Mission

The mission of the Colorado Freedom Institute is to promote prosperity, moral progress, and human rights so that all Coloradans can flourish.

The Colorado Freedom Institute advocates free markets and economic, personal, and civil liberties. Although it seeks to conserve the core American values of liberty and justice for all, is not fundamentally a "conservative" think tank, as it advocates meaningful progress in moral beliefs, science and technology, governmental practices, and economic well-being. Although it draws from the libertarian tradition, it does not identify as "libertarian" because that term today often is used to describe ideas that the Institute opposes, including anarchism and racial nationalism. People are encouraged to describe the Colorado Freedom Institute as a "free market" or "civil liberties" think tank.

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Contribute

Please contribute financially to the Colorado Freedom Institute through Ari Armstrong's Patreon Page.

Policy Priorities

The Colorado Freedom Institute has five main policy priorities: economic freedom, civil liberties, good government, public safety, and effective education. Following is a brief discussion of aspects of what these values entail.

1. Economic Freedom

To prosper, people need freedom to produce the goods and services that make our lives possible and more enjoyable. Toward that end, government needs to robustly protect people's rights while ensuring that regulations are light and well-fitted, tax burdens are low, and spending is restrained.

Land-Use Reform: One of the major issues facing people in Colorado and across the country is the high cost of housing, which is driving some families out of the state and stopping many others from moving here. The fundamental problem is local land-use restrictions on the building and provision of housing; the fundamental solution is to remove those controls and free the housing market.

2. Civil Liberties

Generally, people have the right to live their own lives by their own lights, consistent with the rights of others. Government should recognize and protect people's rights to self-determination. As a culture, we should welcome and celebrate people in all their benign and wonderful diversity and seek to be inclusive rather than tribalistic and exclusionary, even as we recognize people's rights to voluntary association and freedom of conscience. Following are some of the positions the Colorado Freedom Institute stakes out to advance civil liberties.

Freedom of Conscience: People have the right, using their own property and in voluntary association with others, to freedom of speech, freedom of religious worship, and freedom of conscience more generally.

Separation of Church and State: Government properly recognizes the separation of church and state, and neither favors nor disfavors any religious, agnostic, or atheistic belief or practice (consistent with the rights of others). Although the ideological foundations of a free society can be interpreted in religious terms, they are more accurately interpreted in secular Enlightenment terms. Therefore, the Colorado Freedom Institute rejects the claim that the United States is a "Christian nation" the laws of which should be subject to Christian dogmas.

Self-Defense: People have the right to acquire and possess tools for self-defense of their person and home. The Colorado Freedom Institute therefore recognizes the right to gun ownership, supports the right to licensed concealed carry of a firearm, and at the same time recognizes that some reasonable regulations on guns (including "red flag" laws) further public safety.

Abortion: Women have the right to get an abortion for any reason at least until the fetus gains the capacity for consciousness (at least six months into the term), and at any point to protect her own health.

LGBTQ: Gay and other LGBTQ couples have the right to marry, adopt children, and in all other ways enjoy the freedoms shared by straight couples. Transgender people have the right to live and dress as they please and to seek gender-affirming medical care if they want it (just as cisgender people do). The Colorado Freedom Institute is trans-inclusionary, recognizing that gender is primarily a psychological phenomenon that usually but not always relates to biological sex. Although people have a political right, using their own property and in voluntary association with others, to misgender and demean transgender people, they do not have the right to do so in violation of the policies of others' platforms, nor to escape others' just denunciation for their bigotry. Regarding the thorny issues of sports competitions, access to public spaces where people change and use the bathroom, medical care for minors, and prison integration, the Colorado Freedom Institute holds that generally the proper path forward to is recognize where and how biological differences matter, where and how they don't, and how government and society at large can foster safe and welcoming spaces for all.

3. Good Government

Government should be rights-protecting, fair, accountable, and transparent.

Separate Party and State: The Colorado Freedom Institute advocates the separation of political party and state. Government should not track people by political party, recognize political parties on ballots, give members of political parties special ballot access, or subsidize party primaries. Rather, government should set equal ballot access rules for all comers, regardless of party affiliation.

Vacancy Committees: Government should stop the practice of allowing political parties to form vacancy committees to replace elected officials. One possible reform in this area is to require each candidate for political office to name, in their filing paperwork, the specific individuals who would form the vacancy committee if needed.

Public Records: To the extent feasible, government should release all public records publicly, at no charge. Generally, people should not have to pay government agencies for the privilege of viewing government documents.

4. Public Safety

Government's proper primary purpose is to protect people from rights-violating physical aggression. Yet, as George Washington recognized, government is not eloquence, it is force, and therefore a "dangerous servant and fearful master." Hence, we need to ensure that government protects us from violent criminals while not itself violating people's rights.

The Colorado Freedom Institute utterly rejects the false dichotomy between public safety and government accountability. The Institute holds that any police officer who violates people's rights should be criminally charged and prosecuted, just like any other citizen; that civil asset forfeiture should be limited to cases where someone is convicted of a crime; that prosecutorial abuse of plea bargains undermines the right to a trial by jury; that overpunishment is a violation of rights; that government should impose criminal penalties other than prison wherever feasible; and that prisons when necessary should be humane and oriented toward rehabilitation.

Drug Policy: The Colorado Freedom Institute recognizes that people have the right to decide what substances they consume, and so government punishments for drug use or possession are unjust. That said, government properly restricts the sale of drugs and other dangerous substances and items to minors, regulates the sale of inherently dangerous substances and items, acts against the use of force and fraud, restricts consumption of drugs in government-run public spaces, and enforces laws against trespass.

5. Effective Education

The Colorado Freedom Institute endorses robust school choice within the existing public school system and freedom for families who homeschool or attend private schools. Existing public schools should focus on effectively educating children in reading, writing, mathematics, science, literature, and history.

About

The Colorado Freedom Institute is a private think tank founded in 2025, owned, and operated by Ari Armstrong, the president of the organization. Ari has written about Colorado politics since 1998 for various publications and his web site. You may contact Ari at ari[at]coloradofreedominstitute[dot]com.