Talk:Heritage Foundation

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Contents

[edit] 2004 and 2005 comments

The factors used to calculate the Index score are [...] rule of law and the ability to enforce contracts [....] A large amount of any of these will result in a lower score on the Index.

That doesn't sound quite right, but I'm not sure my fix is NPOV. ♥ «Charles A. L.» 14:46, Mar 29, 2004 (UTC)

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank located in Washington, DC, is widely regarded as one of the world's most influential public policy research institutes.

Wouldn't it be more correct to talk of "most influential public policy research institutes in the United States"? I can be wrong, but my impression is that Heritage is focused on US policies, and the current formulation makes it appear like it intervenes in many countries. David.Monniaux 14:26, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reversions

TheloniousMonk, I'd appreciate your explanation of how your 5/19/07 reversion of my edits conforms to Wikiquette on Reversions. Jackjump 20:08, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

This article reads like it was written by someone very sympathetic to the organization. E.g.: "Unlike traditional think tanks, which tend to house scholars and politicians-in-exile who produce large books, Heritage tends to employ bright, aggressive public policy analysts", "Heritage's operations have transformed the traditional concept of the 'think tank'", etc. However, I'd like someone to confirm this before I remove/rewrite. --Eyrian 08:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

If you read some texts on ideological groups you will find that political scientists would agree with those assessments. Rkevins82 22:47, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it is important to add to this article a bit more of the criticism that the Heritage Foundation has been subject to. For example, David Brock, a former high-profile fellow, blasts the organization in his book "The Republican Noise Machine". I just read about it. I guess I would find it reassuring to see some mention of that criticism in this article and possibly a response to it. --Ben Houston 20:07, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The external links section of the article as it stands on May 20, 2007 seems clearly to violate NPOV, which says, "the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each."

Editor Thelonious Monk removed my 5/19 edit to the external links section which added a section on "praise". He also deleted one link I provided in the praise category from an undersecretary at the Department of Defense. It seems clear enough to me that that link was of equal authority to the links under the "criticism, etc." section.

The external links section, if it includes links to articles criticizing Heritage from (in my opinion) fairly marginal hardleft critics, it ought to include links to articles praising Heritage, even if they are from sources that someone like Thelonious Monk might regard as a marginal hardright figure.

Jackjump 17:25, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

+++ In the "Major donors" section, I changed "money has come from...right-leaning foundations like the Bradley, Olin and Scaife foundations" to "from...conservative foundations Bradley, Olin and Scaife."

Thelonious Monk deleted my revision on 5/19/07. C'mon, Thelonious.

The part I changed is problematic in two ways. This is an encyclopedia. It should not contain vague locutions about vague, unnamed foundations that resemble other foundations. If the editor wants to name the other foundations, he or she should do so and not include them by alluding to an unspecified and probably contentious claim about their alleged similarity to three other foundations.

Also, why do you insist on characterizing the foundations as "right-leaning" rather than "conservative"? There's no article in Wikipedia that defines "right-leaning" whereas there is an article that at least attempts to define "conservative". "Right-leaning" has different shades of meaning in different English-speaking countries.

Jackjump 17:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I for one find this institution to be a complete piece of garbage.

-G


I want to add another vote to the criticism of this article as violating NPOV. It is more editorial than factual. I think that it should be revised.--Krimsley 05:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

This article reads like a promotional brochure. Foxparse 09:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Think tank members

The article Ari Cohen is up for deletion (VfD) and I glanced at this article looking for whether a members' list would be provided; it is not. Therefore, I place the information about to evaporate here for later use.

Courtland 05:27, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Editor,

This paper published a Guest Commentary from Ed Feulner on July, 20th, titled The Rise in Dependency. This commentary was misleading and misguiding and patronizing to anyone who has thought for more than a half an hour about the causes of poverty. In the column the author cited “ . an objective measure . . by the Heritage Foundation,” which is a published study called the Index of Dependency. Interestingly the small type, on the following page of this article indicates that Mr. Feulner is in actuality the president of the Heritage Foundation (in other words, he was doing his job, less than he was expressing genuine interest). The Foundation is a conservative think-tank infamous since the Nixon days for fighting against social programs which by, fair share progressive taxation, takes of the rich Heritage Foundation donors and members, and gives to the poor and unlucky. Something well earning conservatives anguish in their sleep over. Feulner fuels the reader’s anger early in the commentary by stating “ . . it paints a frightening picture.” The Index of Dependency, is supposed to further scare the anti-government crowd, the hundred-thousandaires and the millionaires whom through the natural progression of greed, can’t stand to give more when they have more. Observe that the title of the study is not Index of Needs, or Index of Assistance, but “Dependency,” a bad thing, be frightened rich people!

The major flaw with the Heritage Foundation’s study, titled the Index of Dependency, is that it assumes that “community groups, family networks and local governments . .” somehow used to meet the needs of those now taking advantage of government sponsored programs. The truth is lost in reality. Healthcare, food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, Housing assistance and Social Security were all formed out of the clear and long suffered inability of these thousands of small groups to meet those very needs. A man, who was a Republican, when that party was new and the “progressive / liberal,” party in the US, once explained eloquently what Ed Feulner and his cohorts seem to not understand, or refuse to, when he said “ . . government is the coming together of peoples, or groups of people, to accomplish as a whole, what they could not accomplish as individuals . .” That wise man was named Abraham Lincoln, our sixteenth president. Find a current government program in which there is past evidence for it’s need having been accomplished by small groups of people, individuals, family networks, churches or local governments, then seek to destroy the program using the argument of that evidence, or else become intellectually honest and support it in working..

All roads of thought from the Heritage Foundation lead one to surmise that eliminating taxation should be a priority. Whether the subjects are domestic or foreign policy, or morals, or economics, they hide their motivation with tactfully worded studies that paint a world of doom resulting from our helping each other. The causes of poverty are never addressed by the Heritage Foundation because that would lead to discussion of solutions and would really “paint a frightening picture,” to Heritage members. That picture would have to include government restrictions on greedy corporations who seek to re-import sweat shop goods, deceitfully avoid their taxation share, seek to keep laborers at or near the poverty line as a basis for being able to compete. Discussion may lead to universal health care or extended Medicare and an end to for profit health insurance company’s towers of gold and multi billion dollar profits. Solutions would lead to an education revolution in the US where teachers would be paid as professionals, our children would have ample facilities and small classrooms and our children would become the smartest on the Earth – because education is the greatest determinant factor to avoid poverty in any one’s lifetime.

"Sir", you seem to have all the answers figured out, don't you? You have undoubtedly never read anything by the Heritage Foundation in your entire life, maybe you've been reading too much Marx and Engels? The US has sunk a trillion dollars into welfare and social programs over the past 60 years and poverty continues to exist, arguably it's gotten worse in the inner cities. Grow up and try to figure out basic economics, as well as understand that Wikipedia isn't run by one person, but by many.

I don't think this letter should be here. This is page for discussion of the Heritage Foundation article, not the Heritage Foundation itself. If you think a critique of the Index of Dependency is important, there are many free web-hosting sites available for doing this - an external link can then be added to the article Crosbiesmith 17:11, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] AEI Neoconservative?

Both Heritage and AEI have some similar roots and beliefs - Coors, etc

I believe that it is a matter of opinion to classify AEI as "neoconservative" compared to Heritage since neither actually claims the term.

For a good article on "neoconservatism" se Irving Kristol's article in The Weekly Standard.

By differentiating AEI with the neocon label gives the reader the impression that Heritage is more paleoconservative like Pat Buchanan, which is clearly inaccurate, just look at the definition of views in the current article.


[edit] Conservative vs. right-wing

I really don't have a preference for which term is used, but the idea that neither term is used and the HR presented as a plain-jane think tank (like the Rand Corp.) is not going to fly. Let's see, founded by Paul Weyrich (coiner of the term "Moral Majority" and founder of the arch-conservative Free Congress Foundation), headed by Edwin Feulner Jr. (former staff director of the House Republican Study Committee), Richard V. Allen (disgraced Reagan admin. National Security Advisor), L. Paul Bremer (Bush crony and defenestrated former director of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance for Iraq), Elaine Chao (Bush appointee, current Secretary of Labor), Lawrence Di Rita (former assistant to Kay Bailey Hutchison), Michael Johns (conservative policy hack), John F. Lehman (Reagan's Secretary of the Navy), Edwin Meese (no comment needed here). There's not a notable liberal or a progressive in the bunch. Heritage Foundation is conservative by definition. FeloniousMonk 15:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Conservative is probably a better term. FM - what a screed! Rkevins82 18:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)


After reading the "american conservatism" article I agree. I would prefer a more specific term, since they are clearly something different than traditional conservatives, but these are all included in the defintion given in the article. Pertn 13:51, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links

There's a link to the SourceWatch entry for Heritage. I added a link under that to a critique of SourceWatch which was removed within five minutes as link spam. Why should Wikipedia entries for conservative outfits be spammed by links to SourceWatch (an ideologically biased poor cousin of the wiki idea) without a way to suggest that those links in themselves are questionable?

Are all of them necessary? Should they be broken into categories? What categories? Rkevins82 20:44, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed three links and fixed one. I think the number remaining is about right; the problem is that the article is too short given the importance of the organization, so it still may appear that there are too many links. John Broughton 12:09, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
How many Bill Berkowitz articles should there be, and which? Rkevins82 01:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I'd vote to take out the October 22, 2001 article, and leave the other three. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia -- John Broughton 13:57, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
Apologies if my newly-added CBC interview link is deemed to be another extraneous link. The interview seems worth capturing somewhere on the page, as it shows a member of the HF in action -- and in impolite action at that! -S 72.138.234.210 22:40, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-Desegregation Litigation

I recently read an article about the HF's wrangling with the NAACP over integration in Loisville, I think. I wondered if there are any other editors think it would be appropriate to include a section on this case in the article. Perhaps it could be part of a larger heading on HF and race relations? Any thoughts on the matter? Aelffin 14:02, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you have a link that you could post here, so others could take a look? John Broughton | Talk 14:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kiss ass article

There is an abundance of criticism of Heritage's reactionary, imperialist, and capitalist policies. Heritage actively encouraged terrorism in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Angola, and elsewhere for the sake of trying to contain the imaginary "Soviet threat". Heritage is therefore responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands. Heritage's agitation in putting forth deregulation and other capitalist rollbacks resulted in an economic catastrophe in the 1980s. Jacob Peters

Though I wouldn't use your exact term, I do agree the article as it currently stands glosses over much of the current criticisms of the foundation, which are notable and significant. Time has come to fix this issue. Which first? FeloniousMonk 05:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Is there a term that can be agreed upon? Resistance movements do not accurately describe these groups or actions. --P89trd (talk) 16:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Page should reflect accurate views on 501c3 and lobbying

On 5/19/07, editor Thelonious Monk deleted my 5/19/07 revision under "finances and lobbying".

My revision referenced the H election that federally tax-exempt 501c3 organizations may take that allows them to spend roughly 20 percent of their tax deductible contributions on direct legislative and appointment lobbying.

I'm changing it back to bring it into conformity with the laws relating to 501c3s

Jackjump 17:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Controversy section

I don't see why the information on Ted E. Schelinski should be deleted. I did not add the information to the article, but the justification (WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP) don't seem to apply here. It seems more like User:TedFrank is fishing for a reason to delete something that he'd rather remain buried, especially considering that the source is the Washington Post.Athene cunicularia 13:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Also WP:COATRACK. An alleged road-rage incident involving a non-public, not-notable, mid-level employee in his private life has no business in the Wikipedia article about his employer. Insertion violates WP:WEIGHT and WP:BLP. Administrators should scrub both the article and the talk page. THF 13:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
The guy isn't a spokesperson or any kind of a public figure, and the assault happened away from work. I don't see any way this could possibly reflect on the HF as a whole. ←BenB4 13:58, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Morphh (talk) 14:53, 09 August 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Heritage Foundation for my view here. And before you baselessly accuse me of any sort of fishing, bear in mind my views are mostly diametrically the opposite of what the Heritage Foundation espouses Nil Einne 18:34, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I've reported User:76.26.145.235 to the Admin Noticeboard. I had left a message on his/her talk about the discussion here to present the argument for inclusion but they have ignored the message and are continuing to violate 3RR. Morphh (talk) 17:42, 09 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it was already done... removed the duplication. Morphh (talk) 17:53, 09 August 2007 (UTC)
I posted this on the Noticeboard, but I wanted to also post it here:
I am not necessarily opposed to leaving the information out, but isn't/wasn't the person in question a Vice President of the organization? It sounds like he's a representative employee to me. Take, for example, that the Washington Post article exists in the first place. If he was a non-representative employee, it wouldn't be newsworthy, but the Post obviously thought that this detail made a relatively common occurrence newsworthy. I'm willing to be convinced, but the information is obviously not libelous, and I'm also not sure that BLP and WEIGHT apply. I also think that the anon user is behaving inappropriately. It doesn't mean that the information is irrelevant, though.Athene cunicularia 20:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
He was not the VP of the organization, he was a VP for finance and operations. Most orgs have VP's for each department (this guy), then Senior VP's, then CFO/CSO/CIO, then VP, then Pres. It is an arrest (not yet convicted - could be dismissed...) on his personal time for an assualt (doesn't mention battery - so he may not have even made contact), which is typically a misdemeanor. I'm not trying to defend the guy but come on... Heritage Foundation has 30 plus years of public policy that includes their contributions and criticisms in the the field - are you really suggesting it may be encyclopedic that some mid-level VP got arrested? Wikipedia is not the news (try Wikinews) Morphh (talk) 21:25, 09 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm just trying to have a discussion. There are a lot of assumptions being made here, and the section in question is pretty much objective, with a legit source. Regardless, current events have a place on Wikipedia, and you can save your condescending remarks for someone else.Athene cunicularia 21:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Regardless, I'm fine with good reasoning, as long as it's good reasoning. I'm not trying to get into a revert war, I was just looking for some useful clarification, not links to Wikipedia rules that don't apply.Athene cunicularia 21:47, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:HeritageFoundationLogo.gif

Image:HeritageFoundationLogo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 17:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why the telephone?

Why does the Heritage Foundation have a telephone in its logo? Does anybody know? Seems rather curious. It would be nice to add a short explanation about the history of the logo to the article. Cambrasa (talk) 21:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

It's the liberty bell... Saksjn (talk) 13:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] See also

I trimmed this section. --70.109.223.188 (talk) 17:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)