The Cato Institute does not deserve respect or credibility

"C1: Cato and Big Tobacco"1) I may have been a touch misleading here, and I apologize for any confusion I may have caused. I am not arguing that the Institute is tailoring it's content to match it's donors interests in the way you just described, which, unfortunately, is difficult to prove without further evidence. I am not arguing that Cato exclusively accepted Big Tobacco funding to coincide with its anti-smoking efforts; I am arguing that the reason the Cato Institute exists is primarily to produce academic and legislative proposals that coincide with the interests of large corporations (note that they exist solely to make an economic profit) make those policies mainstream, and push them through Congress. What I am accusing Cato of is corporatism, and hijacking legislative policy to serve the interests of corporations, not citizens, not the public, not the world. It is no surprise ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, ChevronTexaco, Tenneco Gas, the American Petroleum Institute, the Amoco Foundation, the Claude R. Lamb Charitable foundation, the Charles G. Koch foundation, the Philip Anschutz foundation and the Atlantic Richfield Organization all fund the Cato Institute, to name the ties it has with the petroleum industry, but Cato also recieves funding from Big Pharma (Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc.) Big Finance (Citibank, Prudential, Chase Manhattan, American Express, Salomon Brothers) and Big Tech (Verizon, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, Netscape, BellSouth). It was from its start as you correctly described in line with general libertarianism and the belief in individual liberties that put it against a smoking ban, the FDA, etc. The reason you and I should take note of this is because while Cato claims to be nonpartisan and independent, those are selective definitions of the real meaning behind the words. Cato is a bastion of policies that coincide with the philosophy of the largest multinational conglomerates. We later discovered smoking was a problem, along with secondhand smoking, and it was banned and regulated. This of course was a loss for the corporations and Cato. If people knew who was behind Cato, they would be more skeptical of its policy proposals, just as many people are today of corporation's proposals, and for good reason.2) I suggest you read "Lies, Damned Lies, and 400,000 Smoking related deaths," (www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n4/lies.pdf) written by Robert A. Levy, chairman of Cato's board of directors, and senior fellow emeritus of constitutional studies, which ironically has little to do with science, especially medical science.This article was later refuted by the American Council of Science and Health, whose two authors, Alicia M. Lukachko, and Elizabeth M. Whelan, who each have a Masters degree in Public health, and a Doctor of Science. Read an excerpt from their critique: "In the Fall 1998 issue of Regulation (“The Cato Review of Business and Government”), the Cato Institute published an article by Robert Levy and Rosalind Marimont titled “Lies, Damned Lies, & 400,000 Smoking-Related Deaths.” In their article, Levy and Marimont contend that the U.S. government’s estimate of approximately 400,000 annual premature deaths due to cigarette smoking is scientifically unsound and substantially inflated. The authors assert that “the war on smoking . . . has grown into a monster of deceit and greed, eroding the credibility of government and subverting the rule of law.” In this report, scientists at the American Council on Science and Health refute Levy and Marimont’s key arguments (presented below) as unscientific and inflammatory. ACSH’s critique concludes that the estimate of 400,000 annual deaths due to cigarette smoking is indeed reliable and may even be an underestimate.The authors make four primary assertions leading to their conclusion that the figure of 400,000 is inflated. Those four assertions and a summary of ACSH’s critique of each of them follow." Read the full critique here: "http://www.acsh.org... response to my second claim, public places is what I am referring to. Read "http://www.cato.org...; Note the title: Smoking bans are dangerous to free soceity's health. And there's more where that came from. Read “the case against smoking bans” "www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv29n4/v29n4-4.pdf"3)-Refer to above, where I underline why opposition to regulation not from the standpoint of society but instead corporate interests has a negative effect on society and is undeserving of respect.1) First, Pro's only claim is that Cato holds to a certain position without actually even attempting to show why it should discredit Cato..."Umm... Because you have business interests tied to that, and other issues, which you have surreptitiously accepted funding to reaffirm your position. For example, read this headline: "http://www.guardian.co.uk...; "Patrick Michaels, fellow at the Cato Institute, claimed 3% of his funding came from industry, later revealed that figure to be 40%."2) Oxford Handbook on Climate Change: "The earlier-mentioned conservative resurgence began when wealthy conservative philanthropists such as Joseph Coors began to fund, typically through their family foundations, the establishment of conservative think tanks (CTTs) such as the Heritage Foundation towage a ‘war of ideas’ against the progressive gains of the 1960s (Himmelstein 1990; Lapham 2004). By the 1990s conservative foundations were funding a ‘conservative labyrinth' designed to implant conservative values and goals in academic, media,governmental,legal, and religious institutions (Covington 1997: 3). Particularly important is the network of well-heeled and inﬂuential think tanks that churn out an endless ﬂow of policy proposals credited with moving the US policy agenda signiﬁcantly to the right (Krehely et al. 2004) and—since the 1990s—influencing climate policy (McCright and Dunlap 2003, 2010). Major funders include foundations controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife and David and Charles Koch (both drawing upon family fortunes stemming in part from oil interests). Besides giving generously to a vast range of CTTs and conservative causes, they are responsible for establishing the Cato Institute (C. Koch), Citizens for a Sound Economy, now Americans for Prosperity (D. Koch) and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow or CFACT (R. M. Scaife)—three particularly crucial elements of the denial machine. ln fact, in recent years the Scaife and Koch families of funds may have exceeded ExxonMobil in terms of funding climate change denial actors and activities (Grandia 2009; Greenpeace 2010b; Mashey 2010). CTT‘s represent social movement organizations that typically serve as spokespersons and facilitators for conservative causes (Jacques et al. 2008; McCright and Dunlap 2000). While corporations like ExxonMobil have joined conservative foundations in providing generous funding for CTTs, many of the latter appear to oppose climate science and policy making for purely ideological reasons (McCright and Dunlap 2010: 109-11). CTT's are a fundamental and highly efective component of the denial machine, providing institutional bases for leading contrarians such as Patrick Michaels (a Cato Fellow), hosting anti-IPCC conferences (Heartland Institute), sponsoring ‘educational events‘ for politicians (National Center for Policy Analysis), assisting the George W. Bush Administration’s efforts to impede climate policy (Competitive Enterprise Institute), and producing and circulating a vast range of anti-climate change material via various forms of media (reports, press releases, press conferences, videos, radio and television interviews). among other activities (see e.g. Hoggan with Littlemore 2009; Lahsen 2008; McCright and Dunlap 2000, 2003; Oreskes and Conway 2010).