All this week, Ricochet contributors are telling you why they choose to make the site their online home — and why they’d encourage you to join us by becoming a member. Today a message from longtime Ricochet contributor John Yoo, Professor of Law at the University of California—Berkeley and Richard Epstein’s partner-in-crime on our Law Talk podcast:

I wake up in the morning, surrounded by redwoods, chirping birds, and the smell of coffee. I am ready to charge out the door and engage with the great issues of the day. But then, like Sheriff Rick in The Walking Dead, I realize that something is very, very wrong. There are no conservatives about. The coffee has been lovingly hand-washed after being plucked from the droppings of Central American bats and is accompanied by stern glances at my use of paper cups.

O tempora, O mores, I have woken up in the People’s Republic of Berkeley, California.

In such desperate times and places, Ricochet is a lifeline to a saner world. It is telling that many of Ricochet’s readers are centered around university towns. It is there where the independent American mind will do battle with suffocating intellectual uniformity — not unlike the slow, steady march of the walkers in the zombie apocalypse. Ricochet provides a forum for the free and open debate of any and all issues, from any and all viewpoints, surrounded by civility, good cheer, and smarts — sorely needed everywhere in our country, but no more so than in our schools, colleges, and universities.

Where else can you listen to Law Talk, where Richard Epstein and yours truly debate gay marriage, NSA surveillance, Obamacare, and the Giants versus the Dodgers? It is the greatest debate on American constitution law since Alexander Hamilton wrote at home alone. But, like the original Federalist Papers, Law Talk and Ricochet will come to you for a small subscription fee. Buy it for yourself, then give it out for Christmas, birthdays, graduations. Best of all, give it to your liberal friends as an anonymous gift. Intellectual diversity is a dish best served for $5 a month.