Nature finds a way, educate yourself on the emerging field of public health and guns, and does progressive policy do more harm than good?
Nature finds a way.
I have been meaning to share a picture of this for a while now. The picture attached is from a tree outside my dad's shop.
Quite a curious branch, no?
Started down, changed its mind and now is headed up.
I will leave it up to you to take what life metaphor or lesson you want from this, if you want to take any (sometimes it's enough just to marvel at the world we live in). Potential ones abound. One of the first impressions that came to my mind was what I wrote at the top.
Nature finds a way. Never underestimate life's capacity to adapt and to change. No matter what direction things are headed, it is not too late to turn around and try another. No one promises easy, no one promises fun, but the possibility is there. The chance to try is there. This applies equally to humans as well as tree branches.
If you care to share your thoughts, please add to the comments.
Educate yourself on the emerging field of public health and guns. This is especially important if you are concerned over your Second Amendment rights.
I have mentioned more than once that the growing movement to try and treat gun ownership and gun violence as a public health threat is an interest and concern of mine.
The link below came across my inbox recently and I wanted to share it with you in case you were similarly concerned or interested.
If you want to know the direction that public health people see their movement going in (on both short and long time scales), the link below will show you that.
If you'd like to get a glimpse at the current state things re. public health and guns, the link will show that.
Inform yourself so as to make yourself a better advocate.
https://aspph.org/advocacy/gun-violence-prevention/?utm_campaign=01172023&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=pardot
Do Progressive Policies do more harm than good?
The two articles linked below were linked enough thematically that I thought I would post them together. I'll leave it to you to read the articles through and make up your mind, but I wanted to touch on a few things that stuck out to me.
1. In any proposed policy, I think two questions that ought to be top of mind are:
Does this policy work as intended? I.e. if you, say, implement an affordable housing as Denver has (see Denver 7 article), will you actually end up with more affordable houses?
Does this policy have some sort of unintended consequence?
As you read the below and as you think about the current and proposed policies in both Denver and at the state level, keep these questions on the front burner.
2. As much as I agree with the premise of the article (that the Affordable Housing ordinance is cutting the number of developers building in Denver proper), be careful and be skeptical at articles like the one from Denver 7. I say that for a couple reasons.
First, look at the screenshot from the article attached. See the parts I've underlined in red? The Apartment Association has a dog in the fight.
Second, by my reading of the article, what they found is a disparity--and disparities can have multiple explanations. In other words, there are fewer applications, but that could be for a number of reasons. In view of a quote that appears later in the story, "[n]ew data also suggests applications for new construction have increased in most, if not all Denver suburbs in recent months, suggesting developers are still here, just shifting their focus outside Denver proper because of the new ordinance", I would say that Denver's Affordable Housing ordinance has a big role to play in the drop, but absent more information, it's a leap to say that every single bit of the drop is due to the ordinance.
3. This next bit is crucial to highlight and to remember. There is always a lag to how businesses (and society in general frankly) respond to changing circumstances, including new policy or regulations. Don't let people dupe you by telling you the situation now without thinking how we got here.
You can see this in the Denver 7 article where they discuss the presence of cranes if new construction has fallen dramatically. Cranes, building permits, construction, all of this takes money, planning, and time. I.e. what you see NOW in Denver is the result of efforts began years ago.
The same applies in other areas. Watch the video linked third below (which I found in the Axios article linked second) starting at the 1:40 mark. You will hear the same rough idea as above but this time with regard to oil and gas.
It may be politic for someone like Polis to claim that the policy he's supported has not at all hurt business because, for instance, drilling permits are poppin' out like hotcakes. This kind of reasoning is just as wrong as the one about the cranes.
You don't look at the now with things like this. You look at the "couple years back".
Policy begun in 2018 has had a chilling effect on oil and gas that lingers until today. If you are uncertain about whether or not you'll be allowed to exploit mineral rights, are you going to invest (or convince others to) in trying? Will you put your finite resources in Colorado or some other state you think is a safer bet?
Fast forward a few years. Yes, permits may be up now, likely due to increased confidence with rising prices, but permits now tell you about the future, not the present. The lack of supply now is at least partly due to regulatory uncertainty in the past. Remember that.
https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/new-data-suggests-denver-affordable-housing-ordinance-scaring-away-development
https://www.axios.com/local/denver/2023/02/03/colorado-business-democrats-legislature-regulations