Introducing the Fall 2009 Reason.com Webathon! Because Free Minds and Free Markets Aren't Free!

Free Minds and Free Markets Don't Come Free!

For the next week, Reason mag Editor in Chief Matt Welch and I will be asking you to please help us keep Reason.com, Reason.tv, and Reason magazine going stronger than ever by giving a tax-deductible donation to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit publisher of the leading libertarian website, video site, and print publication in this and all other known galaxies. (Click on the image above to hear Welch's eloquent spiel and catch—if you're lucky!—a post-video ad for Mucinex!)

If you give $100 (just $6.52 in 1935 dollars!), you'll get all kinds of swag, including a choice between a copy of Brian Doherty's great history of the libertarian movement, Radicals for Capitalism, and Peter Bagge's awesome collection of Reason comics, Everybody is Stupid Except For Me! And your name will appear (if you want) in a cool banner on this very site, thanking you for your help.

The fight for for freedom has never been more important than now. Here we are, a decade into the 21st century, fer chrissakes, and 20 years after the beginning of the end of communism, and the U.S. government owns a car company, has taken over the financial sector, is about to squeeze out the market from health care, is fighting two bum wars, and on and on. Who could have thought it could get worse apres Bush fils? (Plenty of Reason staffers, that's who!)

Reason in all of its iterations is your voice in the public debate, your source for news and commentary from a principled (and non-dogmatic!) libertarian perspective, and a virtual community of the forward-thinkers who can help lead us into a future so bright we'll all need genetically modified corneal implants.

Go here for details. And bring a friend!

Thanks,

Nick Gillespie

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Tax deductible? Why not just accept government subsidies while you're at it?

Also, is there any way to donate and not get acknowledged on any official list (e.g. website banner, DHS watch list, etc.)?

[Mike]

Yes, you will not be acknowledged on the banner if you leave the field on the form that says "Donation Banner Name" blank.

[ed]

"Please type in your name (or commenter nickname) as you would like it to appear."

That's going to be one fucked-up banner.

[John Tagliaferro]

How do we donate anonymously?

[Warty]

Donate as Suki. No one will suspect a thing.

[Mike]

John - You can designate this in the comment section of the form or please email Melissa Palmer (Reason's development director) at [e-mail] with any questions or requests. Thanks.

[John Tagliaferro]

Thank you.

[Kris]

Donate as Guy Montag. No one will suspect a thing.

[Pro Libertate]

I think all of us should donate as the Urkobold. So he'll be listed on official Foundation donor lists.

That, or we should all contribute as Joe Biden.

[Kolohe]

Tax deductible? Why not just accept government subsidies while you're at it?

I just gave a few bucks to them last week through the Combined Federal Campaign.

[martin]

NPR pledge drive deja vu ... sigh.

Well it's for a good cause. Nick DOES need a spiffier car!

[Johnny Longtorso]

I'm donating as "Ezra Klein".

[BakedPenguin]

I'll donate as "John Walters"

[John Tagliaferro]

Good idea gentlemen. I shall divide my donations into anonymous, John Weathers, Albert Gore, Jr. and Chris Mattews.

[Qualis Artifex Pereo]

Donate as Ed Crane's Indigestion.

[Navin R. Johnson]

For one dollar I'll guess your weight, your height, or your sex.

[healthscarequotes]

oh, i'm sorry, did i just type pbs into my tv again?

[Nick]

What kind of swag do I get for donating a buck o'five?

[Cabeza de Vaca]

freedom

[Death Panelist]

If your donation is over $100, please select a book:

Yet the rollover says I get a book at the $100 level. WHAT KIND OF BAIT AND SWITCH ARE YOU SNAKE OIL SALESMEN TRYING TO PULL HERE???

(Hey, did you ever think of offering snake oil as a donation benefit? It would be a nice tie-in for the teabagging Reason fans, with their "Don't Tread on Me" flags and whatnot.)

[Warren]

I already subscribe to the dead tree version of Reason, and bought Radicals for Capitalism in hard cover. What do I get for my years of ongoing support? A poke in the eye with a sharp stick, that's what!

Up yours Reason. I for one am adblocking your banner.

[Pro Libertate]

To you, Warren, Reason will give fodder to fuel your wrath and frustration.

[Pro Libertate]

How much to kill threaded comments or to give those who hate them an alternative?

[SugarFree]

You are always promoting your alternative lifestyle.

[Pro Libertate]

I contend that it is you and your threaded friends that are the alternative. In fact, threaded comments are amoral and Un-American.

[SugarFree]

"And get off mah lawn, ya young whippersnappers, or I'll shout at you in Latin!"

[Pro Libertate]

I have no objection to technology, only to its misuse.

Get off my lawn.

[Pro Libertate]

[Points high-powered laser at young SugarFree.]

[SugarFree]

Take the shot, old man. I've been dead twice. I ain't afraid of you.

[Pro Libertate]

[Burns a hole in SugarFree's head, depriving him of the ability to properly spell his name.]

[SugerFr]

Dam u!

[Pro Libertate]

[Laughs maniacally, accidentally shoots neighborhood traffic camera.]

[loch ness monster]

I just need about $3.50.

[Alan Vanneman]

Free markets, huh? If markets worked, wouldn't you guys be making a profit? Unless, you know, your product was NO GOOD!

Yr. favorite two-year dead-tree subscriber,

Alan Vanneman

PS Good luck on lifting Ayn Rand's dick, Nick.

[heller]

If we actually had free markets then I would have to agree with you. But then again, there would probably be no reason for Reason to exist if the markets were free.

[Rice Bingham]

The only good tree is a dead tree.

[Pro Libertate]

That raises an interesting question: What's the difference between a living tree and an undead tree?

[Dave]

Turning your website into an Ayn Rand fanpage totally turned me off to donating. I come to this website for news about our liberties, not to see a million articles about Ayn Rand.

[joshua corning]

If you give $100 (just $6.52 in 1935 dollars!)

They sold ipods for $8 in 1935!!!

NO WAY!!

[jaydee]

Can Canadians donate and still get a tax receipt? 😉

[Big Cat Kahuna]

No paypal?

[Tim]

If it was all about supporting the next John Stossell or Drew Carey.. then sure. However, I have been disappointed by the way things have been going lately. For $5 you should at least provide a barf bag if we have to continue to endure Steve Chapman's drivel

[Glonn Bock]

$100 for a book I can get at Amazon for $5.
Wow, what a great deal.

[Glonn Bock]

I'll give $100 if Matt Welsh will state, in a Youtube video, that Ayn Rand was a pigcunt.
Using his normal voice/tone and facial expressions.

[Glonn Bock]

What?
My money's not good around here?
Ayn Rand is dead.
She won't mind that Matt Welsh calls her a pigcunt.

[eds]

I'd love to donate, but is there any way you could prove that you haven't accepted any government money (federal, state, county, city, etc.) so that I know you are following your principles?

Do you have a list of your finances available online perhaps?

[JGabriel]

I find it extremely amusing that the geniuses at Reason are so incompetent as to leave their readers email addresses exposed in the comments section.

Way to go, guys!

.

[Scott Ross]

Nice tie!

[Scott Ross]

I find it extremely amusing that JGabriel is so dopey as to be incapable of discerning that email is not a required field for posting a comment.

Way to go, JGabriel!

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane. Even some cursory knowledge of Hebrew and doing some mathematics and logic will tell you that you really won't get the full deal by just doing regular skill english reading for those books. In other words, there's more to the books of the Bible than most will ever grasp. I'm not concerned that Mr. Crumb will go to hell or anything crazy like that! It's just that he, like many types of religionists, seems to take it literally, take it straight...the Bible's books were not written by straight laced divinity students in 3 piece suits who white wash religious beliefs as if God made them with clothes on.

[abercrombie milano]

My only point is that if you take the Bible straight, as I'm sure many of Reasons readers do, you will see a lot of the Old Testament stuff as absolutely insane.

[abercrombie milano]

I find it extremely amusing that the geniuses at Reason are so incompetent as to leave their readers email addresses exposed in the comments section.

Way to go, guys!

.

[nike shox]

is good