A universal basic income (UBI) is an unconditional cash payment given at regular intervals by the government to all residents, regardless of their earnings or employment status. Pilot UBI programs have taken place or are ongoing in the United States, Brazil, Canada, Finland, and other parts of the world. In 2017, Hawaii passed legislation creating a working group to study UBI. In that same year, 77% of Swiss voters rejected a proposal to introduce a UBI.

From the 1990s to the present, elected officials in several US states have made unsuccessful attempts to lower the voting age to 16, and sometimes even younger. [1] Student activism in the wake of a Feb. 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has brought new life to the debate over letting younger people vote. [2]

An estimated 6.1 million people with a felony conviction are barred from voting in elections – a condition known as disenfranchisement. Each state has its own laws on disenfranchisement that range from allowing people with felony convictions to vote from prison to restoring voting rights after completion of some or all of the sentence to banning former felons from voting permanently.

Originally developed in the 1970s, direct recording electronic (DRE) voting machines have become increasingly used nationwide. After the 2000 US presidential election’s troubles with “pregnant” and “hanging” chads and the subsequent passage of the 2002 Help America Vote Act which swelled use of DREs, electronic voting technology became widely debated.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report that Americans eat an average of 58 pounds of beef, 93 pounds of chicken, and 52 pounds of pork, per person, per year. Vegetarians, about 5% of the US adult population, do not eat meat (including poultry and seafood). The percentage of Americans who identify as vegetarian has remained steady for two decades. 11% of those who identify as liberal follow a vegetarian diet, compared to 2% of conservatives.

An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing. Animals are used to develop medical treatments, determine the toxicity of medications, check the safety of products destined for human use, and other biomedical, commercial, and health care uses. Research on living animals has been practiced since at least 500 BC.

Since 1977, one year after the Supreme Court reaffirmed the constitutionality of the death penalty, more than 1,480 people have been executed, primarily by means of lethal injection. Most death penalty cases involve the execution of murderers although capital punishment can also be applied for treason, espionage, and other crimes.

The debate over whether abortion should be a legal option continues to divide Americans long after the US Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision on Roe v. Wade declared the procedure a fundamental right on Jan. 22, 1973.

Proponents, identifying themselves as pro-choice, contend that choosing abortion is a woman’s right that should not be limited by governmental or religious authority, and which outweighs any right claimed for an embryo or fetus. They say that pregnant women will resort to unsafe illegal abortions if there is no legal option.

If you have not seen one of our debates, get ready for a new experience. Our special parliamentary format encourages everyone to speak or ask questions, insures civility in disagreement, and strives for learning and better understanding for all. The online version works in much the same way, modified to foster constructive debate coast to coast. In all our debates we use resolutions that might be controversial to encourage speeches from both sides. Unlike some of our workshops, these are not associated with Red and Blue, but Pro and Con.

National Conversation Project partners are hosting open online conversations to help you #WeaveCommunity with fellow Americans from coast to coast! Join them, then take the practice local in your community.