Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Tea Party thinks it's on a winner?

So, Tea Partiers are ecstatic that they got David Brat in, primarily on the basis that he is against immigration reform?

Yes, way to go to win over the Hispanic and Asian vote, Republicans. Sowing the seeds of long term demographic failure, more like it.

The Tea Party Right really isn't very bright, to put it mildly.

Update:  from a January 2014 look at Brat at National Review:
He chairs the department of economics and business at Randolph-Macon College and heads its BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism program. The funding for the program came from John Allison, the former CEO of BB&T (a financial-services company) who now heads the Cato Institute. The two share an affinity for Ayn Rand: Allison is a major supporter of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Brat co-authored a paper titled “An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand.” Brat says that while he isn’t a Randian, he has been influenced by Atlas Shrugged and appreciates Rand’s case for human freedom and free markets.

His academic background isn’t all economics, though. Brat got a business degree from Hope College in Holland, Mich., then went to Princeton seminary. Before deciding to focus on economics, he wanted to be a professor of systematic theology and cites John Calvin, Karl Barth, and Reinhold Niebuhr as influences.

And he says his religious background informs his views on economics. “I’ve always found it amazing how we have the grand swath of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and we lost moral arguments on the major issue of our day,” he says, referring to fiscal-policy issues. 
 OK, an admiration for Ayn Rand of any form is a warning sign for - at the very least - unreliability in an economist  (cough *stagflation warning* cough), but as with Paul Ryan, a serious Christian who still admires Rand and takes economic hints from her is just ideologically nutty. 

1 comment:

not trampis said...

He cites some good figures in theology which is unusual for a person whom has gone to Princeton.

I think hope has a strong christian presence as well as I had a mate who was Professor of Economics there for a while.