Our Platform for Outlining Colorado’s Future

Reasons to agree: People, like dogs, seek rewards, and avoid punishments. The Parable of the Talents tells us that law of the harvest. We can all agree on some very basic definitions of good and bad. Even if we make some mistakes, and accidently call some good things bad, the effort in the long run, will result in more good being done than bad. It may seem cruel to "reward" those who are smart, but it is cruel to those in the future, if we create an un-just society, or a backwards society. Our challenges that we face in the future will need smart people. We have to reward those who seek education. We should reward behavior people that help the environment. Reasons to disagree: If I don't like what you call "good" and "bad" then you might end up, then I might think you are rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior. It is hard to judge "bad" behavior. For instance, if you get bad grades, is it because you are lazy (bad), or disadvan...

  Reasons to agree: We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior If you are going to have sin taxes, you should also have virtue tax credits. If a behavior helps America as a whole, it isn't wasting money giving tax incentives; it might actually bring in more money. Reasons  to disagree: The government shouldn't determine what is "good" business behavior and "bad business behavior. Some businesses could win more jobs if they had 30% of their employees in India... for instance, if they keep losing jobs to South Korean firms, because employment costs are too high, maybe it would help them keep at least some of the work coming into the states, instead of going to companies that are 100% foreign. These should be business, not political decisions.  Background: Obama’s “REAL USA” Corporations Plan (Responsible, Accountable, Loyal USA Corporations) will reward companies that create quality jobs in America with tax incentives. Companies will be required to: l...

  Reasons to agree with Obama: Big farms located far away are bad. People should be allowed to have goats, and chickens in the suberbs. People should grow food not grass. It is a waste of time to plant grass, put fertilizers, pesticides, and weed killer, down, and every week mow a lawn while burning gas in a 2 cylinder engine that spits out carbon dioxide, when you could spend 1/2 the time growing a better looking yard that actually gave you fruits, vegetable, and nuts for free. There should be more local farms, and less giant farms that all produce the same thing. Reasons to disagree: Words are cheap. You shouldn't get any credit until you take actions.

Background: Q: Last year, some parents of second graders in Lexington, Massachusetts, were outraged to learn their children’s teacher had read a story about same-sex marriage, about a prince who marries another prince. Would you be comfortable reading this story to your children as part of their school curriculum? A: My 9-year-old and my 6-year-old are already aware that there are same-sex couples. And my wife and I have talked about it. One of the things I want to communicate to my children is not to be afraid of people who are different because there have been times in our history when I was considered different. And one of the things I think the next president has to do is to stop fanning people’s fears. Q: Have you sat with your daughters to discuss same-sex marriage? A: My wife has. Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 6, 2007 Reasons to agree: People get very upset with the government. They want it to do all these things and have all these powers, but ...

Reasons  to agree with Obama: "I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate." Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007. However Mike Huckabee said; "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do." That is real classy when a former preacher makes jokes about sodomising someone with a flag pole. Huckabee always talks about how he is a “Christian leader” but he made jokes about shoving a flag pole up the collective butts of people who thought the confederate flag was somewhat racist.

  Reasons  to agree with Obama: Obama is right about the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine  . Obama is right to try to ban racial profiling. Obama has said: “[Those who worked on civil rights in the past realized that] to achieve racial equality was not simply good for African-Americans, but it was good for America as a whole; that we could not be what we might be as a nation unless we healed the brutal wounds of slavery and Jim Crow." Obama has said; "Now, we have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough. As many have already mentioned, we live in a society that remains separated in terms of life opportunities for African-Americans, for Latinos, and the rest of the nation." Obama is right. Its not always about race, but often about historical economic opportunities. For instance, many Irish came to American in deep poverty because they were fleeing the potato famine. African American's aren't always the v...

Obama said: " The Republicans may have a different attitude, because they haven’t been appearing before forums that are diverse. The policies that they have promoted have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people . That is a fight that all of us will fight. But I don’t want us to get drawn into this notion that somehow this is going to be a race that splits along racial lines.  Source:  2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate  Jan 21, 2008. Reasons  to disagree with Obama: Obama said that republican policies, "have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people". However democrats have been in a majority in all the places most hard hit by poverty for the last 60 years. We have spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on poverty. Democrats have been in charge in New Orleans, for decades, but somehow republicans got blamed for their problems. Democrats have been in charge in all the ...

Amendment intends to pay down the Federal debt and eliminate government waste by reducing spending on programs rated ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART). Reasons  to disagree with Obama: We have programs out there that have made absolutely no effort at all to measure their results. I believe these are the worst offenders. In the following years, I hope Congress will look at those programs to create accountability.  Reference:  Allard Amendment ; Bill  S.Amdt.491 on S.Con.Res.21  ; vote number  2007-090  on Mar 22, 2007 People like Obama always critisize business, but government needs to learn that it is the outcome that matters not how much money is thrown at a problem.

Background: Obama said; "It's useful to remind ourselves that our free market system is the result neither of natural law nor of Divine Providence. Rather, it emerged through a painful process of trial and error. And although the benefits of our free market system are mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better." ~ Obamanomics, by John R. Talbott, p. 69 Jul 1, 2008 Reasons  to disagree with Obama: How does Obama know what divine providence is? Obama is not only a politician, but a prophit who can tell us what the mind of God is?  Obama is way wrong to say that the free market does not follow natural law. The free market works, when it follows natural law. One natural law is the law of the harvest: that you reap what you sow.  ...

Reasons  to agree with Obama: Government should not "protect" one aspect of our economy. This is called corporate welfare. Obama just wanted the votes of rural downstate votors. Obama said; "Our rural communities are the backbone of Illinois. Yet, factories have closed, jobs have disappeared, and homes and farms have been foreclosed upon. Effective federal programs are necessary to protect the rural economy."   Source: Campaign website, ObamaForIllinois.com, On The Issues May 2, 2004

  Background: Obama said; “We can restore a law that ..called Paygo--that prohibits money from leaving the treasury without some way of compensating for the lost revenue.” The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.187-189 Oct 1, 2006 Reasons to agree with Obama: When Obama makes conservative arguments, we need to be very quick to agree with him, if we actually believe in principles, and want to make progress. Otherwise we are just apposing him because he is a Democrat. Reasons to disagree with Obama: Words mean nothings. Just because someone says we should use "Paygo" does not make them right. The budget that Obama signed proves that it was just a lie to get liberal republicans to vote for him.

Background:  In a 2005 commencement address, Obama described the conservative philosophy of government as “to give everyone one big refund on their government, divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it, Social Darwinism, every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity.“ Reasons  to agree (that Obama is wrong) Obama says the o wnership society is the same as social darwinism. People take care of stuff they own. However, if the government gives you a house, you will not take good care of it. If the government gives you free healthcare, you will over-use it. Everyone miximizes their own reward. That is why the ownership society works. ...

  Obama said; "right now we’ve got a whole host of corporate loopholes and tax havens. There’s a building in the Cayman Islands that houses supposedly 12,000 US-based corporations. That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world, and we know which one it is. If we close some of those loopholes, we’ve put forward tax relief plans, that will not only restore fairness to our tax code, but it also puts money into the pockets of hard-working Americans who need it right now, who will spend it, and will actually improve our economic growth over time, particularly at a time when we’re seeing a credit crunch. But it requires leadership from the white house that restores that sense that we’re all in this together." ~  2007 Des Moines Register Democratic Debate  Dec 13, 2007 Reasons  to agree with Obama: Businesses that make money in America, because America built roads, won WWI, WWII, protected freedom, and defeated communism, owe the government the...

Reasons  to agree: 1.         Obama said; "The fact that we’re spending $12 billion every month in Iraq means that we can’t engage in the kind of infrastructure improvements that are going to make us more competitive, we can’t deliver on the kinds of health care reforms that Clinton and I are looking for. McCain is willing to have these troops over there for 100 years. The notion that we would sustain that kind of effort and neglect not only making us more secure here at home, more competitive here at home, allow our economy to sink." -Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008. Obama was saying that McCain was going to be spending $12 billion a month in Iraq. All McCain was saying is that we still have troops in Germany, and Japan. That it's not a problem having our troops in a place, its just a problem if people are dying, and money is being spent. Obama mischaracterized what McCain said. 2.        Obama constantly made fun of McCai...

Reasons to disagree with Obama: Obama self rightously accused Clinton of "resort(ing) to the same typical politics that we’ve seen in Washington" ( 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008) and then accused her of mischaracterizing his beliefs. However Obama often mischaracterizes the views of those he disagrees with . Interest of those who agree Interest of those who disagree Webpages that agree Webpages that agree

Obama said: "We know it was George Bush’s Washington that let the banks and financial institutions run amok, and take our economy down this dangerous road." Source: Response to 2008 State of the Union address Jan 28, 2008. So now it is "Obama's Washington" and we can blame him for everything that Nancy Pelosie, or Harry Reed does.

Reasons to agree: Obama said; "It's not going to happen. We're not going to go round them up ... We should give them a pathway to citizenship ( Obama at Joliet town hall )" But no one wants to "round them up". Obama used strawman arguments with the stimulas bill. Whenever people would criticize it, he would say, "well some people don't want to do anything". Background: A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. [1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position Interest  of those who agree (that Obama is wrong): Promoting the Republican Party by attacking a democrat. Promoting more logical debate. Racism (criticizing a minority, Obama, because he is a minority). Interest  of those w...

Reasons to agree: Obama said; he "will not support any bill that does not provide an earned path to citizenship for the undocumented population." Interest  of those who agree (that Obama is wrong): Promoting the Republican Party by attacking a democrat. The Rule of Law Self interest: promoting their own race (if their race is different from the immigrant) Interest  of those who disagree (that Obama is wrong): Promoting the Democratic Party by defending a democrat. Self interest: promoting their own race (if their race is the same as the immigrant). Family. Trying to re-unite with their family from South America

Reasons to agree: Under Obama's plan, middle-class families would see their income taxes cut, with no family making less than $250,000 seeing an increase. However, he did vote for a budget in June 2008, that would raise the taxes on single people with a taxable income of over $32,000 by pushing up their tax bracket from 25% to 28%. On January 24, 2007, in reference to his stated plan to take public financing should he procure the nomination, he said, "I think that for a time, the presidential public financing system works." On November 27, he said, "I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election," and on February 28, 2008, he wrote that he planned to "aggressively pursue" a publicly financed campaign, later promising to sit down with John McCain to ensure "a public system" of campaign financing is preserved. [75] However, on June 19, 2008, he opted out of public campaign ...

Reasons to agree: This bill deals with how young girls are being secretly taken across State lines for the purpose of abortion, without the consent of their parents or even the knowledge of their parents, in violation of the laws of the State in which they live. 45 states have enacted some sort of parental consent laws or parental notification law. By simply secreting a child across State lines, one can frustrate the State legislature's rules. It is subverting and defeating valid, constitutionally approved rights parents have. Getting pregnant takes a series of choices. If you get pregnant, and you are a child, you are not providing for your own food, or shelter, if you get these things from your parents, these parents who are providing for you, and you live in a state that requires their knowledge of an abortion, it should be wrong for someone who is not caring for the pregnant child, for someone who is not providing food, shelter, to take these children, and assume they know wha...

  Reasons to agree: [An abortion protester at a campaign event] handed me a pamphlet. “Mr. Obama, I know you’re a Christian, with a family of your own. So how can you support murdering babies?” I told him I understood his position but had to disagree with it. I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved when making that decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place. “I will pray for you,” the protester said. “I pray that you have a change of heart.” Neither my mind nor my heart changed that day, nor did they in the days to come. But that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own-that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that ...

  Reasons to agree: "It's not good enough for you to say to your child, 'Do good in school,' and then when that child comes home, you got the TV set on, you got the radio on, you don't check their homework, there is not a book in the house, you've got the video game playing... So turn off the TV set, put the video game away. Buy a little desk or put that child by the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework. If they don't know how to do it, give them help. If you don't know how to do it, call the teacher. Make them go to bed at a reasonable time. Keep them off the streets. Give 'em some breakfast... I also know that if folks letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch, or Popeyes for breakfast [...] You can't do that. Children have to have proper nutrition. That affects also how they study, how they learn in school." Reasons  to disagree: Its easy to say that yo...

Obama introduced legislation in the Illinois Senate to ensure that only those embryos that would otherwise be discarded could be used and that donors would have to provide written consent for the use of the embryos. Source: Campaign website, BarackObama.com, “Resource Flyers” Aug 26, 2007 Reasons  to agree: