I’m one of those guys who would rather wander around in a car lost for 45 minutes if it means I don’t have to stop and ask someone for directions. So it doesn’t come easy to ask for your help, but that’s what I’m here to do.
If you enjoy what you read here, if it inspires, outrages, moves, or informs you — or even if it’s merely one of your routine clicks in the morning — please consider contributing to our fundraising drive.
Believe me, we are as frugal as possible publishing NR and NRO. Just ask our authors, or our editors. None of them are doing this for the money. But to our publisher Jack Fowler’s regret, we do have to pay them something. And servers don’t come for free.
Every time one of these fundraising drives comes around, I recall Bill Buckley’s axiom that National Review exists to make a point, not a profit. Sadly, those words have continued to hold across the decades. Opinion magazines just don’t make money, and we’ve never been owned by a media mogul (or a mogul of any sort for that matter).
We’ve always been an independent conservative voice that depends on the kindness of strangers. Although, that’s not quite right. We really depend on the kindness of friends. From its very beginning, NR forged a community of like-minded people, brought together by a love of liberty and this country. It’s been a joy to watch that community spread to NRO, updated for the digital age.
It’s always been a mutually beneficial relationship. We provide the journalistic sustenance, our friends provide — to the extent they can, and every mite is appreciated — the support we need to survive.
I don’t need to tell you that what we do — defend the principles that make this country unique and great — is more important than ever. Those ideas are under threat as never before. The more embattled they are, the more desperately we will fight for them.
What did Clemenceau say? “I had a wife, she abandoned me; I had children, they turned against me; I had friends, they betrayed me; I have only my claws, and I used them.”
We have literally thrown everything we have at Obamacare, deconstructing it in editorials, dissecting it hour-by-hour on Critical Condition, reporting on its progress (and, on the good days, lack thereof) on Capitol Hill. Again, we’d do this for nothing if we could, because it’s what we believe. But we need your support to keep at it.
So, if you enjoy what you read here, please do what you can to help — if it’s $10 or $1,000. Do it for Steyn, VDH, and Jonah. For Ramesh, Derb, Miller, and Geraghty. For Andy McCarthy and Kathryn Lopez. For the indefatigable Bob Costa. For our Critical Condition guys, James Capretta, Tevi Troy, et al. Do it for Pollowitz and Williamson. Do it for the folks here you usually don’t hear about, but who make NRO possible everyday: Chris McEvoy, Ed Craig, and Russell Jenkins.
Do it because this fight is too important to lose, and we’re not stopping until we win.
You can make a donation here. Thank you.
– Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.