Why I hate pledge drives

By Richard Baehr

I hate pledge drives. The reason is simple: I associate them with National Public Radio and public television. A collection of unctuously earnest people representing every major racial, religious, gender/transgender, age, and ethnic group swear their allegiance (over and over and over again) to the importance of keeping quality programs like Bill Moyers, Tavis Smiley, and Garrison Keillor on the air. Having one’s name read over the air as a dollar a day member probably provides some of the same inner satisfaction that occurs when one expiates the birth sin of being born white by caucusing for Barack Obama.

No such spiritual cleansing moment is associated with the current American Thinker appeal. We think our readers understand that we want to do more with our site: to expand its content, and to communicate more often and directly with our readers. For now, we offer no premiums for your helping us, other than the promise to continue to provide serious material on the major topics of the day, by the growing collection of authors who have been given voice on our site.

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