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05/24/2004 Archived Entry: "Where's the money for the freedom cause?"

THE ROCKET SCIENTIST ASKS: WHERE'S THE MONEY FOR THE FREEDOM CAUSE?

Here's the question of the hour:

Why is it that our side is so horribly underfunded? The bad guys have gazillions. And big guys too....like Soros, McKelvey, Gates....guys with gigabucks oozing from every pore. and these socialist pricks are actively trying to take all our guns away. Are there no wealthy free market capitalists out there? Why is it that our side has no money?

Is there something that I am missing about loving freedom? Is there something intrinsically financially debilitating about liberty?

Or is it that once you get to be a gazillionaire that you have become so steeped in the state that you cannot let it go?

Or if you start to provide significant amounts of help to the good guys do you get a visit from the alphabet soup gangs?

Been wondering about that, myself. Michael Moore can get millions in funding for his anti-gun screeds. All it takes is a few phone calls. But Innocents Betrayed has to be financed on a wing and a prayer, in donations of $25 or $100 dollars. When we got a few donations of $1,000 or $5,000 toward the production, we recognized those donations as a significant sacrifice on the part of the givers. For instance, a couple of regional gun-rights groups raised money from their members, and KeepAndBearArms.com gave their $1,000 quite heroically at a time when they themselves were struggling to raise dribs and drabs of money for the Silveira v Lockyer lawsuit.

Trying to think of wealthy freedom lovers who fund various causes, I come up with just three names -- and each of those men founded or funds not activist groups, but a think tank. Well, we need think tanks, too. But the immediate need for freedom is desperate. Where are the entrepreneurial freedom-loving gazillionaires who can support no-compromise efforts to save self-defense rights or the Fourth Amendment?

Even the conservatives have their angels -- the Millikan textile folks kept the John Birch Society alive for decades, the Coors family rose to conservative causes. But us ... Nobody.

My personal theory is that to get rich one must already be a compromiser, politically. You might have an uncompromising vision for your product or company, but to get things done in the real world, you learn to play the political game. So from the get-go, you're not oriented toward radical individualist positions. Or if you are, as the Rocket Scientist implies, you don't dare pursue them because it's too important to keep government as your friend. OTOH, if you're born rich, you most likely already envision yourself as a natural elite, and you don't give a rat's patoot about the scruffy peasants who want their AK-47s or who don't want cops and bureaucrats poking into their records. All you care about is your engraved European shotguns and hiding your own financial doings behind a dozen expensive layers of privacy.

Sad. It makes me ever more grateful for the few, like the Rocket Scientist, who put their money where their mouths are, even when they don't really have all that much. You guys -- and you know why you are -- are quiet heroes.

Posted by Claire @ 09:38 AM CST
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