Warren Buffett's Dad Was A Wingnut

At the crazy Washington Examiner, via Ritholtz:

Warren Buffett may be a committed liberal Democrat, but his father, Howard Buffett, was a four-term Republican member of Congress (1943-49 and 51-53), a John Bircher who fought FDR and warned that the expansion of government was eroding individual liberty.
“Today’s situation is the result of an alarming and devious governmental intervention in the economic affairs of the nation for objectives not contemplated by the men who wrote the Constitution,” Buffett lamented in a lecture excerpted in the December 1956 issue of the libertarian journal The Freeman. “Historically, in America the producer was protected by government in the enjoyment of the fruits of his labors. That protection of his property explains the glorious material progress already recounted.”
In the lecture, Buffett went on to observe that, “The last 40 years have seen a gigantic expansion of political power over economic affairs by the federal government. This change is linked by many scholars to the passage of the income tax law in 1913.”

The comments are priceless.  Warren Buffett is evil and Buffett got rich by being a parasite, is pretty much the gist of it (Left unsaid is that rich Republicans earned their money). One of the commenters said Buffett was a trust fund kid who didn't appreciate the work it took to earn wealth.  I'm assuming that since the Koch brothers inherited much of their wealth, at least they appreciate the work it took to get it. I think Warren Buffett and his father are both like the rest of us.  We all are some mixture of good and bad.  I tend to put a little more trust in those of us who recognize some bit of luck in success, along with the work put in.  Likewise, recognizing that some folks can't win no matter how hard they try seems beneficial in my eyes.  Where I come from, humility and empathy are both admirable traits, while greed is bad.  Some people seem to think otherwise.  That's the challenge of politics, and what makes it interesting, despite the depressing nature of most of it.