Do You Really Want to Live in a World Where Your Choices are Harry Reid or Sharron Angle? Chris Coons or Christine O'Donnell? Then Give to Reason's Annual Webathon!

Do you really want to live in a world where the limits of your choices in politics are Harry Reid and Sharron Angle, Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell, or, as South Park has memorably put it, a giant douche and a turd sandwich?

That's where we are, alas, but it's not where we have to be.

For Reason's annual webathon, we're looking for 1,000 donors who will help us as we fight for "Free Minds and Free Markets" and sweet blessed exit from the manichean and equally depressing dualism represented by the Team Red and Team Blue status quo. From the moral grandstanding of Jim "You gots to be a social conservative if you're a fiscal conservative" Demint to the absolutely uninspiring fiscal profligacy of Barbara Boxer, there's got to be a better way than a competition less interesting than a really bad season of Survivor.

And there is. You find it every day here at Reason.com and Reason.tv, and in the monthly pages of Reason, which has been called "a kick-ass, no-holds-barred political magazine" and "as hip as it is iconoclastic and as literate as it is thought-provoking." Since 1968, when the first issue of Reason magazine rolled off the presses as the brainchild of a Boston University student named Lanny Friedlander, we've been front and center in a libertarian movement, making the case via journalism, commentary, and policy research that politics, social life, the economic realm, and everything else works much better when they are deregulated.

As we've put it before:

We champion a world of expanding choice -- in lifestyles, identities, goods, work arrangements, and more -- and explore the institutions, policies, and attitudes necessary for such a world. We are happy warriors against busybodies, elites, and gatekeepers who insist on how other people should live their lives. Often described as socially liberal and fiscally conservative, reason must be the only publication to have won praise from both Rush Limbaugh (he's called us "a good, good magazine" -- and we're pretty sure it wasn't just the OxyContin talking) and the ACLU (President Nadine Strossen has hailed us as a "valued ally" and a "passionate defender of free speech"). As the Columbus Dispatch has put it, reason "manages to offend leftists with its defense of biotechnology, free trade and school choice, even as it appalls conservatives by supporting gay marriage, open immigration and drug legalization."

If that mentality reflects your way of thinking, then please give to our annual webathon. One hundred smackers gets you the book of your choice, the t-shirt of your choice, a complimentary subscription to the print mag (give it to a friend…or an enemy, or someone who is looking for a new and different way to think about the world), and more. If $100 is beyond your reach or inclination, then give what you can and help us fight for freedom another year. The donations are tax-deductible and all the relevant info is here.

Your money helps us keep doing what we're doing and reach more people - policymakers, movers and shakers, young kids who will be the next generation of freedom fighters. Over the past 12 months, Reason magazine has not only detailed government waste but how to slash government spending (in 3D, no less). Reason.tv doubled its audience in the past seven months, with viewers watching our videos nearly 4 million times; on top of that, we produced series like Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey: How to fix the Mistake on the Lake and other once-great American cities, which led to a fiery meeting with the Cleveland City Council and, hopefully, some actual improvements in governance there.

The stakes have never been higher - we're facing a financial apocalypse after a decade of incredibly stupid and useless government spending by the Dems and the Reps - and the possibility of changing things has never been better. The government is broke and everyone knows that something's got to change. And fast. Pot legalization got snuffed out in California this go-round, but more people than ever are behind ending the godforsaken drug war and the human misery it creates in a thousand ways. The rhetoric and reality of war-without-end-amen has worn thinner than Barack Obama's popluarity. The rejection of the Democratic Party at the polls cannot be mistaken as an embrace of the GOP, which did more than its share to screw things up royally.

As we trundle into the 21st century broke-down and busted, there's every reason to believe that the American people understand that "Free Minds and Free Markets" ain't just a slogan but an operating system for a world that must continue to decentralize and democratize or stop spinning.

Call me a crazy, cockeyed dreamer, but I'm sure we can do better than a giant douche or Harry Reid, a turd sandwich or Sharron Angle. We pull it off all the time in areas that are relatively unmolested by politics. As awful as the Mac vs. PC ads may be, you don't hear people bitching and moaning about a lack of choices in consumer electronics (though we all wonder from time where the hell our jetpacks are). But that cornucopia of goods, services, and lifestyles that stems from free minds and free markets needs to be protected from the dead hand of politics. Indeed, it can be expanded and extended further and further. That's the case that Reason is making, with solid research, some clever turns of phrase, and an irrepressible sense of fun.

Your support is not just appreciated by us; it's vital to our efforts. So please give what you can.

Thanks for reading this pitch - and for taking seriously what we're doing here.