So! We're off to a good start here on Day Two of Reason's annual webathon, in which we ask you, our dear readers, customers, hecklers and "special" friends, to make a tax-deductible (if you are a U.S. citizen) donation so that we can produce even more of the best good goddamned libertarian journalism and commentary in the known universe. We are making the audacious ask this year of $100,000 over the week, and preliminary reports from Day One show around 125 donors making a generous combined gift of around $23,000, and huzzah for that! Even last night's shameless Bitcoin-guilting—yes, droogies, we are accepting Bitcoin—seems to have loosed some of the silvery decentralized stuff out of your digital mattresses: 12 donations totaling $876 as of midnight.
Why should you donate to the 501(c)3 nonprofit that makes all of Reason's journalism possible? The reasons are longer than President Obama's nose, but our progressive friends over at AlterNet inadvertently provided one earlier this week with an impressively awful piece titled "Why Atheist Libertarians Are Part of America's 1 Percent Problem." Bask in the deep thinking of lefty atheist C.J. Werleman:
[F]or some stupid reason, far too many of my non-believer brethren have hitched their wagon to the daftest of all socio-economic theories.
It doesn't help when atheist luminaries publicly extol their libertarianism. Penn Jillette writes, "What makes me a libertarian is what makes me an atheist—I don't know. If I don't know, I don't believe….I'll wait for real evidence and then I'll believe." Well, the only excuse Jillette has for his breathtaking ignorance is that he earns his living performing as a Las Vegas magician. Also, he graduated from a clown college. Famed science author and editor of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer says he became a libertarian after reading Ayn Rand's tome Atlas Shrugged. Wait, what? That's the book that continues to inspire college sophomores during the height of their masturbatory careers, typically young Republicans (nee fascists). […] When I hear an atheist say he is a libertarian, I know he's given absolutely no thought to it other than the fact that he likes the sound of no foreign wars and no drug laws. The aphorism that libertarians are Republicans with bongs is just about spot-on. […] Ultimately, atheist libertarians are not part of the solution; atheist libertarians are part of the problem.
At Reason, we delight in recognizing such authoritarian-minded, anti-libertarian purgery for what it is: a panicked and frequently fact-free attempt to swat down a growing philosophy/orientation that's making real inroads in just about every sizeable bloc in American life. That's why we're your go-to source whenever Salon is trying to purge libertarians from anti-surveillance rallies, Chris Christie is trying to purge libertarians from the Republican Party, John Boehner is trying to purge fiscal conservatives from any congressional positions of authority, 99 percenters are trying to purge Free Staters from Occupy New Hampshire, hawks are trying to purge anti-interventionists from respectable conversation, major-party tribalists are trying to purge electoral independents, and so on and so forth and scooby-dooby-do.
We don't just defend libertarianism's honor, honey badger-style, when attacked by n'er-do-wells. We also explain to new audiences, calmly and with a winning smile, what all this libertarian hubbub is about. So you have Senior Editor Brian Doherty telling New York Times readers about the rise of post-Ron Paul libertarians in the GOP. You have Nick Gillespie detailing "5 Myths About Libertarians" for the Washington Post, and you have me explaining to Stuart Varney just what all us libertarian wackaloons want in regards to U.S. foreign policy anyway.
We're here for you, is what I'm trying to say. Now won't you be here for us?
A hunnerd large gets you a subscription & a sweet black Reason T shirt, which I can testify is a great conversation-starter in Brooklyn. Two-fitty gets you that plus a gift sub & a copy of Reason.tv's devastating full length documentary, America's Longest War. Half a G allows you the right to torture Nick Gillespie and I with a question for our next "Ask a Libertarian" series. Double that and you get a private lunch with an editor to be named later. Our highest tier of $2,500 gets you VIP tickets to the next Reason Media Awards, which is a super-awesome party on the island of Manhattan. And of course, you are free to give us $250,000, or $2.50, or however much Bitcoin you're willing to part with.
Let's do this! Please donate to Reason right the hell now!
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