Talk:Cato Institute

Early discussion

Bibble; and spam links

Geoffrey Bibble has never been on the board of directors of the Cato Institute. Additionally, I removed two external links because neither link even mentioned the Cato Institute. Although the books that the two links were advertising may have something in them about the Cato Institute, the purpose of external links in Wikipedia is not to sell books but to give people immediate additional information. Jimbo Wales 20:31, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Bad phrasing; sorry

128.193.88.135 was right to edit my edit. To be fairer, I should have written something like "Many environmentalists oppose the Institute for its advocacy of the deregulation of industry. See reference below for an example." I shouldn't have repeated the "astroturf" allegation, since that was just one man's view (however amusingly phrased). I shall not edit any further unless I find more information or read other contributors' opinions. -- Heron

Too much of a muchness

There is no reason to cite the personal opinions of a technical support engineer in re the Cato Institute. Mike Huben does not qualify as an environmentalist, much less an expert environmentalist worthy of being cited in an encyclopedia article. Giving credit where credit is due, we should link to his collection of anti-Cato links. Nothing more; nothing less. -- NetEsq 20:26 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC)

Odd internal links

Susan Mason (talk · contribs) has added bidirectional links between this article and Koch Industries, but neither article gives any clue how these two organizations are related. Does anybody know? -- Heron

Greg Palast must have said something about them; 'she' feels the need to vomit everything he says all over Wikipedia.

Koch Industries has some sort of relationship with Cato, something to do with about $21,000,000 given to Cato, however Palast didnt specify too much so I didn't bother to do much more than indicate that there was a connection. Susan Mason

The chairman of CEO of Koch Industries is a cofounder of the Cato Institute and I believe the Institute itself is a successor organization to a Koch foundation. They also receive a boatload of Koch money on a regular basis. Hilarious Bookbinder 23:26, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heron:

If I were you, I wouldn't spend too much time contemplating the merits of Susan Mason's edits. See Problems with Susan Mason. -- NetEsq 15:18 Mar 20, 2003 (UTC)

Cato and Objectivism

Doesn't the Cato Institute have some connection to the Objectivists? - --Gwalla 02:17, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No more than any other Libertarian advocacy group does, really. --Kade 05:58, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The president and founder says all the leadership are objectivists, I added it under principles. Hilarious Bookbinder 19:19, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a citation? Binarybits 03:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are now citations, enough I believe to support the assertation that the Cato Institute has significant institutional ties to the Objectivist movement. This is, imo, noteworthy. I'll also note there was a section on Objectivism previously which was also deleted by Binarybits. The former objectivism section didn't have too much to say though. Apparently there is a picture of Ayn Rand over one of their conference rooms. The only other fact was Ed Huggins (iirc) was a former Cato staffer now running some portion of the Atlas Society. Does anyone this this should be included? Hilarious Bookbinder 00:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cato vs. renewable energy?

It would be nice if some of Cato's inexplicable bias against renewable energy could be explored here. --scruss 22:51, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

scruss could lead the way with a couple of Cato quotes downplaying some specific sources of renewable energy. We'll edit them in. --Wetman 23:40, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I trust I'm not the only one who hears an alarm going off when a Wind Farm engineer proposes to throw a single bias that serves his own interest into an otherwise well-rounded article. If you want to write a section devoted to criticism of CATO, lets think a little more broadly than "They don't like my poor little wind farms". --Kade 05:57, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Also, it's not inexplicable it's consistent with the rest of the policies they advocate. Like other libertarians, Cato opposes government subsidies of any kind of private business. E.g. they oppose subsidies for oil exploration, mining, agriculture. It's not accurate to say their against renewable energy. They just don't want anyone forced to pay for it. --dm ^(talk) 20:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2005 Social Security Reform Proposal

I removed some loaded language in the article regarding Bush's 2005 Social Security Reform Proposal and added a link to back it up.

Original read:

For their part, only a minority of Republican congressmen supported President George W. Bush’s 2005 proposal to weaken and then abolish Social Security, an idea strongly backed by the Institute.

This was an edit from an earlier version on 13 July 2007 by 198.77.206.228. I was unable to revert this edit, so I changed it to the earlier language reading,

...President George W. Bush’s 2005 proposal to partially privatize Social Security...

I also turned "2005 proposal" into a link to the relevant page. (2005 proposal)

My point, in short, is that even if abolishing Social Security was Cato's goal, and perhaps even Bush's, it was not a part of the 2005 proposal. --JohnofCharleston 17:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CATO & Education Reform

In addition to supporting a more limited government, CATO has been in the forefront of the debate on educational reform. See its forum presented in summer of 2004 and OPED articles by Marie Gryphon and others.

Rothbard and Cato

Will Wilkinson, a Cato employee,[1] has found it necessary to delete the mention of Rothbard as one of Cato's founders. I have restored this since it is inaccurate and misleading to delete it. Rothbard is mentioned [here http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/bergland1.html], for example, by a prominent libertarian, as "a founding board member [of Cato] who even named the institute". See also chapter 5 of Justin Raimondo's biography of Rothbard, An Enemy of the State, which details the Cato Institute's origins. Cato may have been able to purge Rothbard, but that does not mean its employees ought to be able to purge facts from Wikipedia. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 05:01, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV requires that all viewpoints be represented. We don't have to decide which one is true. I don't think anyone disputes that Rothbard was a founding member. That's not identical with "co-founder". In any case, the "history" section needs to be developed. I rearranged some material for better flow and made other copyedits. -Willmcw 09:20, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Better flow, Will, but isn't an interesting fact about the Institute that Rothbard actually came up with its name? Why not try to keep this in? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 13:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What's our source? -Willmcw 21:26, 10 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See the Bergland essay cited above (and the quote from it), plus the bio of Rothbard by Raimondo, again, cited above. Cheers, NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 07:06, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I also found a Cato source which recognizes that Rothbard first suggested the name.[2]. Thanks, -Willmcw 07:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

User:Will Wilkinson may have deleted a little bit too much in his recent edit, though I agree with most if it.[3] -Willmcw 08:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Will, why would the reference to Rothbard's naming cato be problematic if it were from a libertarian? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 21:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Who said that? I do think that if Rothbard himself had been the sole source then it would have been questionable, seeing as he was not on good terms with the Institute. As far as I can tell, everybody involved in the matter was libertarian. -Willmcw 22:00, 11 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In one of your comments, when I pointed to the Dave Bergland article as the source, you said "ahh, another libertarian". No? As if to diss its legitimacy. Or did I misread you, Will? NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 03:47, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my reference was to the edit by User:Will Wilkinson, another libertarian. Why would edits by libertarians by illegitimate? -Willmcw 06:17, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Um, well, are you asking me to psychologize you? I just assumed you were anti-libertarian given your history with various edits in the past, e.g. the David Duke incident. NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 20:58, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith. Thanks, -Willmcw 21:25, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please assume good faith. Thanks, -NSKinsella (Stephan Kinsella) 04:52, 13 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Stephan, I don't know much about the extent of Rothbard's involvement. My understanding was that Crane and Koch were the principal founders. If that's incorrect, then I'm definitely OK with putting him back in. Generally, I was just trying to streamline the article. There was a lot of inessential information. The article could still use a lot refining. It would be nice to have a fuller history section, and a less arbitrarily selective listing of Cato's policy views. I'll work on it when I get the chance. Will Wilkinson 19:01, 12 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy

Do the two entries in "Controversy" really merit inclusion? Neither has anything to say about Cato as an institution. They both deal with individual members who did controversial things wholly apart from Cato, and Miller's misfeasance is fairly petty in any case.208.59.114.86 09:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)Matt Tievsky[reply]

If the activities of Cato's scholars are irrelevant, then we should remove the list of their names from the article. Cato, like any similar institution, is the sum of its personnel. However, the heading doesn't seem right, these entries should be part of the list of scholars. -Will Beback 23:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But we're talking about what Cato personnel did OUTSIDE Cato. That's what I'm really getting at.208.59.114.86 09:22, 5 January 2006 (UTC)Matt Tievsky[reply]

It's not that simple. In the case of Bandow, he was trading on his reputation as a Cato senior fellow:

Bandow has written more than 150 editorials and columns over the past five years, each identifying his Cato affiliation.[4]

In both instances our article describes the tie-in or reaction from Cato. (PS, don't forget to sign your talk page entries, by typing four tildes ("~"). Thanks.) -Will Beback 06:35, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Citing sources

Some of the changes you are making to the Cato Institute article are a bit POV, and certainly unsourced. Could you offer a source for the following excerpt, especially the bolded portion?:

In December 2003, panelists included Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and John Christy, all of whom are leading scholars in the field.

For other, more factual claims, such as percentage of Institute funding from tobacco companies, could you cite a source? Dick Clark 19:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All of those scholars are widely published in the climatology literature. Michaels, for instance, has published 13 papers in refereed journals in the past three years. I'd say that makes "leading scholars" less POV than "disagree with widely held views of climate change."

You could look up Cato's annual budgets and compare them to the claims by critics of Cato's tobacco-company funding, and find that it's a very small percentage. I know of no published source that makes that comparison.

DavidBoaz 19:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am not claiming that they are not "leading scholars"--I am saying that we need a notable source for such a claim. I believe you that they are above reproach, but it isn't encyclopedic to just say it in the encyclopedic voice, rather than in an excerpt from or summary of a notable, verifiable source (See Wikipedia:No Original Research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:Citing sources). Dick Clark 20:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Above text copied from User talk:DavidBoaz.)

Well, I'm not sure why "all of whom disagree with widely held views of climate change." is more encyclopedic. They disagree with widely held views by journalists, but climatologists are obviously split on the topic. However, I'm afraid I've devoted enough time to this, so c'est la vie.

DavidBoaz 20:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Widely held" is a very weak statement to make about something. Now, it seems to me that the folks associated with Cato contest the anti-scientific dogmatism of many that hold the "yes there is global warming, and humans contributed to it" line. Nonetheless, there is this dogmatism, and for many it goes unquestioned. I don't particularly like the wording myself, since it still posits something (however weak the claim may be) that is supported by no cited source. My revert wasn't a demonstration that I preferred the previous wording, but rather that your change seemed to violate WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, et al. I agree with you that the previous wording is problematic... but replacing it with even more problematic, POV-pushing is not the solution. Dick Clark 21:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dick Clark, I think you're off base here. The view that "yes there is global warming, and humans contributed to it" is not "anti-scientific dogmatism" as you claim; rather it is the consensus view of a large majority of scientists with relevant expertise. Certainly, there are scientists who disagree and of course sometimes the scientific consensus turns out to be wrong, but really you've inverted the situation. Even many skeptics concede there is warming and that it is partly anthropogenic; they just think one or the other (or both) has been overstated. Crust 15:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crust: As you well know, my opinion on global warming doesn't matter here. What matters is what notable sources say. I am certainly not trying to inject my own position on global warming into the Cato Institute article. What I was trying to do above was show the editor making changes that I was not contesting the positions of the Cato scholars in question, but I was rather questioning the fact that no notable sources were offered to support such a claim. As for global warming being demonstrably anthropogenic, any proof of such a claim would necessarily require the inclusion of a post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument (since we don't have a control biosphere in this "experiment"), thus depriving the argument of much (if not all) of its heft. Dick Clark 15:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dick Clark, as you say, it's not your opinion on global warming that matters here; the issue is what is the scientific consensus. So I'm surprised to see you follow up by telling us that not only are you skeptical of current arguments for anthropogenic global warming, but that furthermore as a purely logical matter you reject any such argument (or as you put it, it would have little or no "heft"). But enough about you. The point is, while some scientists and many non-scientists disagree, there is a clear scientific consensus on this. Crust 17:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crust: I stated my opinion on global warming above because I wanted to insure that user:DavidBoaz didn't take me to be a POV warrior simply reverting his edits out of spite. I don't really see why my opinion on global warming further matters for this discussion page since I have not tried to insert it into the article. Rather, I was attempting to prevent unsourced edits, even though I personally agreed with their content (see diff). Are you under the mistaken assumption that I was trying to inject some POV on global warming into the article or are you just trying to convert me here? Dick Clark 17:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dick Clark, point well taken. I was confused about the edit history; I didn't notice that you edited in the opposite direction of your personal views, which is commendable. Sorry for the perhaps snarky tone. Crust 17:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Crust: (In re: Cato Institute) No hard feelings--I'm glad we sorted things out. Dick Clark 21:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Budget numbers

The article says 70% of their money comes from individuals, 12% from foundations and 6% from firms. Where does the other 12% come from? Anyone have a citation for this? --David Youngberg 20:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Random, uniformed, uncited guess... probably from things like shirts and publications. I've bought a couple things from the online store before but I would doubt that makes up 12% of their entire income so who knows. --TheHoustonKid

Rupert Murdoch

Surely Rupert Murdoch wasn't involved with Cato during the Iraq invasion? Something isn't right here, it just doesn't make a lick of sense, how can Cato be opposed to the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, when Murdochs Media Monster is is a propaganda tool for both? Viet Dihn a co-author of the Patriot Act sits on the board of directors of NewsCorp, which Murdoch runs. Meanwhile Murdochs media arsenal in America, Britain and Australia promoted the Iraq war ad nauseam. There was ONE newspaper that Murdoch owns that had an unsavvy opinion about the War in Iraq...that was some itty bitty island in Micro-polynesia. I know this isn't a talk/soapbox forum, and wikipedians have done an outstanding job creating this site. True freedom lovers, as opposed to the masonic weirdo media owning types who'd have us all branded with a serial number tattoo on the back of our necks (to fight the war on terror of course).

Could there be links added at the bottom that highlight "conflicts of interests" of these Thinktanks like the ones I mention? It isn't MY propaganda, its an actual fact. If a Thinktank purports to be Christian in premise and condones and promotes war via its board members who are heavily connected to mass media, a conflict of interest arises given Jesus Christs sermon on the mount covered extensively in the book of Matthew of the Holy Bible.

If I made and added the link myself would it be removed as bias even though in my opinion its not? ==Conflict of Ideals and Interests that "such and such" group claims to promote==

Dean [Mar04, 2006]

Thanks for the kind words. If we have a source for someone pointing out these purported conflicts then we can summarize that. But we cannot, on our own authority, say that so-and-so has a conflict, is a hypocrite, or violates the tenets of their religion. Doing so would violate our core policy, Wikipedia:no original research. -Will Beback 20:51, 6 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think "ending drug prohibition" is more neutral and accurate than either "ending the drug war" or "legalizing methamphetamine". Since the object of the sentence is to observe that some of Cato's policies are highly controversial, it's not appropriate to remove reference to Cato's opposition to anti-discrimination laws, and I put it back JQ 19:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"individual contributions"

The article currently has the text:

"The report notes that 83% of individual contributions that year came from individual contributions[...]"

Apart from the clumbsy language (surely 100% of individual contributions came from individual contributions!) it isn't clear at all what this means.

Does it mean to say that 83% of contributions were from individuals acting privately? If so, is it 83% by total amount, or by number of contributions?

Anyone? WikianJim 13:53, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've now fixed it. --dm ^(talk) 18:12, 9 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a source for the fix? If so, how about adding it to the article? WikianJim 14:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That paragraph has an external link to Cato's 2005 annual report. --dm ^(talk) 19:20, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So it does! My mistake :) WikianJim 21:16, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BinaryBits: What reason have you to delete a whole section? —vivacissamamente 22:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cato and Social Security

I edited the section on Cato and Social Security. The section in question contained this line: "Critics have charged that Cato's plan assumes that the increased returns projected from private accounts are not worth the increased risks of participation in the stock market."

If Cato's plan assumed that the increased returns on private accounts would not be worth the risk of participating in the stock market, then Cato would be against privatization, not for it. It is critics of Cato's privatization plan who assume that the rewards would not be worth the risks. I changed the "are not" in that line to "are," thus remedying this conflict. And then I get this smug message on my talk page:

"Thanks for experimenting with the page Cato Institute on Wikipedia. Your test of deliberately adding incorrect information worked, and has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. Thanks.–Quiddity 08:03, 14 November 2006 (UTC)"

Quiddity, you have shown me that you are either ignorant, a jerk, or both. Next time you want to criticize an edit a user has made, consider telling them why the edit was reverted, and maybe you could try not to assume that they're deliberately trying to inject misinformation into Wikipedia. I still don't know what your rationale here is, and due to of your lack of an intelligent and reasonable rebuttal I'm inclined to re-edit the section you reverted, so all you really accomplished is making me think that you're a smug little bastard. Have a nice day.

PS: I'm not a newb, and I've read much of the documentation Wikipedia provides. Consider a smug-ectomy -- in fact, send me the bill. --64.131.208.133 00:00, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies, I was in error, I revert a lot of simple test edits, and this looked like one. The fact that it changed the meaning of a sentence made me assume it was a misinfo vandalism edit, so I used a {{verror}} template instead of a {{test}} template (because I've been asked to use the userpage templates more often). I'll replace the warning with a welcome template on your userpage. Sorry again. --Quiddity 06:45, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cato isn't "New Right"

The "New Right" page describes it as follows: "The New Right also differs from the Old Right on issues concerning foreign policy with the New Right being opposed to the non-interventionism of the Old Right. Though mostly ignored by scholars until the late 1980s, the formation of the New Right is now one of the fastest-growing areas of historical research. New Right activists denounced abortion, pornography, homosexuality, feminism, and especially affirmative action." This doesn't fit Cato at all, as Cato is non-interventionist, neutral on abortion, and opposed to government restrictions on pornography and homosexuality. And you're not likely to find Cato scholars denouncing feminism. Binarybits 22:04, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Curious: Is CATO a WP "Reputable/Reliable Source" and how many wikipedia articles cite CATO?

I think that the CATO institute constitutes what the Wikipedia community would consider a reputable source. But what the hell do I know? Not much most likely.

I am curious as to how many wikipedia articles cite CATO or a CATO published paper as a source.

How would someone find that out? Are there any search engines that or Wiki stats that can be used to determine the link topology within the Wikipedia?

And actually, I am using CATO just as an example. It could just as easily be any other "Washington Think Tank", say the Brookings Institute, or the American Enterprise Institute, or ...?

In fact, I think I will place this comment on their pages too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.76.64.16 (talk) 01:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I (personally) do consider them reliable but slightly biased due to their "Libertarian" viewpoint. I have a few stats on several Think Tanks, Cato included. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 02:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I would tend to agree. Biased is not the same as unreliable. I think most of us are biased, the question is whether we are transparent about it. Lots of negative stuff can probably be said about CATO, but they don't deny their Libertarian viewpoints. 71.39.78.68 01:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On Bias: I agree that bias is not bad per se. Both the scientific method and modern civilization require a basic commitment to continuously reconsidering your assumptions in the light of evidence, but without any bias whatsoever one cannot interpret the world as anything but a big collection of disconnected facts. As far as biases go, a bias for liberty and tolerance is at least as good as any other, and beats a bias for authority and parochialism any time as far as I'm concerned.Sjeng 13:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]