Candidates for Charitable Donations FY 05
It’ll be end-of-year charitable contribution time soon, so I’m building my list of potential recipients now.
I’ve adopted the Christian practice of tithing, which in the strict Biblical sense means donating 10% of your earnings to the church. However, I’ve adapted it to my tastes by making a few adjustments:
- I use 10% of my net earnings, to reflect the fact that federal and state governments have already forcibly redistributed a third of my gross income. So, charitable organizations, if you want more of my money, see if you can get my taxes down.
- I do not donate to the Church, or even the church. While Christian charities in general, and Catholic charities in particular do very important work on behalf of the poor, I believe a more free, open, dynamic, and independent society is of more long-term value to all classes than short-term assistance, therefore I focus my charitable efforts on shaping government in the image I desire.
Anyway, on to the candidates:
National Rifle Association
NRA actually has a number of independent organizations, ranging from the Institute for Legislative Action, to the Political Victory Fund (the PAC which can contribute to campaigns directly), to the NRA organization which funds regular member activities, events, and advocacy.
I only really care about the ILA and PVF activities for charitable purposes, but I’ve been meaning to upgrade to Life member, which would count as a donation to the NRA itself.
Federalist Patriot
The Federalist has some of the most cogent, steadfast, unabashedly conservative editorial content I’ve seen in any media. While it’s definitely not the first publication I’d hand to a moderate interested in conservative thought, for those who already have a conservative inclination, it provides invaludable rhetorical and ideological guidance. I gave last year, and almost certainly will again.
Virginia Citizen’s Defense League
Though the NRA is active in all the states, particularly Virginia, it’s VCDL that gets things done at the local level. Virginia has the least restrictive gun laws of the top 3 tech economies, in no small part due to the efforts of VCDL. Much like NRA, they have a registered PAC as well as a non-partisan advocacy group.
I read their membership newsletter and contribute regularly; in all liklihood I will continue to do so.
Institue for Justice
IJ has been behind virtually all significant libertarian litigation to reach the Supreme Court, including most recently Kelo v. New London. Though they lost in a 5-4 decision, IJ put up a mighty fight, and will likely win in the states as a result of the negative publicity arising from the astonishingly poor majority opinion.
FIRE
FIRE battles unconstitutional infringement of individual liberties in education. It has fought for affirmative action bake sales and free assembly rights, and against oppressive speech codes and tyranical college administrators. Given my disdain for the education system in general, any organization that puts the screws to educratic tyrants gets my money.
Club for Growth
The Club for Growth advocates precisely the low-tax, free market policies that I myself fight for. They are ruthlessly non-partisan, happily blasting pork-happy Republicans just as often as they berate the kleptocrats in the Democratic party.
The Club for Growth has a Virginia chapter, Virginia Club for Growth, which is active at the state level, taking steps to punish the duplicitous Republicans who took back the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction, only to out-tax and out-spend the Democrats they replaced.
Mercatus Center
The Mercatus Center is a think-tank based in George Mason University which studies and advocates market-based tools to solve social and government problems.
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a famous libertarian think-tank, advocating small government and free markets in the classic libertarian style. Always a source of cogent analysis and policy guidance.
American Enterprise Institute
AEI is another powerful conservative think-tank, advocating conservative policies through rigorous and thoughtful scholarship.
Center for Individual Freedom
CFIF is another conservative/libertarian advocacy organization. Though I often get a chuckle from their newsletter, I often feel their rhetoric is burdened with strident hyperbole, to the point of losing credibility. It’s all fine to make a case for Constitutional constructionsts in the judiciary, and argue against the policy litmus tests employed by the left, but ad hominem attacks against Chuck Schumer to the effect of “Chuck Schumer hates kittens” make it difficult to take their usually-defensible positions seriously.
Reason
I’ve been a subscriber to Reason magazine for a few years now. It provides a welcome libertarian balance between the likes of National Review and The New Republic. I don’t always agree with its positions, but it’s almost always thoughtful, and almost never strident.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The EFF has been defending online freedom since the days when ‘online’ meant the local BBS. It’s fought all of the ill-considered legislative proposals to come out of our increasingly clueless Congress in the last decade, with varying degrees of success. More recently, they announced support for Tor, a key development in anonymous Internet access technology, which substantially increased the admiration I have for their activities.
Unfortunately, EFF has a similar problem as CFIF above, in that they get rather strident at times. As with CFIF, this is in spite of cogent rhetoric, not instead of it, so I’m inclined to tolerate a certain level of hyperbole, but only to a point.
Second Amendment Foundation
Like NRA, SAF fights for second amendment rights all over the country. I first became aware of their activities during the post-Katrina gun confiscation fight, and subsequently during the battle of San Francisco’s gun ban. As an added bonus, they’re a 501©(3) non-profit, unlike most of the NRA subsidiaries, so I get a tax deduction to boot.
Non-Candidates for Charitable Donations
In addition, it’s worthwhile to list a few organizations I won’t be giving to, along w/ some rationale.
American Civil Liberties Union
I once belonged to the ACLU, in large measure due to my perception that individual freedom was eroding as government grew more and more powerful. Though my perception was right, I fear my conclusion that ACLU was the answer was rather mistaken.
Increasingly, the ACLU advocates two primary issues: suppressing religous speech in the public sphere, and advocating affirmative action policies. In fact, the only significant issue in recent memory upon which I and the ACLU agreed was the appalling McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and the associated feeble rationalization from the Supreme Court upholding its severe restrictions on political speech.
It’s particularly noteworthy that ACLU makes extensive reference to constitutional freedoms and the Bill of Rights, listing its many causes in terms of the amendment being infringed, while ignoring the second amendment and rising to defend ‘rights’ based upon 20th century judicial sleight-of-hand.
I’ve come to realize that libertarian and small-government conservative activists are in a much better position to defend the freedom I cherish without the policy compromise the ACLU forces me to make.
Gun Owners of America
GOA is like the NRA for people who think the NRA is too moderate. It’s approach to the restoration of gun rights is analogous to a slave in the 19th century south suing his owner for damages: the outcome is certain and in the long run detrimenal to the abolitionist cause, and yet he persists nonetheless out of a sense of idiological purity. While this level of indefatigable commitment is admirable, in the face of a gross and systematic violation of basic rights over an extended period, pragmatism is required to gradually restore lost freedoms. GOA does not accept this, hence its slogan, “The only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington.”
As a result, it has virtually no national political credibility, its endorsements are not particularly sought after, and it cannot lay claim to any of the major gun rights wins of the last decade.
Republican National Committee
I am on a direct marketer’s mailing list as someone with a pulse and at least rumors of intermittent neurological activity, therefore I am a member of a select group chosen to support the RNC as they gird for the 2006 mid-term elections.
Not only do I hate causes that insult my intelligence w/ that kind of gimmick (NRA does it do, and I hate it from them as well), but I’ve not been particularly pleased w/ the Republican party at the national level. Some House Republicans (mostly rank-and-file) are true small-government conservatives, but when it comes to spending, Senate Republicans and President Bush differ from Democrats only in that they have a different mascot.
Therefore, it’s not clear to me why I would support Republican election efforts in general, versus specific candidates for specific office. Sure, most of my policy positions are Republican party plank issues, and Democrats controlling government would only worsen the domestic spending situation while reducing individual liberty, but I feel issue groups provide more focused and effective pressure on candidates and office-holders of both parties, as well as influencing the electorate in general.