The Cato Institute does not deserve respect or credibility

C1: Cato and Big Tobacco 1) Pro has changed his main argument from the thesis that Cato tailors it's content as a result of corporate donations to the thesis that the reason Cato exists originally is in order to forward corporate interests. An interesting idea I suppose but Pro offers no substantiation. Pro just says Cato is backed by corporations. But his new thesis (brought in the last round) requires evidence surrounding the genesis of Cato, not with current affairs so just saying that Cato has received corporate donations is insuficient to show that the basis of its inception was to forward corporate interests. This requires Pro to offer evidence concerning the motivations of Cato's founders, something Pro hasn't even attempted to do. Pro also fails to offer a rebuttal to my point that the policy proposals of right-wing libertarianism would in some instances naturally coincide with those of corporations, meaning the argument fails to prove that Cato's policy proposals are a result of corporate donations as opposed to the ideological bent of the organization. Pro responds by saying that Cato claims to be an independent organization which he claims is false. But why does he say this? Because their interests naturally coincide at some points with corporations. Even so this doesn't prove that Cato isn't independent since Pro hasn't established a causal link from the interests of corporations to the content of Cato. Otherwise it's just a natural coincidence of interests. 2) Pro still hasn't shown why Cato's claims are biased or false. He's just shown that there is opposition. However, even if he shows Cato to be wrong, this doesn't prove corporate-backed bias. Pro also elucidated on his smoking bans point in saying he was referring to public-place smoking bans. Of course, Pro still fails to offer substantiation on why this is (a) wrong, (b) necessarily a result of corporate interests, or (c) why even if it is wrong, why it warrants withdrawing credibility from an entire organization. 3) Pro still hasn't shown why opposition to the FDA or other regulator institutions must be the result of corporate influence and cannot be explained by the ideological bent of the organization since its genesis. See a more full refutation in Point 1 of C1. C2: Cato and Climate Change 1) Pro fails to adequately respond to my point. Basically, Pro is saying that Cato scholars have a different opinion on climate change than him. Therefore they are undeserving of respect. Pro makes this claim without actually establishing why that should be the case. Now instead of backing up his claim in respect to the actual content of Cato's global climate change proposals, Pro is simply saying Cato makes its claims because of corporate donation. For full refutation of this see Point 1 of C1 above. Just because some third party has the same interests as X, doesn't mean X's actions must be the result of that third party. This is especially so in that Cato's ideological bent has been right wing libertarianism since its inception. 2) Pro's rebuttal here isn't actually a rebuttal at all. It's just more claims that conservative think tanks are generally biased. In failing to rebut my counter, Pro drops some important points. For instance, Pro hasn't shown which beliefs of Cato scholars are wrong or why if they are wrong, why that should destroy the credibility of an entire organization. Cato is a policy institute. Just saying that their policy proposals are wrong in one area doesn't show why wholesale loss of credibility is warranted. Of course Pro never attempted to show that their beliefs were wrong in this area so the point is moot I suppose.