It appears that the Cato Institute has fired one of its finest adjunct scholars, antitrust expert D.T. Armentano, because Professor Armentano dared to write an op-ed calling for the federal government to disclose its files on UFOs.
So there you have it: on Planet Stato, it's okay to endorse warrantless wiretaps, but not okay to call on the federal government to open its files.
Says Cato's David Boaz: "[T]his strikes us as not an issue that we want to have as part of Cato’s research agenda." Yet increasing executive power to spy on Americans without a warrant -- a gross violation of liberty, privacy, and the Constitution -- apparently is on the Cato agenda.
I don't think the government is hiding evidence of extra-terrestrials from us -- but I don't doubt that, with respect to some UFO sightings, it's hiding something. And the more it doesn't want us to know, the more we should want to know.
If Cato doesn't want to make it a priority, that's their business and I wouldn't criticize them for it -- as far as I've noticed, this website doesn't run UFO articles either. But to can Armentano as an adjunct for a harmless op-ed in a small paper -- while retaining Pilon as director of constitutional studies after his outrageous article in the Wall Street Journal -- is a disgrace. And it tells you all you need to know about the beltway-libertarian mentality.
Dr. Armentano remains an adjunct faculty member of the Mises Institute. You can read his great short book, Antitrust: The Case for Repeal, for free here.
