disagrees with the original idea. The second field would let you classify the object. Is it a  book , a website , or simply a  logical argument . The third field would be a place where the user explains why he thinks the book supports the conclusion that he/she has come to. Of course, people would be allowed to vote weather or not the book actually does support the side that the original user said that it w...

Please help me brainstorm the most probable interest of those who agree or disagree with Romney on each issue. Just leave what you think motivates each side in the comment section, and I will add it to the list. Also, tell me the percentage of those who agree with Romneyyou think are motivated by each motivation. I will try to put the most likely motivation towards the top of the list. The book  Getting to Yes , tells us that we need to focus on interest instead of positions. To understand why someone believes something we must understand their interest. What are their values? Different interest or values lead to different positions. Of course it is best when the author of an idea submits their interest. However others users of the website could submit and then vote on the most likely motivations of each side. We need to also classify interest as opposing interest or mutual interest.  Businesses interest might include low taxes and good infrastructure.

We need to have reasons to agree and disagree with Romney on the same page. We also need to have a post for each issue (that doesn't change topics), and then brainstorms all the reasons to agree and disagree with Romney, with the best reasons at the top of their respective list. Steven Write said; "A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking ." And it is true. People make decisions becaus they only heard part of the story, and they never examined all the reasons to agree and disagree. That is why I want to use the power of the internet to brainstorm all the reasons to agree and disagree with Romney. If we separate our reasons to agree and disagree, and classify the reasons we could do some pretty cool stuff with computer software. For instance we could create a computer algorithm that gives points to Romney's beliefs based on the number or reasons to agree with him. Then each reason can become its own post, with reasons to agree and disagree with it. Eve...

When wealthy people die, much of their money gets taxed. It is called the estate tax, by those who like the tax and the death tax by those who want to make the tax sound morbid. In nations that have the estate tax, rich people who spend their money on solar panels or wind turbines could avoid it, with all the money that they use for that equipment. This would stimulate the market for this equipment. Billions of dollars would get invested in this wind turbines and solar panels. And we wouldn't be going around the estate tax really, because when you die you are not transferring money, or houses. You give your kids a pile of solar panels or wind turbines. The "value" of these items do not get taxed. So instead of Paris Hilton getting access to offshore bank accounts when her father dies, she would get millions of dollars of solar equipment that her dad bought in 2010, that helped stimulate the economy, and that she can use to produce clean energy.

  Q: If one of your daughters asked you, "Daddy, did God really create the world in 6 days?" What would you say? A: What I believe is that God created the universe, and that the 6 days in the Bible may not be 6 days as we understand it. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth, that is fundamentally true. Now whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible, that I don't presume to know. But one last point--I do believe in evolution. I don't think that is incompatible with Christian faith. Just as I don't think science generally is incompatible with Christian faith. There are those who suggest that if you have a scientific bent of mind, then somehow you should reject religion. And I fundamentally disagree with that. In fact, the more I learn about the world, the more I know about science, the more I'm amazed about the mystery of this planet and this universe. And it strength...

Reasons  to agree: People hate smart kids. Americans are way over-fascinated with calling smart people nerds, and geeks. This is not done so much in other cultures. Background: "I try to avoid an either/or approach to solving the problems of this country. There are questions of individual responsibility and questions of societal responsibility to be dealt with. The best example is an education. I'm going to insist that we've got decent funding, enough teachers, and computers in the classroom, but unless you turn off the television set and  get over a certain anti-intellectualism that I think pervades some low-income communities, our children are not going to achieve ." ~ Meet The Press, NBC News Jul 25, 2004

Reasons  to agree: We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior .  " Teachers are extraordinarily frustrated about how their performance is assessed. And not just their own performance, but the school's performance generally. So they're teaching to the tests all the time. What I have said is that we should be able to get buy-in from teachers in terms of how to measure progress. Every teacher I think wants to succeed. And if we give them a pathway to professional development, where we're creating master teachers, they are helping with apprenticeships for young new teachers, they are involved in a variety of other activities, that are really adding value to the schools, then we should be able to give them more money for it. But we should only do it if the teachers themselves have some buy-in in terms of how they're measured. They can't be judged simply on standardized tests that don't take into account whether children are prepared before they ge...

Reasons  to agree: Those students in Education departments across the country have had worse ACT, and SAT grades than other college departments. They even have worse grades than Criminal Justice departments (cops). It is sad that cops can know math, geography, history, and science, better than those that we put in charge of teaching our children. We need higher standards for teachers, if we are going to pay them more. I'm not saying every teacher is stupid. If you are a teacher, and you are offended, than you prove my point. You are stupid. The facts are the facts, and if you get mad because of the facts, than you are stupid. I'm from Idaho. I'm not offended when you say bad things about people from Idaho, in general, because I know that you are not talking about me specifically. Of course their are a lot of very smart people who are teachers. I thought about going into teaching. My father, whom I love and respect very much is a teacher. My mother in law is also a very go...

Reasons  to agree: "In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a prerequisite. And yet, we have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish. This is a prescription for economic decline.   So tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country. That's why we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in th...

Reasons  to agree: "While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the way capital cases were tried in Illinois at the time was so rife with error, questionable police tactics, racial bias, and shoddy lawyering, that 13 death row inmates had been exonerated" The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58 Oct 1, 2006

Reasons  to agree: "Obama had a 2002 bill to stop police abuse. Chicago had become infamous for use of torture by police to help frame innocent people. Thirteen innocent men on Death Row were exonerated and released, some of them victims of these tortured confessions. Illinois desperately needed some action to restore confidence in the police. Obama's proposal was to require videotaping of interrogations of suspects in capital cases. When Obama began, the idea of a bill was opposed by police, prosecutors, most of the senate and the governor. The governor was determined not to appear soft on crime, and had promised to veto any proposal for mandatory tapings. By the time Obama finished his work, the police and prosecutors embraced the bill, it passed in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 58-0. The governor took the unusual step of reversing himself to sign it, and Illinois became the first state to require such tapings." ~ The Improbable Quest, by John K. Wilson, p.145 Oct ...

Reasons  to agree: "I don't want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college." ~ Barack Obama, fund-raiser in Harlem, NY, Nov. 29, 2007. "Simply untrue, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There may be a case for arguing, as some Obama supporters have done, that the total number of black prisoners is slightly higher than the total number of black students. But I can only fact check the comparison the candidate actually made, which was between young black men in prison and in college. Rather than acknowledge the error, the Obama campaign declined to provide statistical support." Source: GovWatch on 2008 Pinocchio Awards for Biggest Fib of 2007 Jan 1, 2008. As GovWatch points out, there are more black men in prison (age 18 to 100 years old) than there are "young    black men" in college. However Obama said there were more young black men in prison than in college, which is f...