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Here are the editors of National Review on the individual mandate provision of the healthcare reform bill:

The mandate highlights the coercive and obnoxious character of Obamacare as a whole. The whole scheme works, to the extent it works, only if people are forced to buy a product they would not buy on a free market.

And here is Jim Manzi, in the current issue of National Review, explaining that Social Security as a tax-supported pension plan should be dismantled:

Instead, we should have a defined-contribution pension program requiring individuals to contribute a reasonable proportion of their income (though some flexibility should be allowed) to an array of investment vehicles to which they hold property rights.

Granted, there’s no requirement that every contributor to National Review has to agree with its official editorial positions. But converting Social Security from a tax-supported program into one where people are instead required to buy private retirement annuities is a pretty mainstream conservative view. So what are we to make of the proposition that forcing people to buy retirement annuities is OK but forcing them to buy healthcare insurance isn’t?

Beats me. But I figure there are two possibilities. (1) They don’t really think a healthcare mandate is “obnoxious” at all. It’s just a handy talking point. (2) They do think the mandate is obnoxious, and they think the same thing about private Social Security accounts. And if they ever succeed in getting them, they’ll immediately file suit in federal court to have the whole program declared unconstitutional.

But which is it? Decisions, decisions.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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