The Splintering of Society Gathers Steam

If there's any company in the country that best embodies the concept of "we don't depend on the government, we help each other when need be," it would be - or it should have been - GoFundMe or GFM (nope,  no linkies from me.)  By now, just about everybody has heard the story of how they decided, apparently based on rumors from one or two sources, that they were going to confiscate all the donations from everyone who had donated to the Canadian truck drivers and give that money to places people never intended it to go.  If you haven't seen it, there's a good summary with a ton of comments on Irish's blog.  

It was a fast changing story and continues to be.  It's rumored their legal department quickly told the asshole who made that pronouncement that they couldn't do that - it violates many laws.  Within hours it turned into, "donors who want a refund should request one" and then apparently turned into, "we'll just refund everyone's donations."  As of 2PM this afternoon, Florida's Attorney General Ashley Moody announced her office has begun criminal investigation into GFM, as have the Attorneys General of Georgia, Missouri, Texas, West Virginia and Louisiana.  So far.  I bet by Monday afternoon it will be a majority of the states, not just the "Red states."  

Like most people, I've donated through GFM several times, most recently to help Mike of Cold Fury.  I won't go back to GFM until I see some sort of statement, as close to ironclad as can be, to never, ever change donations over to something other than pledged.  And then only if I believe it.  

As I see it, GFM is responsible for this whole thing, so they should return their 2.9% handling fee and reimburse card holders for any expenses from their credit card companies.  They should refund any expenses donors incurred.

If the government of Canada wanted to outlaw people giving the truckers money, I don't see how that could be legal - what's the difference between sending a guy $20 via PayPal instead of handing him a $20 bill? - but IANAL and that's especially true for Canadian law.   Even if Canada somehow forbade the donations, there shouldn't be a nanosecond of GFM giving anything to Black Lives Matter or anyone else.  The payment should be refused, the donation page should be shut down and they shouldn't get remotely near the corner they've painted themselves into.

Meanwhile, the free market does what it does best: there are alternatives to GoFundMe.  The group or groups that are requesting the funds seem to have moved to GiveSendGo, which calls itself the #1 free Christian crowdfunding site in the top banner on the page.  I know nothing about them.  There's absolutely no reason for anyone in the crowdfunding business to encourage or prefer donations in any political direction.  It would be like them saying, "we can't host your fundraiser to help your grandmother battle cancer unless she swears she never votes Republican."  No sane person should ever think or say that, but GFM has obviously violated it.