Eric Cantor K.O.'d by Tea Party

[Wolf DeVoon]

Dave Brat is starting to look and feel like a nut, per Reuters.

“If we are ever going to be transformers of culture, we need to get our story straight on capitalism and faith,” Brat wrote in 2011. "The two can go together and they had better go together, or we will not transform anything... The church needs to regain its voice and offer up a coherent social vision of justice and rationality. Soon. The Bible and then Calvin is a good start. Rule of Law is in the middle. Capitalism will be in the final chapters.”

Brat praised institutions as a force of economic good, particularly religious institutions, according to a 2004 paper he authored that was published in the Virginia Economic Journal.

“Institutions such as religion, democracy and government anti-diversion policies all significantly enhance a country's long-run economic performance,” Brat wrote in 2004. “The religion variable may be the strongest ex ante, exogenous institutional variable in the literature.”

[moralist]

My wife and I love the first Dune movie... as a comedy. We crack jokes while watching it.

Greg

[moralist]

Dave Brat is starting to look and feel like a nut, per Reuters.

“If we are ever going to be transformers of culture, we need to get our story straight on capitalism and faith,” Brat wrote in 2011. "The two can go together and they had better go together, or we will not transform anything... The church needs to regain its voice and offer up a coherent social vision of justice and rationality. Soon. The Bible and then Calvin is a good start. Rule of Law is in the middle. Capitalism will be in the final chapters.”

Brat praised institutions as a force of economic good, particularly religious institutions, according to a 2004 paper he authored that was published in the Virginia Economic Journal.

“Institutions such as religion, democracy and government anti-diversion policies all significantly enhance a country's long-run economic performance,” Brat wrote in 2004. “The religion variable may be the strongest ex ante, exogenous institutional variable in the literature.”

Sounds like Brat agrees with this nut...

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

--John Adams

Since the government can never be anything other than a true reflection of the values of the political majority who created it in their own image, there will never be a decent government until there are enough decent Americans to create it in their own image.

There used to be.

There aren't now.

Greg

[moralist]

The outcome is the result of democrats voting for Brat. Win-win for democrats. They have an easier opponent with Brat. If they lose they at least have gotten rid of Cantor. Once again republicans look like grade schoolers trying to play in the big leagues.

Wow, Mike... and I thought I was cynical.

The election in November will be a good test of your idea. It'll be fun to see what happens.

Greg

[Wolf DeVoon]

The plot thickens:

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader who lost a primary bid Tuesday for re-election, was a reliable "yes" vote for increasing the H-1B visa cap. Cantor lost to challenger David Brat, a professor at Randolph-Macon College with a Ph.D. in economics and an opponent of the H-1B visa. Brat's victory doesn't signal a reversal in bipartisan support in Congress for increasing the number of H-1B visas. Cantor saw the visa program as an area for bipartisan agreement, and he was on solid ground in saying so.

The Senate's bipartisan immigration bill, approved last year, would more than double the H-1B cap, increasing it from 85,000 to 180,000 annually. The fight over immigration has focused more on providing a path to citizenship for the approximate 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., not on raising the H-1B visa cap. Few candidates in either party draw attention to the H-1B visa in their races. But Brat used the H-1B against Cantor.

In one statement, Brat wrote: "The Chamber wants low-skilled cheap labor; Mark Zuckerberg wants high-skilled cheap labor, but, at the end of the day, what they have in common is that they all want cheap labor and Eric Cantor wants to give it to them." [Computerworld]

[Mikee]

The outcome is the result of democrats voting for Brat. Win-win for democrats. They have an easier opponent with Brat. If they lose they at least have gotten rid of Cantor. Once again republicans look like grade schoolers trying to play in the big leagues.

Wow, Mike... and I thought I was cynical.

The election in November will be a good test of your idea. It'll be fun to see what happens.

Greg

I'm less inclined to believe the democrats had much to do with Cantors loss. He appears to be a victim of his own arrogance. "...it's a dangerous moment in American politics to sound like the tinny voice of an institution, rather than someone with genuine conviction and the courage to defend it."

I'm not nearly as cynical as you Greg, I don't think. I still think people more often than not make good decisions if they have dependable sources of information. Not when they're being lied to from every direction. "Deserves got nothing to do with it."

[Mark]

Immigrationists are desperate to spin Brat’s victory as due primarily to something, anything, other than that he’s opposed to open immigration.

At the end of the day politicians want to be elected and re-elected. Once they realize that the vast majority of (native, at least) Americans are opposed to open immigration (despite trick polls by liberal organizations), so opposed that they will vote immigrationists out of office, we will see an end to open immigration. Hence all the attempts by immigrationists to spin this latest upset in terms other than immigration.

To mock one of Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogans: It’s immigration, stupid!

[Neil Parille]

Mark,

An "undocumented immigrant" is a future Democratic voter. How Cantor can live in Virginia - which now has no state wide Republicans and has voted Democratic in the last two presidential elections -- and not see that is beyond me.

-Neil

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

From Brat's Randolph-Macon College page: DAVID A. BRAT - Department of Economics and Business Director, BB&T Moral Foundations of Capitalism Program, specifically here:

“God and Advanced Mammon – Can Theological Types Handle Usury and Capitalism?” By David Brat for Interpretation, April 2011

“An Analysis of the Moral Foundations in Ayn Rand” by Katy Holland and David Brat, presented and published in the proceedings of Southeast Informs, Myrtle Beach, SC, October 6, 2010

I tried looking into Southeast Informs, but it is hopeless right now. Lots of lefties are digging like mad, though (and snarking to high Heaven), so this paper should turn up on the Interwebs sooner than later.

As to Katy Holland, there is an author at Thoughtful Women who sounds like it could be her, especially the article on moral relativism.

I found some more, not the full paper. You can get some links here: Table of Contents 2010 - Southeastern InfORMS Conference.

Using that as a basis, you can see the title with link here: 2010 Southeastern INFORMS Conference Proceedings - Papers Listed by Track and Chronological Presentation Session. (Search for "ayn" and it's easy to find--under "[FI1] 2008 FINANCIAL CRISIS FALLOUT.")

But that link goes to a PDF of what is probably the proposal for the talk or some kind of statement of intentions: Testing Ayn Rand's Moral Foundations of Capitalism: 20 Testable Hypotheses on the Nature of Capitalism.

If anybody wants this, it might be a good idea to get it now. You never know if and/or it will be removed due to the current political interest in Brat.

If I find more, I will post it.

Michael

[moralist]

The outcome is the result of democrats voting for Brat. Win-win for democrats. They have an easier opponent with Brat. If they lose they at least have gotten rid of Cantor. Once again republicans look like grade schoolers trying to play in the big leagues.

Wow, Mike... and I thought I was cynical.

The election in November will be a good test of your idea. It'll be fun to see what happens.

Greg

I'm less inclined to believe the democrats had much to do with Cantors loss. He appears to be a victim of his own arrogance. "...it's a dangerous moment in American politics to sound like the tinny voice of an institution, rather than someone with genuine conviction and the courage to defend it."

Right now, it's even more dangerous to be tone deaf to your constituents... and I really like that. Because the only time a change of direction it possible is when enough people are fed up with the current direction. After all, only the political majority has the power to create a government which reflects their values... for better or for worse. If enough people were to change how they live, the government would automatically change right along with them

I'm not nearly as cynical as you Greg, I don't think.

Glad to hear that Mike. I worked hard to earn my title and won't readily give it up without a fight.

I still think people more often than not make good decisions if they have dependable sources of information. Not when they're being lied to from every direction. "Deserves got nothing to do with it."

For example, consider the liar and the person lied to, The liar is opportunistic by nature and tries to take advantage wherever there the odds are most in his favor. Now the person lied to needs to possess the same amount of willingness to believe the lie as the liar has the willingness to tell the lie for the liar to be successful. So unless there is this preexisting "meeting of the minds"... no transaction can take place.

Greg