Vindicated for Criticizing 'Libertarian' Think Tanks?

Right on, Sunni.

I read the Cato website constantly and never saw this alleged shift. I also heard your talk and thought you were wrong then and are still wrong. There is no evidence Cato was aware of Bandow's action and they removed him. The biased report would call that "predictably" distancing themselves. On the other hand if they didn't do that the same report would say "refuses to distance themselves" so no matter what action they took you are able to complain.

Your talk showed an ignorance of what policy institutes do. Libertarian ones don't sit around coming up with plans on how to tell people what to do. They try to move policy away from that trend or to mitigate it as much as possible. And much of what Cato does is about issues and no different than what many website do (like yours) but on a bigger scale.

Whoa, A. Reader -- it appears you're reading a lot into my post here, and into what I said at the Freedom Summit. I'll try to briefly address all your points, although not necessarily in the order you've made them.

First, some background: I've worked extensively with policy institutes in various capacities while at Free-Market.Net. I've also done some volunteer work of varying sorts at a few. There's a wide range of activities that policy institutes conduct, even libertarian ones, but even so, I am familiar with the basics. One of the things I bolluxed in my presentation was clearly elucidating my difficulties with some libertarian think tanks. One individual spoke to me about it afterward -- he disagreed with what I said in my talk, too -- and after a few minutes' conversation, we found that we agree much more than we disagree.

Nowhere have I claimed that Cato is one of the public policy busybodies, telling people what's best for them. A libertarian think tank that I do see as doing this is the Reason Foundation. On the transportation issue main page, Bob Poole is quoted as saying, "It's time to rethink America's overemphasis on carpooling and revisit the advantages of buses." Why? If people liked riding buses better than using their own cars, they'd already be doing it -- they wouldn't need persuading or bribes -- er, "incentives". His endorsement of a "trusted flyer" ID program is highly problematic too. Some think tanks endorse what amounts to faux privatization -- for details see Kevin Carson's excellent Mutualist blog for numerous entries on the subject.

Now, to the Cato Institute specifically: I am not a regular reader of their material. I don't know what their writers are saying now, and how it compares with what they said when I did cover them for FMN. I have seen, however, other folks saying that Cato material has, umm, stepped back from a hard libertarian line. Sorry I can't provide any links -- I visit a lot of web sites and can't keep track of everything I see. That said, it's very often true that individuals see what they want to see -- so perhaps that explains your perception of no shift, and others' perceptions of a pro-Bush shift.

I have no great love -- nor enmity -- for the Cato Institute. I have no dog in this fight. Based on your comments after reading my post, it would appear that you've interpreted my words to mean that I want to complain about Cato's leaders' actions, irrespective of what they are. That isn't true. I used the adverb "predictably" because it is predictable that the Cato leadership would react as they have to news of Bandow's actions. I think that action was proper, as I think hiding a payola arrangement is ethically dodgy.

The main point of this entry is that even pro-freedom individuals, whom some among us like to hold up as being more ethical and principled than everyone else, are not immune to lapses of judgment, or the insidious allure of power and/or prestige. I know I've made mistakes, and I'm sure I'll make more. Yep, I've been wrong, too. Libertarians are just as human as everyone else, and to pretend otherwise is grave folly. That's why, in a nutshell, I'm anti-state, and a voluntaryist.

You seem to have chosen to interpret my comments as an attack on the Cato Institute. That's an error, which I hope I've made clear in the above. If you like them and support them, great! There are certainly worse pro-freedom causes to support.

Mr. Bandow is such a good columnist... This is very bad news - and very, very disappointing.

Sunni, I agree 100%.

The problem I have with libertarian think tanks, is that they are not very libertarian! It irritates me no end that they are pushing "school choice" which is just another government program (largely charters and tax-funded vouchers).

I had a discussion a while back with John Charles who now runs the Portland, Oregon Cascade Policy Institute. Charles was pushing the notion of "congestion pricing", I think he called it, where transponders would note the passage of cars on freeways and bill the drivers depending on the time of day. This was supposed to introduce a bit more market-based pricing into road use. My problem with it was the potential for government tracking of the movements of individuals. He completely pooh-poohed my concerns, yet now we see stories of plans for government to use GPS based tracking of all cars, not just on congested freeways! And all this started in a libertarian think tank.

These think tanks did a lot of good in the early days, but they are almost counterproductive at this point, seems to me.