Talk:The Founding Myth

January 2021

I have copied the contents of the page as of 28 January 2021 to my sandbox to work on it. Please let me know of any more recent edits. Thanks! Drobertpowell (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

@Drobertpowell: That's not quite how Wikipedia works; it is the responsibility of the editor making changes to make sure they don't accidentally overwrite intervening edits. You can check for this by viewing the page history. However, I can say I don't plan to work on it in the near future. ☆ Bri (talk) 03:21, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bri: Fair enough! Thanks for the clarification and for letting me know your intentions. Drobertpowell (talk) 15:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I forgot, you can put {{Under construction}} or {{In use}} at the top of the page to indicate its status to other editors. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:21, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Liberty Fund

Obviously a right-wing libertarian organization.

• 1953: Pierre F. Goodrich becomes a member of the Mont Pelerin Society resulting in friendships with Friedrich von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, and others[1]
• 1960: Liberty Fund, a private educational foundation, is established by Pierre F. Goodrich
• "Right-libertarianism developed in the United States in the mid-20th century from the works of European liberal writers such as John Locke, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises and is the most popular conception of libertarianism in the United States today."
• Pierre and Enid Goodrich Foundation, Inc. is listed among the heavyweights in right-wing conservative donors, such as the Scaife Foundations and the Castle Rock Foundation.
• Researcher Ruth E. McKie of De Montfort University documented the Pierre and Enid Goodrich Foundation's role in the right-wing climate denial industry. McKie singles out Giancarlo Ibarguen, a former Liberty Fund member of the board of directors, who helped organize climate denial conferences with speakers like economist Christopher Lingle, who claimed that climate change science was "unsettled", a common yet false climate denial talking point that is made to delay and prevent mitigation. McKie classifies this tactic as part of the "discourse of delay", which is widely supported in the literature as climate denial disinformation spread by right-wing conservative foundations.
• McKie cites, in part, this list of donors the Pierre and Enid Goodrich Foundation have given money to (as of 2021).[2] This include major donations, in part, to the conservative Acton Institute, the right-wing, conservative Adam Smith Institute, the right-wing, conservative Atlas Network, the conservative Bill of Rights Institute, the Cato Institute, the conservative Claremont Institute, the conservative Federalist Society, the conservative Foundation for Economic Education, the conservative Fraser Institute, and George Mason University and Hillsdale College. That's a partial list, but these groups are all right-wing conservative. To claim anything otherwise is misinformation.
• From the Liberty Fund article: In his book The Assault on Reason, former U.S. Vice President and presidential candidate Al Gore wrote that between 2002 and 2004, 97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees. Gore suggests that such conferences and seminars are one of the reasons that judges who regularly attend such conferences "are generally responsible for writing the most radical pro-corporate, antienvironmental, and activist decisions". Referring to what he calls the "Big Three"—the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, George Mason University's Law & Economics Center, and the Liberty Fund—Gore adds, "These groups are not providing unbiased judicial education. They are giving multithousand-dollar vacations to federal judges to promote their radical right-wing agenda at the expense of the public interest."
• Adam Wren describes the rightward shift of the Liberty Fund in 2022.
• Damon Linker also describes the rightward shift of the Liberty Fund in 2022: "Law and Liberty, which was launched in 2012…eventually began running pieces boosting Trump, conservative politicians and writers, and Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, while lambasting their critics… the shift could well be driven as much by the corporate imperative to demonstrate influence as by naked political passion and ambition. The businessmen who sit on Liberty Fund's board may be committed Republicans, but they may also have grown impatient with the absence of metrics to show their expensive conferences are making a concrete difference in the world. In this respect, the story of Liberty Fund's drift away from its founder's vision may be one as much about overt politicization as it is about declining faith in the power of libertarian ideas to win the day through erudite conversation alone."

Viriditas (talk) 22:04, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Again, per WP:VERIFY, WP:SYNTH which falls under WP:NOR no original research, uncited material is removable, and combining sources to make inferences is not allowed. You can readd the WP:GOODFAITH edit once you add a citation. Per WP:VERIFY "...verifiablity means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in reliable source before you can add it." Per WP:SYNTH "the term SYNTH refers to Wikipedia's policy of forbidding original research by synthesis, and to its forms and nature. SYNTH cautions against original research by synthesis, where an editor combines reliably sourced statements in a way that makes or suggests a new statement not supported by any one of the sources." I understand you have various sources but you need to cite the source material. Also WP:EDITWAR is not allowed, I will remove the uncited source per Wikipedia's policies, until there is a consensus, someone adds a reliable citation, or there is a dispute resolution - please do not readd the disputed material.ChaoticTexan (talk) 01:29, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Gore, Wren, and Linker, three sources referring to them as right wing. Liberty Fund is a group that is run by Republicans, who identify as conservative and libertarian. They fund right groups and they promote the policies of Trump and other conservatives, including climate denial and conservative interpretations of the law. In the US, this is referred to as "right wing". Furthermore, the above sources indicate that multiple people have left their organization because it has moved too far to the right. That’s the entire topic covered by Wren and Linker. Please explain why you have a problem with this term. Please address this question specifically without throwing out an alphabet soup of policies and guidelines which I have been familiar with for more than 20 years. Please explain why you think Liberty Fund should not be referred to as right wing. That is how discussion occurs; it does not occur through legalism or bureaucratic notions of how things should be done. Given the fact that you have a problem with this basic description, I would like to also suggest that a partisan-motivated blog book review should be removed from the article due to its POV pushing nature. Viriditas (talk) 02:36, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I have now removed the source as unreliable. Do not add it back unless you can demonstrate that it meets the reliable source guideline and is used appropriately with due weight. Further, if you cannot honestly describe the Liberty Fund as right wing, which they clearly and unambiguously are today in 2024, then you probably need to seek external guidance from a mentor. A right wing organization that funds right wing groups and writes blog posts about right wing topics from a right wing POV is called right wing. This is reality. Facts exist. Viriditas (talk) 02:46, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide the pages where that is said for all three sources. Respectfully, I will not sift through over 300 pages for Gore. Also, my "issue" is that you are seemingly adding wording that does not reflect the source material that is cited for that statement. I said to add a citation, if you want to readd that, and I also noticed on your 2nd revert, that you said I did not input anything into the discussion... Even if I did. Yes, believe it or not even Veteran Wikipedia editors can commit errors but that's not the focus of this discussion. You are using sources and seemingly inferring from them to validate adding right-wing and conservative even when the source cited for that statement is not on there. I said to readd if you provide a source which you only listed sources here where you inferred that Liberty Fund is right-wing and conservative by stringing along various sources that do not seemingly directly mention that. "97% of the attendees at Liberty Fund training seminars for judges were Republican administration appointees" is not the same as Liberty Fund is a right-wing platform (or any other wording). I will wait for further input from others and possibly request a third opinion. All I was asking is for you to add a citation, that mentions not infers info. From my understanding the policies are in place to ensure articles are written properly, correct me if I am wrong. If this goes no where, we can get a third opinion. ChaoticTexan (talk) 02:51, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Can you acknolwedge what WP:SYNTH says? This issue is easily resolvable once you provide one source that mentions that. That's it. ChaoticTexan (talk) 02:53, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

ChaoticTexan, I’m afraid you aren’t making any sense. SYNTH has nothing to do with this discussion. Liberty Fund was founded by a Republican, and supports Republican organizations. Over the years, it has moved rightward. Gore noticed it in the early 2000s, describing what he saw as the hallmark of the Koch network. It sounds like you refuse to acknowledge that source even exists. Wren and Linker only wrote it about it recently because a former employee of Liberty Fund killed themselves after objecting to their move to the right and getting fired. There were apparently two employees who left after the organization began supporting Trump. Once again, why do you object to the term right wing? The organization is no longer adhering to the vision of its founders, which is what the articles by Wren and Linker discuss. Your entire argument sounds like an argument from ignorance, as you keep ignoring the facts. This is not a left wing organization. Viriditas (talk) 03:02, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, you have the burden of proof to show that Liberty Fund is a reliable source for this article. Given its status as a partisan, political group that pushes a singular POV, it’s probably not a good fit here. You are welcome to show how it meets the reliable source guidelines and the policy of due weight per NPOV. Viriditas (talk) 03:04, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Are there reliable sources (ideally several) that call this organization "right wing" etcetera. If there are, then so can WP, if not, then we cannot. Selfstudier (talk) 11:17, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

These sources have already been provided. Liberty Fund is part of the Koch-financed network of right-libertarian lobby groups. "Libertarianism [is] generally considered to be a hard right position". This is not in dispute by anyone. This is called the "right-wing" in the US literature. Given Liberty Fund's support from Koch, years of climate denial and anti-environmentalism, promotion of religion and denigration of secularism, and support for Trump and Viktor Orbán, calling Liberty Fund right-wing is accurate. Historian Nancy LoPatin-Lummis refers to Liberty Fund as "right-wing" in her memorial essay on Richard W. Davies, because Liberty Fund was part of the Koch network that funded the Freedom Center at Washington University. Historian Chris Wright says the same thing in his essay "The rise of right-wing libertarianism since the 1950s", classifying the Liberty Fund as right-wing. This subterfuge has been covered by dozens of sources. Liberty Fund is right wing. Anyone who denies this has lost the plot to reality. Two employees notably were forced out because the organization embraced right-wing values, and one employee committed suicide, in part because of their turn to the dark side hard right. This has already been established in the sources. And let's be perfectly clear, in a perfect world, there is nothing wrong with being "right wing". The problem is that Liberty Fund, along with other right wing groups, have, according to experts in their fields, been directly responsible for undermining democracy in the US, particularly in the judicial sphere, which Gore wrote about above, resulting in massive shifts in inequality and alterations in public health and safety. Furthermore, the goal of these right-wing organizations is to quite literally destroy democratically-elected governments and replace them with private industry-run enterprises that do away with public services and administration. In addition, and with relevance to this particular subject under discussion, they have partnered with Christian nationalists who are helping them attack democratically elected governments to achieve their goals and impose theocratic governance in their place to keep the people, now disenfranchised, in line. This is what is happening. Viriditas (talk) 21:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

We just need the sources. I see

Historian Nancy LoPatin-Lummis refers to Liberty Fund as "right-wing" in her memorial essay on Richard W. Davies (Is that cited in the article, I couldn't see it?).

and no other (except yourself). Are there others? Selfstudier (talk) 22:08, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

The fact that Liberty Fund is a right-wing group is not even debatable. It's no longer relevant here because I've removed it from this article. I'm currently working on the article itself at Liberty Fund. I've posted plenty of sources here already. Viriditas (talk) 22:10, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

• Bromley, R. (1990). "A New Path to Development? The Significance and Impact of Hernando De Soto's Ideas on Underdevelopment, Production, and Reproduction". Economic Geography, 66(4), 328–348.

The ILD began as a very modest institution, operating from De Soto's garage, with one research fellow, Enrique Ghersi, a secretary, and a stream of shorter-term visiting researchers and associates. By the mid-1980s, it had achieved significant funding from USAID, the Inter-American Foundation, and such right-wing sources as the Liberty Fund. (p. 332).

Bromley goes on to describe "an international network and support system of the political right" composed of "the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., the Liberty Fund in Indianapolis, the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the Institute for Economic Affairs and the Center for Policy Studies in London, the Mt. Perelin Society in Switzerland, and the Francisco Marroquin University in Guatemala". Viriditas (talk) 23:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Philosopher Susan Neiman in Moral Clarity (2008):

Of all the forces that contributed to the rightward turn in American culture, none is more surprising than the philosophical exertions behind contemporary conservatism. In the sixties, conservatives used the very word intellectual as a term of abuse -- remember Spiro Agnew? But when the left turned its sights on matters more pragmatic, the right went off to build think tanks. Under the influence of writers like Leo Strauss and Ayn Rand, young conservatives were reading Plato and Aristotle. Through organizations like the Liberty Fund and the Olin Foundation, midwestern businessmen who made their fortunes producing chemicals and telephones were sponsoring seminars in the mountains of Hungary on the nature of evil, or flying scholars to Chicago to discuss law and virtue." (p. 10)

Just a note to say this book is one of the finest criticisms of the American left I've ever seen. While the right were taking over America piece by piece, the left were staring at their navels, twiddling their thumbs. Viriditas (talk) 23:35, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

References