TheAgitator.com
Where to Give
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007I’ve received several emails over the last few weeks asking where people who care about the issues I cover on this site can make donations to help out the good guys. Here are a few places I like:
• Institute for Justice. Always at the top of my list. IJ is the best bang for your libertarian buck when it comes to getting real results for real people and setting important, policy-changing precedents.
• The Mississippi Innocence Project. I’m partial, of course, due to my reporting in Mississippi. But if you care about criminal justice issues, you really can’t go wrong by donating to one of the state Innocence Project outfits. There’s little politicking at the state level, so there’s little room for disagreement. The simply want to get innocent people out of prison. Hard to argue with that. I list the one in Mississippi because it’s new, because my hunch is there are hundreds of people in Parchman in need of their help, and because I know the director, Tucker Carrington, is particularly interested in looking at cases involving Dr. Steven Hayne. The University of Mississippi donates office space, utilities, and even computers to the project, gratis. So there’s very little overhead. Almost all of your contribution goes straight toward finding and exonerating the wrongfully convicted. They don’t have a website yet, but here’s an earlier post I put about them, with an address where you can send a check.
• The Cato Institute. My former employer does great work, and Cato scholars are on the right side of things 95 percent of the time.
• Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Hand down, the most compelling speakers against the drug war. The group’s still young, speaking at Rotary Clubs and dinner gatherings. We need to get some of these guys speaking in college auditoriums and testifying before Congress.
• National Motorists Association. A more motorist-friendly, libertarian version of AAA. They have chapters all over the country, and are starting to offer legal representation in important freedom-of-movement cases. If the ticket quota, traffic camera, and seizure stories you read about on this site fire you up, this is the group for you.
• The ACLU. I know, I know. Lots of libertarians don’t like them. I certainly don’t agree with them on everything, and I wish they’d spend less time, money, and press coverage on silly issues like taking religious symbols down from public property (I agree with them on church-state stuff, I just think their resources would be better spent on more pressing matters). But the ACLU’s drug policy reform people are outstanding. And their work on executive power, Gitmo, and post-9/11 civil liberties alone is worth a membership. Plus, they piss off all the right people.
There are lots of others, of course. There’s Cory Maye’s fund, and the various drug reform groups. If you’re upset about the pain issue, you might give to the Pain Relief Network, where Siobhan Reynolds does great work. Families Against Mandatory Minimums deserves a huge amount of credit for raising awareness about the absurdity of minimum sentences, and can point to some real achievement in getting some of those laws reformed.
Lastly, if you want to help me out specifically, you can of course give to me directly (Amazon and PayPal donation links to your left), or you can give to my employer.
Why waste your money on the ACLU when you could give it exclusively to the IJ? The ACLU’s stance on the 2nd amendment alone makes me question whether or not they have a legitimate claim to being called a civil liberties group, since their position on armed self-defense is anti-individual rights.
I won’t give them a dime until they become a libertarian group, instead of a left-liberal group.
I second Mike T.’s motion. Until they recognize that the bill of rights contains ten amendments, all of which are natural rights of all Americans, they’ll never see a dime from me. Their refusal to support the Second Amendment is a deal-killer for me, and, I imagine, a lot of other liberty-minded folk.
What about Modest Needs?
The ACLU pisses off all the right people? You’re kidding, right? Not sure how pissing off all the pro-second amendment people is the right thing. Personally, I would rank them right between the American Communist Party and Sarah Brady’s band of nanny-staters. Also, their lawyers are sub-par. If they weren’t, they would realize that Miller (which they seem to rely on in Policy 47) would have been dismissed for lack of standing if the Supreme Court really interpreted the second amendment as being a military/police (i.e. a state) right instead of an individual right.
To my knowledge, the ACLU doesn’t actively lobby for gun control. They just don’t lobby in favor of gun rights. If there’s evidence I’m wrong, let me know.
And it’s not even universal. The Texas chapter of the ACLU has recently come out in favor of an individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment.
That isn’t to say there aren’t issues where the ACLU is flat wrong, and perhaps even doing more harm than good. I just don’t think gun rights is one of them. And I think their work on the drug war and the war on terror is pretty critical–enough so that these two issues alone merit support for the organization.
And MikeT, IJ is exclusively free speech and economic freedom. I love everything they do. But they don’t do criminal justice stuff.
I think at the end of the day the ACLU does more good than harm, but I think their absurd positions on some religion in public places issues has totally alienated the right and hurt their ability to build coalitions. They lost the effectiveness and stature they had in times past.
That said, other than the Mississippi Innocence Project I didn’t see any poverty relief organization in the mix.
I really want a conservative, pro-american, libertarian charity that promotes free-markets and limited government as solutions to poverty in the 3rd world. Nike and Walmart don’t count but they probably do the best to help lift people out of poverty. Basically I want Hernando De Soto to start a charity.
If the ACLU is a left-liberal group, then I am proud to be a left-liberal.
It’s incredibly sad that so many people consider it “left-liberal” to defend the Constitution, even when it is not being done for a popular cause. And please don’t trot out any 2nd amendment nonsense unless you can show evidence that they have actively lobbied for something problematic.
I’m also saddened to hear people describing their position on religion public places being described as “absurd” even when it is clear that if the Christian documents in question were substituted with documents of another faith (Muslim, Buddhist, whatever) that there would be an uproar. I know a lot of right-wingers are pro-public religion, pro-theocracy and pro-large government legislating morality, but I would have thought the readers of this blog would be smarter than that.
I guess I thought wrong.
Thanks Radley for this handy list which nicely sets up my next few months of bi-weekly donations to orgs who are serving Americans in a positive manner whether or not I personally endorse each and every stance they take.
As for the ACLU, they’re a regular in my Donation Rotation (smile) since their firm denouncement of inappropriate religious demonstration in public schools is the topic that first inspired me to work in legitimate community activism.
Happy Holidaze to all from Clearwater FL
Steve Heath