CO-04 (Special Election)
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(R) Greg Lopez
(R) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
President (To Win Colorado)
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(D) Joe Biden*
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%↓
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
90%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
90%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
(R) Ron Hanks
40%
30%
20%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert
(R) Deborah Flora
(R) J. Sonnenberg
30%↑
15%↑
10%↓
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Dave Williams
(R) Jeff Crank
50%↓
50%↑
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
90%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) Brittany Pettersen
85%↑
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
(R) Janak Joshi
60%↑
35%↓
30%↑
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
April 22, 2009 01:00 AM UTC
40 Comments
What’s up?
Most of which has been expressed beautifully by others.
This sucks. This really really sucks. It’s not discussion when everyone agrees, it’s mutual masturbation. I say we tell Haners he’s not allowed to leave.
ps – thank you for the kind words.
I don’t agree that we’ll all agree even if every last conservative leaves. And I just proved it!
see ya Haners!
That tickles!
I check in here occasionally, and what do I find? My favorite conservative coming out of the liberal ozone, and back into the real world.
I enjoyed my time here, and you were part of that. We disagreed on the 5th CD race on a regular basis, and remain friends to the end.
You are a class act young man. I wish you the best.
NEWSMAN
I don’t know what to say. Thanks so much for the kind words. Coming from you, it means a great deal.
It’s been really fun discussing politics with you this past year or so. I hate to see you go. You’re by far one of the most level-headed conservatives I’ve ever met, and I always appreciate the way you try to have a conversation without compromising your principles.
Shoot me an e-mail sometime: redstateblues2008@gmail.com
You’re a good guy, but the people who say conservatives should flee this blog are wrong. I’ve been reading this blog since 2005 and I really don’t see what the big deal is with these “Dead Governors”–their arguments aren’t that strong and they have lost debates before. Warriors take the fight to the enemy, and they are stupid enough to allow us in.
I should stop before I give them any ideas. Anyway, thanks for all the reasonable things you’ve written here. I personally think 2010 is our comeback year, and I think I’ll be here rubbing some anonymous blogger face in that.
Been eating your Wheaties I see.
Please come back to do that in December ’10.
I will be accepting your apologies.
The rug is coming out from under the Democrat Party’s feet, and you’re all still mesmerized by Obama’s bedazzling speech at Invesco. Hey Pols, you guys were there, right?
CLOUDED YOUR JUDGMENT. You’re not able to see that the pendulum is swinging back now, and Americans will come back to their founding principles so fast you can’t believe it. This is a conservative nation.
The pendulum swings in much greater periods than that.
I think CT will be man enough to apologize should you be proven right, but based on your short commenting history, I can’t say I believe you’ll do the same if proven wrong.
Because your side has everything to lose now.
What’s yours?
Your side is utopia by way of the “perfection” of humanity by state fiat.
I’d be happy with eutopia.
of a position based on micoeconomic theory of the value of the alignment of individual incentives to collective interests for mutual benefit, a major aspect of the evolutionary lathe which selects human memes and the social institutions they encode, producing such mechanisms as markets, governments, norms, and ideologies.
I assume neither that government, nor markets, nor norms, nor ideologies are uniquely superior as an a priori position, but rather examine our real challenges and real opportunities, one at a time, and apply an analysis to them to determine what mixture of those social institutional mechanisms combines efficiency, fairness, and sustainability in such a way as to maximize some reasonable balance between the maximization of the total production of utility, the maximization of the justness of its distribution (or of the distribution of opportunity to access it through individual effort), and the maximization of its sustainability, here and elsewhere, now and in the future.
I presuppose no teleogy, no final state of affairs in which the quantity and distribution of utility is permanently and absolutely maximized (“utopia”), a notion that seems to me to make no sense whatsoever, but rather recognize it as an ongoing challenge, in which we can be doing worse or better at any given moment, and in which striving to do better is the logical choice.
Repetition of shallow cliches is easy; systematic examination of a complex and subtle reality is more useful.
“Because I believe in the ultimate perfection of society by fiat.”
But in the third paragraph of the post to which you are responding, I very explicity wrote that I don’t believe in “ultimate perfection” but rather “ongoing improvement,” and in the second paragraph I cogently explained that I don’t particularly privilege government (“fiat”) as a means to that ongoing improvement, but rather view all of our institutional fabric as the field in which we operate. I also explained that the challenge involves aligning individual incentives to collective interests, which is, in a sense, the opposite of “fiat.”
Other than that, you really hit the nail right on the head (once again). There’s that hammer of dogma at work again!
When applied over time, it IS “ultimate perfection.” It’s science.
Also, “aligning individual incentives,” in practice, is indeed by fiat. Who do you think will do the aligning, especially when individual and collective interests come in conflict? Obviously by disincentivizing individual interests by… fiat.
It’s official, you don’t even know what you believe in means when carried out to its ultimate end. It’s the soft tyranny not of utopia, but of Huxley’s dystopia.
to affect the world for the better through the social institutional apparati at our disposal is the pursuit of utopia by fiat, then why do you bother to engage in these discussions, and how are they exempt from your expansive definition?
I tried to affect this notion of improvement through many institutions: Education, communications, literature, conversation, and, yes, the political process. How should I try to affect the world, and why is it “by fiat” when I try to affect it, but it is just good ol’ whateverthehellyouthinkitis when you try to affect it?
Aligning individual incentives is what markets do, what contracts do, what laws do, what morality does, what ethical guidelines do, what every single institution which purports to contribute to human welfare does. You impute something to it which facilitates your presumptive conclusion about who I am and what I advocate, conveniently ignoring what I actually say on those matters.
But, Yokel, as I said to your last post on another thread, you win, I concede, go forth and multiply, and promote your wisdom so that all the world can be as enlightened as you. I will seek to battle that misfortune, of which you are just one miniscule carrier, where I can, how I can, when I can. Conversing with you clearly is not such a venue. You will believe what you want, hate those who offend you with absolutely rational arguments that declare to your own satisfaction are not, and that is as it is. Up is down, in is out, and you, my friend, are absolutely right, about absolutely everything.
Once you go that far out on the limb, you’ll look so stupid when proven wrong that you won’t show your ugly map around here for a while – which will come as a relief to your allies as well as your opponents.
You are a solid conservative with a strong moral and ethical center.
I like to think I share your virtues and only differ with you on politics.
Your level of courtesy and respect have been an example to me and your presence will be missed.
I felt saying this important enough to break my self imposed semi ban.
I’m really disheartened, because I was thinking about coming back after the session was over and all the conservatives of conscious are leaving.
it’s so sad to see a conservative go though 🙁
I sure wish I had read this before I posted what may well have been a wrong assessment on another thread. I haven’t interacted with you much since my return to Pols under my reverse-name reversed, but I always appreciated your willingness to listen to arguments-qua-arguments, rather than to perceive and respond on an ideological level. And I have really, greatly appreciated your civility, your respectfulness, your incidental reassurance to me that not all conservatives take an instant loathing to me!
I wish you well. Feel free to get in touch with me any time: I’m easy to find.
Cheers.
Yes, things do get heated don’t they? 🙂 Well, I’m very sorry to see you go. Pols is a bit like family, at least among the regulars, so it’s always sad to see someone bid farewell. But I know where you’re coming from.
Take care, and good luck! (Or is that live long and prosper? I never remember my etiquette…)
I’ll try to hold my own when I can, but I don’t quite have the patience for hanging out in a liberal wind tunnel that you always did. Take care.
The wind of sound argumentation blowing against unyielding dogma
I’d take your windbaggedness a lot more seriously if you laid off on the “I’m the smartest man in the world and God’s gift to American political thought” schtick.
I haven’t been saying anything about myself. That’s all you. Those who can’t defeat an argument attack the person who voices it.
Fools who can’t defeat an argument attack the person who voices it. The wise allow their understanding of the world to evolve.
You would like, or tolerate, my “windbaggedness” a lot more if it were a lot less threatening, either by agreeing with your shallow little assumptions and spurious little arguments, or by being as shallow and spurious itself and thus the counterpart of a shouting match in which no contestent can ever prevail.
The truth is, you take my windbaggedness very, very seriously precisely because it lays bare how arbitrary and irrational your beliefs are. That’s why you are so desparate to take me down.
it Steve wasn’t one of the smartest people I’ve ever met–let alone who posts on this blog–and his presence here the past few months has indeed been a gift.
Yokel is jealous because he thinks he’s as smart as SH.
Yokel, I’d have a least a tiny bit of respect for you if you kept your statements at your own intellectual level. (Hint: it’s not as high as Steve’s.)
You will be sadly missed.
Hoping you find enjoyment doing whatever else you’ll be doing while away from the site.
While here, you did a great job as a moderator and a thoughtful commentator.
Best of luck.
Your opinions are some of the better ones aired here. You will be missed and hope you’re able to come back someday.
Good luck to Mr. H!
I’m sorry to read this. I’ve enjoyed your perspective here so much. Feel free to change your mind and drop in any time you feel like it, okay?
Your voice will definitely be missed here. I wish you the best, and hope to see you ’round here again some day.
We will miss your intelligent, thoughtful and courteous posts. I hope someday you will come back into the fold.
I monitor this blog regularly, though I no longer spend time conversing here.
Hit me up any time at goppundit@gmail.com.