News from the liberterrain…
Instead of "preaching at them," DownsizeDC President Jim Babka wants to convince millions of people to replace their bad beliefs (statism, collectivism, welfarism) with good beliefs (libertarianism, non-coercion, freedom) by building a new interactive Downsizer-Dispatch.
DownsizeDC.org is a non-partisan, non-profit educational organization devoted to "downsizing" the federal government by pelting elected officials with emails to encourage them to do just that, one legislative issue at a time.
"We believe the federal government has grown too centralized, too intrusive, and too expensive," their website declares. "We believe in constitutional limits, smaller government, civil liberties, federalism, and low taxes."
The Downsizer-Dispatch is the organization's free email newsletter.
So how does Babka plan to change people's beliefs? "Well, we have an idea for a first step in that direction using a new interactive Downsizer-Dispatch," Babka says.
The new interactive newsletter will present an argument on a particular issue and allow readers to grade how persuasive they think it is on a graduated scale.
"This is vital," Babka explains, "because what we really want to know is how much people have moved from where they started, not whether they agree or disagree."
Readers will also be able to see how much change, if any, has occurred among other minds.
The goal of this approach is to create a desire to read DonwsizeDC's material, find reflecting upon it to be unavoidable, and then becoming eager to interact with it.
"This new interactive approach will be more fun for readers," Babka promises. "They'll get to render a verdict. And they will get to follow the score on each argument."
Quoting Thomas Paine that, "Time makes more converts than reason," the idea is to drive a steady shift in people's minds, over time and across a host of issues, toward libertarian beliefs.
"I think my team can achieve the things outlined above, and more, for as little as $1 per subscriber per month, "says Babka, whose first goal is to raise an average of $1 a month from each of DownsizeDC's 31,900 subscribers.
"This would give us a budget that's more than $130,000 larger than last year."
And Babka promises to make regular reports on both their programming progress and their fundraising efforts.
Babka is clearly excited about his organization's new project. "The result could be electrifying," he predicts.
Supporters can become a onetime contributor or monthly pledger at DownsizeDC's secure contribution page.
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