Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has a moral philosophy question for you all.

Let us say that you want to donate money to a worthy charity. Let us further postulate that you can donate this money in one of the following ways: 1) You can hand a duly authorized representative of the charity cash, or; 2) You can use your bank to transfer the money to the charity (electronically, or by check, or wire service), or; 3) You can go on the charity’s web site and use a credit card to make the donation. Now, posit further, that you decide to use a credit card and choose to use a credit card that awards you “points” that you can use for yourself (or others frankly but let us assume that you use your points for your own wants/needs and don’t share them).

Here is the question: is the “good” of giving to a charity diminished in any way by choosing to use the credit card that rewards you for its use?

That is it. That is the post. Just a question.

And yes, your Maximum Leader made two donations recently using a card that awards him points for their use. He pondered this very question over a very potent margarita last night after making the donations.

Carry on.

UPDATED on May 13, 2020: You might go over and check out Kevin’s post on this subject.

NB: Poor Kevin can’t comment here because of some problem with the back-end of this blog. Your Maximum Leader has actually looked at trying to fix the problem, but it is beyond his abilities. He will have to get a real programmer to help him out on this one…

That being said… You should read the comments below as well. Broadly speaking, your Maximum Leader agrees with Kevin that the act of charity is diminished when there is a reward to the giver. It may not be diminished by much in your Maximum Leader’s view, but it is diminished. Which is why your Maximum Leader is annoyed by “gifts” to donors during PBS fundraisers. If you love PBS so much, just give your friggin money to them. The reward of giving is that you can continue to watch friggin PBS!!!!! You don’t need another damned tote bag!!!!