By Greg Campbell
TPNN Contributor
On February 7th, 2013, famed neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson spoke to a crowd at the National Prayer Breakfast as President Obama and the First Lady sat at his side. Many are already aware of the doctor’s speech as it is being discussed in political circles and the speech itself is making the rounds on social media sites. Dr. Carson rose up from extreme poverty to become a gifted surgeon and the Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His speech, however, revolved not the saving of lives, but the saving of a culture and nation in peril. For his honesty, he has incurred the wrath from the left.
President Obama was obviously not impressed with the good doctor’s simple solutions for fixing the country. However, Obama isn’t the only one; Illinois Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky appeared on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning to dismiss the speech as “inappropriate.” She said,
“I think it’s really–not really an appropriate place to make this kind of political speech, and to invoke God as support for that kind of view. But I think of most of all the kind of message that he was giving shows a real empathy gap with where the American people are right now, and I think it’s reflective of where many of the Republicans and Tea Parties are right now, that we need to have an economy that works for everyone.”
However, an explanation for what God expects from mankind by Carson, a religious man of both faith and science, is precisely the kind of speech often heard at prayer breakfasts.
In just over 27 minutes, Carson outlined in amazingly effective and simplified terms how to address the most pressing issues that face our countries, and while the president was noticeably upset, the right (and even much of the left) has been thrilled with the straight-talk by Dr. Carson.
His speech began with a discussion of the pitfalls of political correctness. He discussed the value of freedom in expression and cited political correctness as a hindrance to the free exchange of ideas.
Dr. Carson then moved onto the importance of education, stating,
“Why is it so important that we educate our people? Because we don’t want to go down the pathway as so many pinnacle nations that have preceded us. I think particularly about ancient Rome. Very powerful. Nobody could even challenge them militarily, but what happened to them? They destroyed themselves from within. Moral decay, fiscal irresponsibility. They destroyed themselves. If you don’t think that can happen to America, you get out your books and you start reading, but you know, we can fix it.”
Dr. Carson then moved into discussing ways to remedy policies that are in obvious need of repair. Addressing the tax code, Carson explained,
“When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to do it 10% but it’s principle. He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes. He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 Billion dollars you put in a Billion. You make $10 you put in $1 – of course, you gotta get rid of the loopholes, but now now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He’s just put in a billion in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him.
It’s that kind of thinking – it’s that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building our infrastructure and creating jobs – and we’re smart enough – we’re smart enough to figure out how to do that.”
Carson then moved swiftly into an area of his expertise: the medical field. He addressed healthcare issues, simply stating,
“Here’s my solution. When a person is born, give him a birth certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings account [HSA], to which money can be contributed, pre-tax from the time you are born, to the time you die. When you die, you can pass it on to your family members so that when you’re 85 years old and you’ve got 6 diseases, you’re not trying to spend up everything. You’re happy to pass it on and nobody is talking about death panels. That’s number one. Also –
For the people who are indigent, who don’t have any money, we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we already have this huge pot of money instead of sending it to bureaucracy – let’s put it into HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care and what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to learn very quickly how to be responsible. When Mr. Jones gets that diabetic foot ulcer, he’s not going to the Emergency Room and blowing a big chunk of it. He’s going to go to the Clinic. He learns that very quickly – gets the same treatment. In the Emergency Room they send him out. In the Clinic they say, now let’s get your diabetes under control so that you’re not back here in three weeks with another problem. That’s how we begin to solve these kinds of problems. It’s much more complex than that, and I don’t have time to go into it all, but we can do all these things because we are smart people.”
Already, people on both the left and right, tired of the overly-complicated “solutions” to problems in government have come out in support of the simple solutions and straight talk offered by Dr. Carson. While establishment, “big government” Democrats are sure to hate the implication that Americans can retake sovereignty by reducing government’s presence and reaffirming cultural values, many are lavishing praise on the doctor and, as an illustration of the level of support Carson has received, the Wall Street Journal’s headline after the speech read, “Ben Carson for President.”
