All three of those articles are by the same author. And I don’t think CATO has a single monolithic view of the war in Iraq and the War on Terror, though I could be wrong.
I’ve never really checked out Cato before, mainly due to being informed Cato weren’t really Libertarian, but this thread has made it apparent that this is a generalization. As of late, I’ve been noticing the types of divisions the Libertarian movement seems to have. I can’t help but think that this is partially why we aren’t making more inroads to mainstream politics.
Divide and conquer, comes to mind. While I don’t think Libertarians should compromise on their principles, I also think that Libertarians should try to find common ground to get behind with. The two Statist parties do it, why not us? I might be a little new to all of this, but I think it’s a valid point nonetheless.
In the two evils of war and slavery Machan apparently believes war to be the lesser of the two. You are certainly free to disagree. I have heard the very valid arguments that the War Between the States was unnecessary and that slavery was on the wane etc. But this does not validate your earlier claim: “They came out in support of the imperial state and wars of aggression. They are the definition of the enemy, and they are even worse enemies in that they claim to be like us.”
Machan’s error is one of fact, not morality. He probably has a high-school-history-textbook version of history. But then so do most Americans. Your statement “They came out in support of the imperial state and wars of aggression.” is plural in nature and universal in tone. I have shone you articles indicating instances in which they did not.
Again, just in case you missed them the first time:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8020
You pulled one sentence out of three articles out of context..
I quite agree with you. Libertarians of all stripes have far more in common than any of them do with either the Conservatives or the modern-so-called-liberals. The libertarian movement today often reminds me of the Monty Python film Life of Brian in which the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front are at each others throat.
Again, all three of those article are from the same author. Is he the only foreign policy writer at CATO? And what about the personal views on the war of the other scholars and staff? I’m not attacking. I’m just pointing out that one author isn’t necessarily representative of the entire Institute.
Here are some others:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6656
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa503.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp98.pdf
Here are some others:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6656
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa503.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp98.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9012
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa539.pdf
Using their own search box this is the page that comes up:
The Cato Institute is not monolithic, just like the Mises Institute. It’s funny, Mises gets attacked by the beltway crowd all the time for being anti-immigrant when Walter Block, one of the most veteran members of Mises, is explicitly open borders. Brink Lindsey of Cato was for the Iraq War, but he wasn’t and isn’t part of the foreign policy department, who was against the war. Roger Pilon is the main Constitutional scholar there, and he is pretty bad as shown by his recent endorsement of the “Protect America” Act. I saw him at a talk this past summer and he called anyone who thought that the Second Amendment barred the federal government from passing any regulations on weapons whatsoever was a “nutjob.” He’s also unapolegitcally for the incorporation doctrine, which is a terrible tool of centralization. Gene Healy, however, is great on these issues. Unfortunately he is not as high ranking as Pilon, so his views get less of a hearing. David Boaz is very anti-Ron Paul, irrationally so. He is instumental in fanning the flames of the personal feud, because Dr. Paul is personal friends with the Mises crowd. As for Tom Palmer–I don’t want to take sides too explicitly here–I can definately see his personality as being conducive to feuds.
Personally, I think that Cato as a whole puts out a decent amount of work that is useful. Like Mr. Tucker alluded to, Mises is much more dedicated to high theory and principle, which is more useful in the end because it is universally applicable. But sometimes a work like Leviathan on the Right is great ammo for attacking the current forces of big government. Yet I think the Cato people in general lack a sence of proportion. For example, in my conversations with them they express absolute distain for Pat Buchanan. Now, it is true that Buchanan is horrible on trade and immigration, but he is great on empire. And he has stature on the right–he’s a great counter balance to the neocons, I think. This same attitude leaks through with their attitude towards Dr. Paul. Sure, there are things that you can nitpick with him–you can do this to anyone. But many of them refuse to go out on a limb and support him despite his many many good points.
And you used three articles to try to prove a point about the institute. But even your hand picked articles proved that Cato is not anti-war.
Cato is about as Libertarian as is Rudolf Giuliani, or should I say, Fred Thompson, whom they endorsed.
I used to subscribe to the email list for the Cato Institute. I started to notice a definite pro-war tilt to the articles. As such, I have discontinued my subscription. I have found the articles from the Mises Institute to be much better.
Cato is not pro-war. Ted Galen Carpenter who heads their international studies is every bit as anti-war as this website. Ed Crane has publically stated that if he voted, he would vote for Ron Paul because he is pro-market and anti-war. The main difference is Mises Institute is Austrian and Cato is made up of Public Choice, monetarists and Austrians…
The difference in how CATO treated Pilon and Armentano in light of respective articles they published in newspapers is interesting.
Check this out:
It is their business in any case.
Notice the title of his position: CONSTITUTIONAL studies. Whether an action is constitutional is quite a different question from whether that action is just or advisable.
Okay. So what?
Yeah, and Pilon was wrong on all counts and he’s still at CATO. Armentano, on the other hand, was fired for something that had nothing to do with his position at CATO.
I think it is fair to point out that Ed Crane came out about a week later with an Op-Ed which he basically stated that Pilon didn’t speak for Cato on that issue. Cato just like Mises Institute doesn’t have “offical” positions on policy policy issues.
Right. But then why fire Armentano for his unrelated op-ed? It’s hypocritical.
We don’t know the whole story about why he was let go. It is pure speculation and we are assuming the cover story is the correct reason. It could be for other reason that Cato and the scholar do not wish to be made public. Who knows?
UFO simply means unidentified flying object. If you ever saw a bird flying and could not quite make out the species you have seen a UFO. Hmm, could it be that these UFOs are secret military aircraft? That would explain why the military would want to keep such sightings secret.
And so, revealing what we know would increase that threat (if this is the reason).
Secrecy in terms of the military is the norm. It is expected. He could just as reasonably call for the release of information on all of our military’s secret training maneuvers and weapons systems. He could call for the release of the nuclear launch codes. At least that would be consistent. Instead he picks a target that is esoteric and attracts people without proper reasoning skills. Perhaps it was not because of Armentano’s chosen topic or point of view that he was canned but that this work was not well thought out.
Like the arguments Pilon was criticized even by fellow Catoites for?