Make the World Safe for Libertarianism! Webathon Ends at Midnight!*
We're $22,000 short of our goal of $250,000 to support our libertarian journalism. Please help put us over the top!
With about four hours left* in Reason's 2016 Webathon, we're still about $22,000 short of our goal of $250,000 in tax-deductible donations to support our libertarian journalism. Reason magazine, Reason.com, and Reason TV can't exist without generous help from readers who care about "Free Minds and Free Markets." So please go here now to check out giving levels and associated swag. Your gift makes all the difference in the world.
For the past week, my colleague and co-author Matt Welch and I have been laying out reasons to support Reason. Among them:
- We provide original news, commentary, and analysis from a consistent, principled libertarian perspective. Every year, our writers crank out thousands of articles, interviews, and videos that explore how increasing freedom and liberty and reducing government and coercion will bring about a freer, fairer, and more prosperous planet.
- If you care about "Free Minds and Free Markets," we're your voice in debates and discussions over politics, culture, and ideas. It's not always the easiest thing in the world to square off in print or on camera against conservatives and liberals, but hell, that's part of our job to expound the virtues of choice and individualism.
- We're helping to create the next generation of libertarians. Founded in 1968, Reason magazine goes out to around 50,000 subscribers a month. Reason TV videos are watched by 1 million people a month and Reason.com pulls over 4 million visits a month. Over 40 percent of our audience at Reason.com are between and 18 and 29 years old. At Reason TV, it's closer to 60 percent! Young people today are screwed over in so many ways: They're being taxed today for entitlements that will run dry long before they retire; the government is smothering the economy through dumb rules, stupid monetary policy, and ruinous subsidies of all sorts of business activity; schools routinely fail their students. As one reader put it in a thank-you note, "I'm a college student that has learned more from Reason TV, as opposed to 4 years in the classroom. I appreciate this a lot."
Also Zazzle We're helping to change the world.
For nearly 50 years, Reason has been calling for an end to the war on drugs, criminal-justice reform, marriage equality, technological freedom, fewer regulations, lower taxes and spending at all levels of government, an end to stupid foreign interventions, and respect for civil liberties. Sure, some of these issues are going in the wrong direction (yes, that's the drums of war you hear beating in the background, and the sound of government racking up massive debt despite a new and supposedly austere budget deal), but many things are going libertarian, too. The war on pot is winding down, sentencing reform is taking place, and pushback against all sorts of ridiculous #dosomething proposals from Republicans and Democrats is growing.
Like a lot of you, I started reading Reason when I was in high school. My older brother went away to college, discovered Reason in the campus bookstore, and started sending home to me. The magazine spoke to me in a serious yet engaging and entertaining way. The articles were fact-rich and the authors explained their arguments so you could kind of double-check their math. I really dug that modus operandi and I liked reading about people who stood up to stupid zoning and planning regulations and I liked finding out about all sorts of different experiments in living that were going on in America and around the world. Reason was like a map to a secret world that we could actually create if only we were given the space to do so.
I'm well past my high school days (I graduated in 1981!). Reason is now far more than just a great magazine (though it's still that of course). Our website is the largest libertarian commentary site on the planet and our daily videos are watched by folks in the media along with people interested in cutting-edge online documentaries. Most important, libertarian ideas are more popular and taken more seriously than ever before.
Which isn't to say we don't have a horrible year ahead of us! Whether it's Trump or Cruz or Bush or whomever versus Hillary Clinton, there are countless battles to fight in 2016 and beyond. We need your help to keep doing what we're doing and the one thing we can promise you is that we won't stop fighting for "Free Minds and Free Markets" until there are no fights left to be had Your support is what makes Reason tick, so please help us reach our goal of $250,000 in the final hours of our 2015 Webathon. Go here to donate now.
- A note about the end time for the webathon: Given time-zone differences, webmaster shifts, and the general craziness of the world these days, we will accept donations until Wednesday morning.
Thanks for all your support. In an effort to leave you laughing, here's the video we released earlier this year on April 1, 2015, when we managed to snag an exclusive Google hangout with President Obama.