I don't trust heritage, so if you can find a better source I'd read it.

Heritage is usually pretty good for right-wing thought. In cases where you don't trust the source much, I'd take a look at the author and their work. The author of the article is a pretty distinguished professor so I'd definitely give it a read.


Anyway, when it comes down to it, I'm not sure if I should care about who wins a Pulitzer Prize. I imagine there's a lot of political forces at play here and that doesn't really interest me. The 1619 Project certainly has many flaws, but as a whole, I think it brings a very important conversation to the table that's REALLY glossed over.

Honestly, I've neither read the OP, nor the Heritage link, and I have no opinion to add to the discussion here. I added it for context for the people who've already delved into the topic, which is why I had no commentary attached to the post. But really, the Heritage Foundation is a world-class think tank (#8/world last year, #3/US last year).

I dont hold think tanks in high esteem generally

Why?

Why not? They have MASSIVE impacts on legislation. Congress relies on them more than anything else...

Oh I agree. They are hugely influential.



I have inherent distrust of organizations with politically or ideologically driven mission statements instead of metrics driven mission statements.

Example

"The mission of The Heritage Foundation is to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense."

I'll contrast this with a research organization my lab works with

"The Chordoma Foundation proactively initiates, facilitates, and funds research to accelerate the development of effective treatments, and ultimately a cure, for chordoma, while improving the diagnosis, treatment, and quality of life for people affected by this deadly bone cancer."


The latter is goal focused (diagnosis, treatment, QoL) whereas the former is ideological (free enterprise, limited government, etc.). They have decided that the best route is conservatism before looking at the data, so every conclusion they draw is suspect beyond that. It would be like a physics department saying "We want to use scientific principles to prove Newton was right" versus saying "We want to examine applications of Newton's laws". The former assumes its conclusion, the latter will examine and apply them where they are appropriate.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 8 2020 01:55pm

Public policy is not hard science like physics.

Which is why it's even more important to put ideology aside for the sake of what will produce the best results.

If they had something like "Increase access to healthcare, ensure economic prosperity, etc." and then figured out that conservative principles were the best ways to do that, then sure, we can have that discussion, but when you assume your conclusion before you even start then your analysis is worthless. You're going to end up shoving a lot of square blocks into round holes.

Anyway, that's why I don't value thinktanks much. They assume their conclusions before doing the analysis and then come up with the conclusion that the policy they said they were trying to support in their mission statement is the best policy. Shocker!

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 8 2020 02:50pm

he’s an anti-intellectual