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View Full Version : Does anybody know of CATO love of Republican governments




Man from La Mancha
11-04-2007, 12:02 PM
http://www.cato.org/about.php

It says it is for a republican governments. What gets me thinking it has a budget of $22 million and 95 people working for it, that's pretty impressive for an organization. Anybody have any opinions of this group and could they be any help?

Here is a link to their articles on Ron....http://find.cato.org/search?q=ron+paul&btnG=Search&site=cato_all&client=cato_all&restrict=Cato&filter=p&lr=lang_en&output=xml_no_dtd&proxystylesheet=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cato.org%2Ftempla tes%2Fsearch%2Fcato.xslt&getfields=summary
.

Here is a sample which I really liked and did not think about in this way
Ron Paul in the Post

The Washington Post profiles libertarian congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.) — in its Sunday Style section, which is sort of a throwaway placement.

It’s one of those 1970s-style laundry list stories:

The amiable Texas congressman would do away with the CIA and the Federal Reserve. He’d reinstate the gold standard. He’d get rid of the Department of Education.

Rather than really try to present the argument for individual rights and limited constitutional government, drawing on public choice economics and the failures of government programs, the reporter just lists one out-of-the-mainstream position after another. Still, she does make it clear that he’s philosophically principled and not your typical Bush-supporting JFK-lookalike 21st-century congressman.

Here’s an interesting point about Ron Paul that I haven’t seen anyone make: As far as I know, Ron Paul is the only member of Congress who has been elected three times as a non-incumbent. Two of those times he beat an incumbent.
He first won a special election in 1976, then lost that fall. Two years later he came back and defeated incumbent Bob Gammage. After three terms he ran for the Senate, losing the Republican nomination to Phil Gramm. The really bad news was that he was replaced by Tom DeLay. In 1988 Paul was the Libertarian Party nominee for president. Then in 1996, 20 years after his first election and 12 years after he had last won election to the House, he ran again in a differently configured district. He had to beat Democrat-turned-Republican incumbent Greg Laughlin in the primary — against the opposition of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Rifle Association, former attorney general Ed Meese, Senators Gramm and Kay Bailey Hutchison, and Gov. George W. Bush.

Given that kind of firepower and the incumbent reelection rate of about 99 percent these days, Ron Paul has a remarkable political record. He must be doing something right back in Texas.

Corydoras
11-04-2007, 12:36 PM
As far as I know, they do not endorse primary candidates.

They are a very, very influential organization, and given their origins, I would guess they are friendlier to Paul than most.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute

I know they started out in the libertarian-leaning Austrian-school right. I have read that some people on this forum claim they have betrayed this and gone neocon-- but I do NOT know about that one way or the other and have seen nothing indicating this.

drednot
11-04-2007, 12:56 PM
Personally I don't see this "gone Neocon" stuff at all. They've been putting out anti-war stuff for decades including plenty of anti-Iraq pieces.

They do seem eager to mention libertarian proposals from candidates other than Ron Paul.

I can think of a couple of benign reasons why:

they may not want to be seen as shilling for one candidate.

they may be more interested in changing the landscape of the debate and winning the war of ideas rather than getting specific people into office.

Highmesa
11-04-2007, 01:17 PM
Cato has been the pre-eminant libertaian think tank over the last couple decades. Their policy work is aces and i think it helps push the libertarian cause in DC - well, at least keeps it within earshot of the powerbrokers.

I don't know though. Maybe they are going out of their way to not appear Paulian, but look at the difference between LRC and Cato. I know Lew gave up his non-profit status to promote Ron, but I would think Cato could be a bit more forward. Watch the Vid of Boaz on Glenn Beck last week. What the hell does Boaz mean by saying "those aren't the positions I agree with Ron on?" I mean, other than maybe the semantics of the border issue, they were all pretty solidly libertarian positions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwXWXByYt5g

amga49
11-04-2007, 01:38 PM
I own a Cato Institute copy of the Declaration of Independance & the Constitution, in this book's intro is a very positive message of the constitutional contract protecting individual rights, and employing a government with the single role of swearing to protect this contract from neglection.

That's a supportive opinion.

LastoftheMohicans
11-04-2007, 01:51 PM
Cato has been the pre-eminant libertaian think tank over the last couple decades. Their policy work is aces and i think it helps push the libertarian cause in DC - well, at least keeps it within earshot of the powerbrokers.

I don't know though. Maybe they are going out of their way to not appear Paulian, but look at the difference between LRC and Cato. I know Lew gave up his non-profit status to promote Ron, but I would think Cato could be a bit more forward. Watch the Vid of Boaz on Glenn Beck last week. What the hell does Boaz mean by saying "those aren't the positions I agree with Ron on?" I mean, other than maybe the semantics of the border issue, they were all pretty solidly libertarian positions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwXWXByYt5g

I thought the same thing. The positions Beck ticked off were pretty hard-core libertarian except for the border thing. Which positions did Boaz disagree with? I've been done with Cato for several years now. Ever since the BS "Republican Revolution" of '94, Cato has become part of the Republican Establishment. Steve Moore of the neo-con Club for Growth used to work for them, Dan Mitchell from Heritage now works for them. They hosted Dick Armey, the ultimate sell-out, and sat there quietly while he described himself as a libertarian (Go check his voting record). Only one guy in the audience challenged him. I've heard Cato President, Ed Crane, during a Goldwater symposium, speak highly of Fmr. Rep. Pat Toomey. Toomey's voting record doesn't hold a candle to Ron Paul's (Nobody's does).

Cato was lukewarm on NAFTA and GATT. They accepted the Establishment line that they were free trade deals. For the record, I support the US unilaterally dropping all trade barriers but I am 100% opposed to managed trade deals.

There are (were) a few good people at CATO. Ted Galen Carpenter is good on foreign policy. Roger Pilon is pretty good on the Constitution but he has accepted a libertarian centralist position on the Constitution. One of the best people in the libertarian movement, Sheldon Richman, used to work for CATO. He is now with FFF (www.fff.org and FEE(www.fee.org

What annoys me the most about CATO is their promotion of people who are not libertarians and their disrespect of the most libertarian Congressman of the last 40-50 years. I wouldn't mind if they were completely neutral. But they have basically sold out and become the "reasonable libertarian" faction of the Establishment.

LastoftheMohicans
11-04-2007, 01:55 PM
I own a Cato Institute copy of the Declaration of Independance & the Constitution, in this book's intro is a very positive message of the constitutional contract protecting individual rights, and employing a government with the single role of swearing to protect this contract from neglection.

That's a supportive opinion.

I used to have one of those. I believe the official CATO position is an expansive view of the 14th Amendment. That is, that the 14th makes the Bill of Rights apply to the States. Putting aside that the Amendment was passed under duress (The South was under military occupation. And no, I am not a Neo-Confederate), I think the jury is still out on what the 14th Amendment means.

MS0453
11-04-2007, 02:14 PM
As far as I know, they do not endorse primary candidates.

They are a very, very influential organization, and given their origins, I would guess they are friendlier to Paul than most.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute

I know they started out in the libertarian-leaning Austrian-school right. I have read that some people on this forum claim they have betrayed this and gone neocon-- but I do NOT know about that one way or the other and have seen nothing indicating this.


Murray Rothbard was one of the founders of Cato Institute, but there was a big falling out. I guess that's probably where the bad blood between the Mises and Cato institute originally stems from. A quick search of LRC would probably find a lot criticism (policy-based criticism that is) of the Cato institute.

Rothbards take on the "purging" here-------> http://www.mises.org/journals/lf/1981/1981_01-04.pdf