All Things in Moderation

Someone mentioned this the other day, but the Washingtonian has an article on the fight over control of Cato.

“Politicians surf public opinion,” says Cato scholar Jim Harper. “They are not interested in the right answer; they are interested in the answer that gets them reelected.” Crane told a colleague that the entrance to Cato’s building faced away from the Capitol “so Congress can kiss my ass.”

Whole thing is worth reading.

Filed under: koch bros, Libertarians | 6 Comments »

A few of you are strong economic libertarians.  A few of you are strong social libertarians.  I maintain many libertarian positions as do most of the rest of us here, and I have always found Cato’s web page worth the read.  I think all of us should read this:

http://www.cato.org/SaveCato/

and this:

http://volokh.com/2012/03/09/koch-v-cato-skip-olivas-observations/

Some of us will also find this worthy as background material, because it centers on the kind of important philosophical matters Cato raises that could indeed be silenced:

http://baselinescenario.com/2012/03/08/the-koch-brothers-the-cato-institute-and-why-nations-fail/#more-9955

Partisan Democrats may think Cato is already a tool of Republicans, so I would not bother to recommend these articles at PL.   I think that any of you here from “left” to “right” who have ever gone to Volokh or to Libertarianism 101 recognize the difference.  When we argue policy, we may line up with the “platform” of one party far more than another, but political parties live first for self perpetuation by getting elected, which means raising money and votes, not to have true discussions of why policies make sense from a philosophical perspective.  We have some well established strains of political philosophy.  Libertarianism is one of them.  I want Cato to survive.

Filed under: koch bros, Libertarians | 12 Comments »