Donors Trust is an American non-profit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of “safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors”. Like all donor-advised funds, Donors Trust can offer anonymity to its clients who do not wish to make their donations public. It makes grants to charities that are not dependent on government support and that promote limited government, personal responsibility and free enterprise. It assures clients that their contributions will never be used to support politically liberal causes. (my italics).
In 2015 Donors Trust had an income of about $68 million. Lawson Bader, the president of both Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, was formerly president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Vice President at the Mercatus Center, both extremist right wing organisations committed to undoing the New Deal, including social security, all the measures that protect the lives and safety of ordinary citizens, destroying the unions, public schooling, and all economic regulations. Latterly it has tried to discredit the science of global warming, to its everlasting shame (approximately one-quarter of the funding of the “climate counter-movement” was from the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund).
I have set out the above to make the readership aware of an important hard right organisation that supports extreme wealth and threatens American democracy. Their point of view is in stark contrast to that of supporters of Epicureanism, who believe in moderation and in treating everyone with decency and respect. That means rich and poor, young and old, people of every political opinion, color, race, gender and sexual preference.
Libertarianism isn’t about treating people poorly or exploiting others.
Of course, it is not the objective of Libertarianism to treat people poorly or exploit them. I apologise if I inferred that. However, it is fair to say that Libertarianism favours the interests of the individual over social responsibilty. Some want to free themselves from the shackles of the state and to pay taxes only for the purpose of defence of the country and some other limited services of the government. I disagree with this approach. We are all together on this small planet, seriously threatened by global climate change to mention only one issue, and should help one another and cooperate.
Yes, libertarianism is about personal freedom. Social responsibility should be a personal choice. If someone doesn’t want to support the 600+ US military bases outside the US, they shouldn’t be forced to. One problem with allowing the government to decide on how generous the citizens should be is that it’s easy for them to be generous with other people’s money. Another problem is that they’re not very good at deciding how and where to spend our money. Another is that they’re not even satisfied with spending all the money they’ve taken from us and are willing to borrow from future generations.
I’m a libertarian and although I could legally just pay my taxes and consider my social responsibilities fulfilled, I donate to various charities that *I* think are worthwhile and that *I* trust to spend my money wisely. It’s much more rewarding to have that personal influence.
Ah, on the 600+ miltary bases we can 100% agree! And my wife and I pay the full amount of tax and we also give quite a bit to various charities. So we have things in common. The problem is that, as far as the US is concerned we have a Constitution and an established political system. One can argue that that system has been corrupted, and from my standpoint Citizens United and the unlimited and secret cash for politicians it unleashed has been a major cause. But am I not correct in saying that the justification for all this cash sloshing around was – personal liberty? Libertarians should share the blame for that horrible Supreme Court decision. I understand that if one stands to benefit from this corrupt system one thinks it right and proper, but that is not a generally held view. Anyway, nice to have a civilised chat!
P.S. I think Citizens United was posited on “free speech”, ( correct me if I am wrong). But you cannot have totally free speech (that is, if you want any friends!). Free speech is part and parcel of liberty, is it not?