Do you guys see things getting any better in 5-10 years? I read up on the political history of the state and it seems that only recently have the Dems had a greater presence in the state government. No doubt that the eastward migration from CA is partly responsible.

I was actually surprised that Hickenlooper was opposed to the recreational MJ legalization, though. And no doubt that the MJ is going to bring in a lot more liberals into the state.

I was up in Denver about a week ago and the metro area there is flat out the definition of 'suburban sprawl'. The 470 during evening rush hour was literally the most commute traffic I've ever seen, and I've traveled to a lot of cities in my life.

I was driving one evening while it was raining/sleeting and couldn't keep the windshield heated enough to keep frost from forming in the track of the wipers. Had to squirt the washer fluid probably once a minute to maintain visibility.

As I've said before, I think there are actually as many or more East Coast types coming to Colorado, though we all love to blame Californians.  No matter, they all vote trustily blue.  They are the ruination of this state.  Colorado is being loved to death;  I often say this over at reddit, which enrages all the noobs to the state.

As a lifetime resident, I've never seen the sheer volume of traffic or people at any given event in this state.  

I work in the automotive service industry so we collect personal information for each customer.   I kid you not, over 50% of the phone numbers we collect are from an out of state cell phone.  

It's great for business, but I want my roads back.  

I'm with you on wanting the Roads back.  Play a game next time you drive. Look at the lic plates & bumper stickers, of the shitty drivers.

It's pretty much over here.   It's like France and Islam.   You CAN slowly remove an indegeonous population of an arrea through immigration, and in a democracy ( or in this case republic), you won the war you were having with them.

I anticipate French made nuclear missiles to rain down on the US in 20 years or less, the button having been pushed by the legitimately elected president of the Caliphate of France.

Similarly, in 20 years I expect the biggest douchebag liberal president of the United States will come from Colorado, and have a 90% voting rate here in this state.

No.  I'm from California and I came here to be free.  I vote conservatively and find myself in the same out-numbered situation.  If the state could be divided such that Boulder and Denver could be kicked out, the rest of the state would be much better off.

We tried but the bias of media, politicians and left wing voters had a better way to reach the voters.  Control the Information, Control the People.
Progressives uber alles

Moved here this summer from San Diego after visiting Denver 3 years ago and falling in love with it. Yes, the state will probably go the way of California. How upper middle income, kombucha drinking hipsters feel about CO is nothing but positive. Everyone wants to be here. In my circles it's not the legalized pot, but the growing tech industry, cosmopolitan downtown offerings, and unspoiled nature and affordable housing that's drawing people. For over a year in La Jolla there was a billboard advertising the CO tech industry as the new frontier. Right now there are hordes of liberals with REI and Patagonia stickers on their Macbooks at Starbucks dreaming of Colorado.

Like in Dances with Wolves, when Kicking Bird asked John Dunbar how many whites were coming? "Like the stars"

Sorry.

I don't know about French nukes raining down on our cities but allow me to interject my thoughts about what will contribute to the demise of our quality of life in Colorado.

It may sound strange coming from a guy who made his living for the last 18 years by getting those accused of criminal acts out of jail but...here goes.

Lancelot alluded to it earlier in this thread.  The criminal justice system is going the wrong way.  The insidious growth and spread of pretrial release programs is the elephant in the room that will, ultimately, affect us all.  Started 40 years ago, pretrial release was meant only for the indigent...first time...non-violent...offender.  In other words, those who couldn't afford bail and were not a threat to society and were not frequent flyers through the system.  Those who were accepted into the program were coddled along through the system in an effort to reduce jail populations by providing an alternative to languishing in jail because they couldn't afford a bail bond of any size or amount.

Sounds all warm and fuzzy, right?  After all who doesn't agree with helping those who can't...ah bullshit.  Pretrial release is a typical liberal, feel good, tax payer (other people's money) funded program that has, over 40 years, been bastardized and diluted to the point that the program now accepts accused rapists and murders into its fold and gets them released on a simple promise to appear with no induced incentive (financial or otherwise) to show up in court.

Further, when these pillars of the community and towers of intellect DON'T show up, the 23 year old clerks running the program at the local level, have NO jurisdictional authority to go pick up and arrest their wayward client.  Because many local L.E. agencies don't have the budget for a full time, dedicated, fugitive task force, these yahoos run at large until they happen to get arrested in a traffic stop or when they are involved in and arrested for yet another crime of (you choose) some serious degree or another.

At the least, when a person is released on one of my surety bonds, there is SOME type of financial or real property risk of loss that has been agreed to by the defendant and/or co-signers that will serve as a very real psychological hammer and incentive to continue to comply by coming to each required court appearance until disposition of the case.  This system is very established and has worked very well for a very long time, dating back (in one form or another) to biblical times.  And, it has been done all this time, at NO COST to the taxpayer.  Zero.  None.  

This post is long already so I'll finish up by saying that Pretrial Release Services is spreading like a cancer and will not only be the death of my industry and my career, personally, but will affect every one of us by increasing crime rates and creating more victims of crime.  

When a recent bond client with charges of heroin possession, driving under revocation, and accessory to a crime, received only a $500 bond, I was stunned.  Just a couple years ago, in my area, those charges would have been at least a $5000 bond.  But, noooo.  Our bleeding heart liberal, do gooder, invaders have taken over and (for the time being) appear to be running the asylum.

The costs involved with instituting, staffing, maintaining and administering this program will be h-u-g-e.  Government is in the bail bonding business and using my tax dollars to compete against me.  Of course this bothers me.  But what these policies will do to everyone's quality of life and bank accounts concerns me even more.  Please, please educate yourselves about pretrial release and tell your county commissioners you don't want them helping to fund this program.  Believe me, they will be asked to do so.  Pretrial will offer grants that (they say) will fund these programs but the grants are not guaranteed every year and the funding only covers about a third of the cost.  The rest will be picked up locally by the taxpayers.

I think your affordable housing mention is relative, but generally agree with your post.  

I don't only blame the immigrants from the blue states for this mess.  I also blame many members of the R Party here and many voters for abandoning the "live and let live" attitude that used to have a strong presence in the state.  That didn't earn too many of the unaffiliated votes and helped with the Blueprint's goal back in '12.  "Blame is better to give than receive..."  Often, some of that blame can be found in the mirror.  I'm bitching about spilled milk, but hopefully others can learn from what happened here.