Although I’ve posted several times about Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and a practicing Seventh-Day Adventist and looney creationist (see here, here, and here), I’ve tried not to write much about him over the last few years. That’s because he’s shown political aspirations (as a Republican, of course), but I always thought those were futile. After all, he’s an extreme right-winger and an explicit creationist; most Republicans will doubt evolution only when pressed by reporters. When interviewed by his church, however, he’s very explicit, and has a long paper trail. These statements, for instance, are from a 2004 interview with Carson in the Adventist Review, where he’s often featured:
How does this happen? What are the consequences of accepting evolutionary views of human origins? How does this affect society and the way we see ourselves?
By believing we are the product of random acts, we eliminate morality and the basis of ethical behavior. For if there is no such thing as moral authority, you can do anything you want. You make everything relative, and there’s no reason for any of our higher values.. . . A few closing thoughts?
Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics, you don’t have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires. You have no reason for things such as selfless love, when a father dives in to save his son from drowning. You can trash the Bible as irrelevant, just silly fables, since you believe that it does not conform to scientific thought. You can be like Lucifer, who said, “I will make myself like the Most High.”
Later, in a commencement address at Emory University, he backtracked on the morality issue, becoming than a tad disingenuous (my emphasis):
“Let me just at the outset say that I know that there was some controversy about my views on creation and somebody thought that I said that evolutionists are not ethical people. Of course I would never say such a thing and would never believe such a thing nor would anybody with any common sense; so, you know, that’s pretty ridiculous. But any rate, enough said about that.”
Can you prove evolution? No. Can you prove creation? No. Can you use the intellect God has given you to decide whether something is logical or illogical? Yes, absolutely. It all comes down to “faith”–and I don’t have enough to believe in evolution. I’m too logical!
He’s so logical that he believes in Lucifer, and also that Jesus was the son of God, is coming back again, and will forgive those who accept him as savior, regardless of how bad they’ve been in their life. Compare the evidence for those propositions with the evidence for evolution! I’ll never understand how someone who forged a distinguished career in pediatric neurosurgery, which relies heavily on science and empirical evidence, can embrace creationism; but of course there’s Michael Egnor. . )
Carson endorses nonreligious woo as well, which is shameful for a physician. According to the National Review (a conservative magazine), Carson has long been affiliated with Mannatech, a dubious nutritional-supplement company. The video below, an endorsement of their products, shows Carson saying this:
“The wonderful thing about a company like Mannatech is that they recognize that when God made us, He gave us the right fuel. And that fuel was the right kind of healthy food. You know we live in a society that is very sophisticated, and sometimes we’re not able to achieve the original diet. And we have to alter our diet to fit our lifestyle. Many of the natural things are not included in our diet. Basically what the company is doing is trying to find a way to restore natural diet as a medicine or as a mechanism for maintaining health.”
The National Review also quotes Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager, when he was asked about his client’s association with the company:
Williams adds that Carson won’t personally be answering any questions about his interactions with the company, “because that is the decision that has been made.”
That is, “because of reasons.” The NR piece gives more details about Mannatech, including its carefully guarded claims that its supplements are useful in helping AIDS, cancer, toxic shock syndrome, heart failure, asthma, arthritis, Lou Gehrig’s Disease, Attention Deficit Disorder, and lung inflammation. Way to go, Dr. Carson!
But now, it seems, Carson is post-worthy because he has a viable candidacy in the Republican party, and may be a contender for the Presidential nomination in 2016. He’s a Republican’s dream: a Bible-spouting but accomplished black conservative of the Clarence Thomas stripe. George W. Bush, in fact, gave Carson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008.
I still think this country isn’t crazy enough to nominate him, much less elect him, but I see him on the evening news quite often. And we should never underestimate the faith-fueled political lunacy of the U.S.
Carson’s candidacy may, however, ultimately be deep-sixed by his propensity to say what he really believes, which is odious nonsense, even to many Republicans. As The Hill reports, Carson got a standing ovation after his speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit for saying stuff that Republicans love, including this:
“Do we have an illegal immigration problem?” he asked a minute later, as the crowd yelled back “yes.”
“Can we fix it?”
“Yes!” the crowd roared.
“Of course we can,” he said. “There wouldn’t be people coming here if there wasn’t a magnet… you have to reverse the polarity of that magnet.”
Well, how exactly do you reverse that polarity? You can either make the U.S. less attractive to everyone who might want to live here, but that would involve dialing back things like democracy, relatively open opportunity, and a high standard of living. Alternatively, you can simply repel the immigrants, which I suspect is Carson’s plan.
That kind of stuff may be music to the wackaloon ear, but this is a bit more dicey:
Carson struggled at times through a post-speech press availability, offering vague answers on a number of topics and refusing to answer how he thinks abortion should be criminalized.
Carson also criticized political correctness as he answered a question about gay marriage — and followed up by flaunting decorum with the type of comment that endears him with the base but could hurt his cross-party appeal.
“What I have a problem with is when people try to force people to act against their beliefs because they say ‘they’re discriminating against me.’ So they can go right down the street and buy a cake, but no, let’s bring a suit against this person because I want them to make my cake even though they don’t believe in it. Which is really not all that smart because they might put poison in that cake,” he said to chuckles from some of his staff and dead silence from the journalists in the room.
These comments haven’t been reported in the mainstream press—or at least I haven’t seen them—but making jokes about poisoning gays is something that hasn’t been promulgated by those “journalists in the room”. It has, however, been featured in the gay press. Pink News reports another case where Carson put his foot in it:
He said in 2013: “My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they [paedophile support group] NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality–it doesn’t matter what they are–they don’t get to change the definition.”
Umm. . . comparing gays to pedophiles and those who practice bestiality isn’t the most astute political strategy. Most Americans now favor legalizing gay marriage, and Carson’s views aren’t going to endear him to all Republican voters (just a lot of them!). What puzzles me, though, is how little coverage this kind of vile- and hate-filled rhetoric, as well as Carson’s insupportable views on evolution, makes it into the mainstream press.
But if Carson becomes a candidate (Ceiling Cat help us), I’ll be glad. For almost any Democratic candidate will slaughter him. Or so I hope. Americans may be politically cockeyed, but they’ll never elect a creationist quack for President:
h/t: Dan
Another extremist Republican lunatic. There is no shortage of them.
Carson is one of my favorites to win the RNC nomination as well. I even started a pool on this issue!
http://steelcityskeptics.net/2015/01/24/whos-your-rethug-favorite-for-2016/
“By believing we are the product of random acts, we eliminate morality and the basis of ethical behavior.”
This trope has been rebutted so many times. We get it that you’re not listening, we get it that you can’t accept any response that makes sense to everyone but you, we get it that perseveration is your MO.
But, we’re all bored.
Please, please, right-wing nutters, can you come up with something original? L
By believing that morality is handed down from God, we give bad people have a to-do list of actions that are naughty and evil. No morality, no to-do list.
See? Anyone can play this game! All you need is words – no rationale required.
It doesn’t matter how many times you rebut it–they aren’t listening.
A German Catholic philosopher in the first half of the twentieth century showed how to control peoples beliefs. You make the message as simple as possible then keep repeating itthen don’t engage with or even acknowledge your critics. It just draws attention to them and allows them to point out your nonsense.
Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics …
Ultimately I think that creationists don’t understand the difference between man made laws, which are prescriptive and the laws of nature, which are descriptive.
Exactly. Either morality goes all the way down and right and wrong is somehow structured into the very nature of reality at the core — or it’s all just a bunch of differing opinions with no way for reality to answer you back by punishing the Bad and rewarding the Good. It’s the ethical reasoning of kids who look around and see there aren’t any grownups — the rules are gone! We can push the other kids down and steal their candy and stay up all night eating it!
Morality is like the law. There is a long and evolving tradition of ‘case law’ that we use as guidelines for what the current status of morals should be. Like case law, it’s just paper unless people agree to be governed by the prevailing tenets.
Morals based on changing state of prevailing knowledge are more likely to keep pace with advances in knowledge. That’s one of the problems with religion. Unlike the law it doesn’t have an evolutionary foundation. It has to be overthrown for rules to change.
Oh, I think a lot of changes involve reinterpretation. This doesn’t give morality an evolutionary foundation or anything like it. It gives bragging rights: “See, that’s what the Bible has been saying all along … if you just knew how to look.”
His obvious skill in the principle of shifting principles should put him right at home with either party.
Is it likely (or even possible) to have a political party without shifting principles, what with a multitude of self-absorbed “constituencies” pressing their interests and claims and grievances?
I think no. It’s the nature of politics and re-election.
I’m far too cynical to use this phrase. Under current conditions, it seems very unlikely that this particular lunatic could be elected. With a crisis that happened to get underway at the right time, I can’t predict. On the crazy meter, there isn’t much if any space between Ben Carson and Sarah Palin, but had the financial crisis been a year later than it was, we might all be praying for John McCain’s health.
I’m trying to combine cynicism with optimism and feel confident that Americans will never elect a creationist quack for president more than once.
George W was a creationist quack, of the “ID” stripe. We elected him twice.
… he was selected once and elected once.
Good point. I stand corrected.
Correction: George W was a creationist, but I don’t recall his being so closely associated with quackery. The “creationist quack” label in the OP presumably refers to the combination of both.
I also personally distinguish between politicians who admit or say they’re creationists and stop — and politicians who admit or say they’re creationists and then go on to make a big stinking deal about how evolution don’t make no sense and evolution means there’s no morality and we need to stand up for God and His Bible and get back to our roots blah blah blah. It may be a fine line between pandering and platform, but I’ll mark it in chalk.
Does advocating that schools teach creationism constitute making a “big stinking deal” to you? It does to me.
How about going to war because God tells you to?
Oh, I didn’t say that pandering was benign. Obviously not. It’s quite possibly dangerous as hell. You don’t know where they’re going to go.
But fanatical conviction and argument at the center of the platform is perhaps more predictable. There will be no nod to teaching a ‘controversy’ or words stated in private. It may be a distinction without much difference, but hypocrisy might be marginally better than flying the creationistquack flag open and proud.
We Amuricun creationist quacks, so it would seem.
I think that today neither of the past Bush presidents, nor Reagan, could easily make it to a nomination for the presidency. They could still win a general election, but they would not make it that far.
I’m not convinced. The last two cycles the gop, despite a plethora of extremists running, picked reasonably centrist moderates as candidates (I’ll spot you Palin as a not so moderate veep). It’s in the senate where the extremists get nominated. Whatever you think of Bush II he did not run as a fire-breather either, nor did Dole.
I think you are right enough. It is more complicated than I had put it.
I am not so sanguine. Learning is not a popular strong suit (c.f. all the lessons “learned” from Vietnam and how they’ve been applied to all the misadventures conceived since).
Yeah, I’m not too sure about that either. I mean, Bush Jr got elected twice. He is arguably dumber than Carson, and arguably as delusional. The only major difference I can see relevant to becoming President is that Bush Jr. had a hell of a lot more family money and family influence behind him, and he thereby got picked by the Republican Machine to be the figure head.
If the machine decides that Carson is marketable enough, it could make him the next GOP canidate. And come on. African American, amazing brain surgeon, devout xian? That makes for a pretty sellable story.
And if he does get chosen, about half the voters that vote R or D will vote for him. Hopefully this next election will herald a change in that parity and the R candidate will get soundly beaten, but I have been hoping that for most of my adult life now and it hasn’t happened yet.
Right now, the machine probably could get behind Jeb Bush, Romney (again), Christie, and maybe Rand Paul. The machine (and the base) has likely decided that Jindal is unelectable.
I don’t think Romney or Paul have much chance at all. Christie only has a chance if he gets someone like Ben Carson as a running mate but Carson will inevitably shoot himself in the foot with a stupid comment, if Christie doesn’t beat him to it. Republicans are more likely to go for Scott Walker, or Kascich, and the establishment likes Bush.
I’ve got a family member who’s a Republican but socially liberal. He hopes they nominate someone like Carson because when he loses big time, it might finally shut up all those who say McCain and Romney didn’t get elected because they’re too liberal.
Your family member is right IMO. McCain lost in 2008 partly because he ran such a bad campaign, and partly because of Obama fever. Romney did pretty well in 12 with the independents, who are scared off by religious rightery. Herman Cain would have carried a handful of states, maybe.
I think McCain lost it more than Obama won it. The 2008 election was close until McCain’s so-called economic tutor, Phil Gramm (a prime architect of the disaster), told everyone the recession was all in their head and reality followed up with a stock market crash, an historic financial sector collapse, and Wall Street got the first bailouts. Then McCain got desperate, selected Palin, and then looked like a panicked fool when he “suspended his campaign”, canceled a debate, then stood around doing nothing – ’cause he apparently forgot he wasn’t president yet. Even the clueless independents, who never had Obama fever, sensed that McCain’s decision making abilities sucked.
And partly because he made Sarah Palin his running mate.
Herman Cain, the apotheosis of thoughtful reflection.
If Kasich runs, you’re right – he’s got a chance with the machine. It is difficult to believe that a prick like Walker has a chance, but then with the Koch’s having as much influence (willingness to spend) as they do, that’s also a depressing possibility.
Read in the NYT recently of Rand Paul making a pilgrimage to genuflect before one of the Koch brothers.
Most Christians don’t consider Seventh Day Adventists to be a Christian sect, for the same reasons they reject Mormonism as a Christian sect.
I’ve seen remarkable flexibility among my fundamentalist relatives, who normally would describe Mormonism as a horrible cult, when it came to considering Romney vs that Muslim guy. Suddenly, Romney was the kind of sand up Christian they had always hoped would run for office. I expect that only a tiny slice of Christians will remember their dim view of Seventh Day Adventists come election time.
Not to belabor the race card, but do you really think many Repubs would actually vote for a black president, what with all the grief they’ve given Obama?
While some Republicans would never vote for a black man–ANY black man–I think a lot of them would if they agreed with him; most Republicans have no problem with Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court and had no objection to Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice being Secretary of State. They admire black columnists such as Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. It’s the same thing with women–if Hilary Clinton is elected, expect a lot of sexism, but that doesn’t mean Republicans wouldn’t vote for Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman.
Sure Repubs would vote for an “Uncle Tom” candidate: it would allow them to claim with a straight face that half the anti-Obama stuff wasn’t racial.
Palin started a trend in which GOP candidates hint that they’re going to run, but when the time comes to file paperwork, they don’t.
Why go through the motions if you aren’t going to actually run? Its all about the money. Specifically, if you never file the candidacy paperwork you get to keeep all the contributions to your ‘campaign’ and use them any way you want. Free vacation? Yup. New Ferrari? Sure. Only after you file the official paperwork are there legal restrictions on how you can spend campaign contributions.
So essentially what’s been happening in the GOP primary the last two times is you get several serious candidates but then also several con-artists who are just pretending to run in order to get people to send them money. Palin, but also Trump…and now Carson. IMO folk like this have no intention of formally standing for President, it’s basically just a “send me money” scam.
So far the democratic side hasn’t seen this sort of con crop up in their primaries, but it frankly wouldn’t surprise me if some time in the near future it does. Caveat emptor: don’t contribute to any campaign until they file the paperwork.
I think it’s because this guy is an unelectable fringe nut. He’s a known quantity and, at most, joke fodder.
Also, there’s a subset of the Republican party that are trying to distance themselves from people like this.
Really? They are very quiet.
The Republican Party has created a monster. They are reliant on the ignorant religious and largely bigoted right wing vote. “Distancing” themselves from these voters is political suicide. So the subset you refer to is effectively non-existent.
Well, a very small subset then! 🙂
I think it’s the same group that’s trying to make the Republican party more palatable to women.
If so, its a tiny monster who will (IMO) never make it past February of the 2016 primary season. If, OTOH, you have some reasons to think he will beat Bush III and the other likely candidates in Iowa, New York, and Michigan, I’m all ears.
A tiny monster? Take a look at Congress.
Ah, sorry, I thought your ‘monster’ reference was to the actual subject of the OP, Ben Carson. It appears you were talking about something else entirely, most likely the tea party.
I think the most likely scenario is that he or someone with a similar platform, forces whoever eventually wins the GOP nomination so far to the right during the primaries that they can’t win any of the important states other than Texas. A former news colleague who now does press relations for the Republican Party of Florida says that scenario is her biggest fear about the upcoming 2016 election.
The warnings about electing Bush 43 twice are valid, which is why you can’t write someone like Carson off, but one also must consider whether the opponents Bush defeated represent as formidable a campaign foe as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hilary Clinton.
Carson’s anti-immigrant and evolution denying applause lines for the far right may not be fodder for the lazy and easily manipulated mainstream press right now, but the moment the cap from his surgical scrubs lands in the proverbial ring, all of that changes and he is no longer preaching to the John Birch society choir, he’s now talking to the news consuming public as a whole.
If we’re lucky, he’ll be just enough of a threat to ensure that his party immolates itself during the primary season.
Oh, and:
“Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory, you dismiss ethics . . .”
and,
“. . . somebody thought that I said that evolutionists are not ethical people. Of course I would never say such a thing . . .”
is a flat-out contradiction, surely not the only one of which Dr. Carson is guilty either, and the press loves to catch politicians, “flip-flopping.” It means that reporters have to do very little work and they get to put politicians on the spot because it makes them look like tap dancers.
Oh, you can “dismiss ethics” and still be an ethical person because you pick up the moral vibe from the people around you, the people who know the where and why and how and above all the Who about ethics, while you’re just grubbing around mindlessly mimicking others. As long as you’re not the leader or anything, you’re safe enough, usually.
That’s what he meant — so it’s okay then. No contradiction.
While I think you have a point in a certain context, but to a political reporter, that’s “flip-flopping.”
Yes. And to the religious it’s nothing they wouldn’t say themselves.
I think your points are strong. I believe this is the reason the Republican establishment likes Bush III – he can get through the initial primaries in particular without going too far right – he has the money and the strength. Romney is now seen as a loser and Christie would need a Palinesque running mate.
I think Chis Christie is his own Palinesque running mate. He’s got a loud enough mouth to get 4 or 5 politicians in trouble.
Wrong. Its the he said she said paradigm of contemporary “journalism” in the lamestream media.
We’re going to have to change “clown car” to “clown bus”, due to all the idiots lining up to run for president.
C.f. Firesign Theatre’s ‘I Think We’re All Bozos on This Bus.’
“We Bozos have a saying: ‘When you put on the nose, it grows.'”
Cool- i had forgotten all about Firesign Theater!
Unfortunately, we have to take them seriously, including those of us who don’t live there. They’re mostly not stupid, just deluded or wrong or both. There’s a strong chance the next ‘most powerful person in the world’ will be a religious, creationist, anti-choice, anti-marriage equality, climate change denying Republican. We’ve been there before and we don’t want it back.
I had meant to make the following comment on the last Makayla/JJ post, but the Mannatech reference raises it here: where is Big Pharma in the battle against woo “medicine”?
I mean, on top of the efficacy and safety studies required for FDA approval, advertisements for prescription drugs are required to read out the litany of potential side effects and drug interactions, no matter how rare their incidence, and sometimes aren’t explicit about what the drug is for.
If I spent a zillion dollars developing arthritis medicine, antidepressants or boner pills, plus another zillion to market my products, I think I’d be pretty resentful that my competition can make unproven claims about sugar water and vitamins. If it’s too much to expect these products and services to be banned outright, at least there should be a requirement that the results of independent tests be put up alongside any claims. There will always be a market in snake oil for people who don’t “believe” in “Western medicine,” but I have to think there are also lots of people who would take the information to heart before buying placebos pushed by the likes of Ben Carson or the odious Dr. Oz.
Legitimate drug companies have so much political power and money (but I repeat myself), why would they not put a little of it toward kicking the asses of scam artists taking money out of their pockets? It’s weird to me that they do not, and also weird that doctors and pharmacies don’t work harder to steer people away from the woo.
I have it from an MD friend of mine that being a doctor these days is all about customer satisfaction and that medical efficacy comes somewhere further down the priority list. Given that, I’m particularly impressed by those doctors who refuse patients who refuse to vaccinate their children.
As for pharmacies, they probably make more on sales of over-the-counter woo products than they do on actual drugs.
Yeah as I was writing that I thought about the profit angle. That’s just gross, as is the “customer satisfaction” bit.
This is yet another area where it will be interesting to see how the Millenials impact the market: who’s to say if they will be any more or less credulous than their elders (the trend indicates less), but they at least have access to more diverse information sources with their inter nets and their face books. The olds, the boomers and the xers are also increasingly Internet savvy: not that the woo doesn’t have a significant toehold in cyberspace, but science and rationality have a fairer shot there than they have ever had in traditional media.
Depends where you look on the Internet too. It’s all there – remember the lady at the 2008 election who knew Obama was a Muslim because she read it on the Internet? When I was researching religion and WWI I came across plenty of sites that told me it was deliberately caused in a Catholic conspiracy engineered by the pope. You still need the ability to think critically. Although young people now are generally better than their predecessors at that because of their education.
Yes, and that last line is the part I hope for. Their kids may be screwed if the dismantling of secular public education in the West continues apace, but it is coming too late to hurt the Millenials. Not only am I hoping they have better reasoning and research skills to make intelligent choices about, say, weight loss potions – I am hoping they don’t give a sh**t about quick and easy weight loss! I’m probably buying an unfounded stereotype, but my sense is that the next generation are far more comfortable in their own skins than us Xers and Boomers ever were.
They have their fads, trends and status symbols, sure – but by and large those seem to be informed by values like “authenticity,” “simplicity,” “sustainability,” “reuse,” and “fair trade.” Not that they are ushering in Utopia, but, in my view, their responses to polls on religion, gender equality, same-sex-marriage, racial tolerance, and so on, are very encouraging – a better reflection of progressive values than their “hippie” grandparents currently to be holding these days.
I agree. In general they’re mostly better than their predecessors, and my experience is they’re much more comfortable with themselves too.
The education thing isn’t happening everywhere though, but I’m dismayed by the attitude of government, especially right-wing government, to education in America. In Finland, for example, teachers are selected from the best graduates and are required to have Masters degrees, and are paid accordingly – it’s a prestigious occupation. We’re (NZ) slowly raising the educational requirements of our teachers so Masters will mostly be required here too. Many Asian countries are way ahead of the curve in this area. Also, we fund schools in poor socio-economic areas better than those in wealthy areas to level the playing field for students – I understand the opposite is true in America, so kids from poor areas have another hurdle to get over. The PISA scores of kids in America are on a downward trajectory, especially when compared to the rest of the developed world.
It’s all about the money, and not at all about what is best for the country. The Republican strategy regarding education, as far as I can tell, is to sabotage public education by underfunding it to the point that people are fed up with public school performance – and with full confidence that most people are too politically ignorant to understand WHY their kids aren’t being taught well, only that they’ll be frustrated with the public schools. Then this frustration can be channeled into support for voucher schools, private schools that charge tuition for students where poor people can get “vouchers” from the govt. to cover tuition costs.
These voucher schools have been repeatedly shown across the country to perform no better than public schools – but do not expect a Republican to ever acknowledge that. I don’t know if it’s a sincere belief in free market ideology, a sincere belief that govt. is always a bad thing, or if they are simply bought and paid for. I tend to suspect a mixing, that they are bought and paid for but rationalize it to themselves with ideology.
According to Orac, Big Pharma is doing as expected and playing both sides by riding the cash cow which is alternative medicine as much as they possibly can. “Nature’s Way” label of supplements is owned by Merck. Same with a lot of the big name alt med pharmaceuticals. The idea that it’s all being cooked up by barefoot hippies standing over a pot and cooking their own freshly harvested organic herbs is nonsense.
Big Pharma is also Big Woo, on the side. Thus the surprising lack of ass-kicking.
And just like that I am out of f**ks to give. Of course they are playing both sides – thanks for the scoop on “Nature’s Way.” 😉
It was a very good question, though, that I hadn’t considered before. I’m glad you asked it.
Sub
I’m sorry but I don’t see even the loony republicans attempting to run this guy. I do think it would be a great idea to get this crazy adventist stuff out in public more. It is some of the most ridiculous stuff we can imagine as are all of these newer religions like mormons and scientology. Lets have him and Romney and Tom Cruise in those primaries.
Here is a strange fact about the Seventh day folks. They have a pretty nice little hospital over in Okinawa. I lived in Okinawa for 5 years and my wife and I used to go there for some things instead of messing with the military hospital. Maybe since it was staffed mostly by Local Okinawan doctors and not people like Carson, it was not bad. But what the hell they were doing in Okinawa, I have no idea. Most likely missionary stuff.
Reblogged this on Fairy JerBear's Queer World News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
The scary truth about this man who would be President…
It’s fairly easy for a doctor(medical) and especially a surgeon to be a creationist.
Firstly he has a talented pair of hands, any craft-person should have. He has knowledge of what it should look like and he aims to create that image. He doesn’t have to know how something evolved to try and fix it. You could argue that an understanding of evolution would make for a better docotr but a surgeon only needs to know were to cut and is usually correcting something not trying to prevent something
He’s a surgeon and I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t have ego as such his opinion is right no matter what. it takes a lot of confidence to cut into another human being.
Finally these are reinforced by is seventh day advent beliefs
Could he be president, so long as he doesn’t implode along the way, yes he could be.
As I have opined on several blogs, including this one, a surgeon is much like an automobile mechanic. An automobile mechanic doesn’t have to know anything about the physics of internal combustion engines to work on automobile engines. Similarly, a surgeon doesn’t have to know much about biological evolution to perform his/her tasks.
But if Carson becomes a candidate (Ceiling Cat help us), I’ll be glad. For almost any Democratic candidate will slaughter him. Or so I hope. Americans may be politically cockeyed, but they’ll never elect a creationist quack for President:
I find it hard to share your confidence. If he’s well-financed and allied with business interests, then creationist quackery and homophobia will prove no obstacle. His affiliations with Mannatech alone invite suspicion on this front. If he indulges in climate change denialism, excessive praise of neoliberalism and/or economic libertarianism, and generally says things helpful to big corporations and their causes, he might practically be a shoo-in.
On Fox, more commentators are picking Carson than Romney, who’s not even being considered a possibility of winning at this stage.
Well that settles it then. With Fox’s record that means Romney will be the candidate.
In my darker, more cynical moments I find that I sorta hope he goes far in the Republican primaries. I hope he makes it to run for president against Hillary. The farther to the right the Rethuglican party goes, the more likely the Dems will win.
The thing that worries me the most will be if they manage to put forward an honest-to-gosh moderate Republican with lots of swing-voter appeal.
I’d be pleased by such an outcome. It’d be like finding a wholly mammoth or some other extinct creature in the wild.
woolly mammoth – geeze, can’t type anything right.
Did kinda wonder. Maybe it’s wholly a wooly mammoth;-)
Most of us have heard about “original sin” but “original diet”? That’s a new one for me – anybody some scriptural references for that? 🙂
Where there is the new fad diet: “The Paleo diet”. You only eat stuff that was available to Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Similar to Adkins…much protein, no carbs.
From what region? Its not like they shipped fresh fruit in during the winter. Do the paleo folk eat stored grains and smoked meat for 3 months straight?
Diet fads are remarkable things.
Sorry, I didn’t mean “where”, I meant to lead with the word “Well”. But you’re right in that paleo-diet folk eat what was available to paleolithic people theoretivcally, but disregard the fact of seasons and areas where only certain foods were available. A “true” paleo diet would undoubtedly be bland and very limited.
Well that would depend entirely on where you lived. If it was in some coastal tidal estuary zone it would include shellfish, fish, mammals, and a large variety of plants, including nuts and grains from nearby uplands. And you’d move seasonally to exploit resources as they became available. That’s not bland at all.
But the paleo diet folk, of course, aren’t thinking in those terms. More like: “meat, meat, meat”, ignoring that the meat they are consuming is nothing like that which was eaten before agriculture took over, let alone modern domesticated animals.
Mark – yes most of us have heard of the paleo diet, but I was looking for the scriptural diet admonition as noted by Keith D below. Folks who believe the earth is ~6000 y.o. would likely not buy into any such thing related to paleo 🙂
The one I heard about repeatedly from some vegans and what not was the bit about “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth, to you it shall be for meat” or words to that effect. Some folks take that to mean humans are “supposed to be” vegans.
Thanks Keith – reminds me of the joke “How do you tell if someone is a vegan? You don’t have to – they will tell you!”
And check out today’s Pearls Before Swine, vegans vs fruitarians – chortle.
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine
Veganism at least can be healthy in principle. Fruititarianism will result in protein and fat deficiencies, as far as I can tell.
I grew up in the SDA church. I could not have given the biblical text, but you are right as far as my memory goes. Nuts, seeds, fruit, veggies – foods from a garden (like eden) are promoted as ideal and part of God’s plan “before the fall.” Most/many SDA’s I’d say are lacto-ovo vegetarians. An awful lot also eat meat, but follow the Leviticus dietary laws (avoiding pork, etc.).
If some couple refused brain surgery on their minor child on account of their religious convictions, I wonder if Carson would feel he had any warrant or standing to contest their decision.
Many of the minor Republican candidates are actually running for the vice-presidential nomination, in effect. I could see a Romney-style candidate being elected and balancing the ticket by selecting Ben Carson, or some equally strange right-winger as running mate.
A heartbeat away from being President, as they say.
oops, typo: “being selected”, not “being elected”
For all you movie buffs that keep up with these things. One of the hot movies at the Sundance film fest right now is “Going Clear” a documentary on Scientology.
Seventh Day Adventist??
Classically, they’ve been very big on church-state separation: no prayers in public schools, freedom for all religions, etc. I wonder if that has changed in recent years re gay marriage, teaching evolution, etc.
I used to joke that the three best sources of information about current church-state issues were the magazine Church and State (published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State), the monthly First Amendment column in Playboy magazine, and the Adventist magazine, Liberty. (I didn’t know about FFRF back then.)
The “I don’t have enough faith to..[believe in evolution, be an atheist]” is the absolutely worst apologetic argument in the book, bottom of the barrel, dregs of the bottle, desparate last ditch: the equivalent of a “Hail Mary” in the football sense of that phrase.
It’s interesting to hear that they oppose school prayer. Do they have other ideas that might conflict with the mainstream religious right? I’m thinking of how some conservatives said that Romney wasn’t a REAL Christian because he was a Mormon. I wonder if conservatives might have similar issues with Adventist doctrine. Is anyone here familiar with the Church?
Playboy magazine has ‘columns’?
I thought it was Playgirl with all the columns…
Whatever SDA’s official position is, Carson doesn’t seem to be a huge defender of the separation of church and state. Remember the deal not too long ago where the FFRF tried to get the Navy to remove Bibles from their hotel rooms because they’re a government institution? Here’s one of the things Carson had to say about that:
He also had one of the most idiotic statements I’d seen in a while saying that removing Bibles was promoting atheism.
If anyone’s interested (and as a bit of self-promotion that I hope falls within da roolz since it’s relevant to the topic at hand), I wrote an entry on my own site about the above that you can find here:
http://www.jefflewis.net/blog/2014/09/a_response_to_ben_carsons_comm.html
You know, when I was a kid I rememember being incensed at GM CEO Charles Wilson’s quip “What’s good for GM is good for America.”
I’m as much of a corporation basher as the next libtard penthouse progressive, but I am now less offended by that idea than I am by what’s going on today, especially in GOP politics. Policies that are good for GM (representing a generic employer of a large number of workers – as opposed to good for CEOs, the rentier class and the idle rich – but for the companies that, you know, make and sell things, would be good for America. Or at least better than what we get, which is policies against good jobs, good educations, vibrant communities, and innovation. Wilson’s idea of “good” may well have differed from mine in many ways, but I think the old school industrialists saw the value in policies to build infrastructure, develop good workers, ensure there were lots of customers to buy stuff, and so on. I’m not sure what the end game is for today’s 1%ers, but it doesn’t seem to be one that is terribly far-sighted or sustainable. Scary.
I’ve often wondered what the 1%ers “perfect America” would look like. Oligarchy for sure, as it is pretty much there already. (I wonder how many Americans think we live in a real Democracy…let alone a healthy one?) I think perhaps they pine to live in a country like Mexico. 1% ultra rich who live apart in their High Castles, and don’t care a fig about the rest of society. Couple this with policies that keep the populace so downtrodden, they have no incentive to engage in the political process; their struggle is with simple survival. So it is a sustainable hold on power for the 1% and a perpetual limbo for the rest.
Last I read, the world’s richest 80 people have more wealth than 50% of the world’s poorest (in 2010, it was 388 people). 35 of the 80 are Americans as are 8 of the top 10. So 80 vs. 3.5 billion…very scary indeed.
I don’t think any GOP hopeful has the answer, least of all the loon Ben Carson. But sad to say, I don’t think Hillary Clinton has the answer either. sob.
I think their vision is more of the same: wealth flowing from the lower tiers into their own coffers. I said I don’t know what their end game is, but more accurately I should say I doubt they are aware or care that the system relies on the very model of a vibrant middle class which they are continually undermining and depleting.
Hillary Clinton will be inheriting the same skewed system that has kept Barack Obama from moving the needle on social justice more than he has. I think she has a few advantages: she is Caucasian and as such will be less distasteful to certain voting groups, especially white working-class women – a “gamechanger”; she has much deeper ties to Wall Street and the corporate establishment, which, while distasteful to me and gives me the same fears you express, will allow her more leverage in getting capital flowing to where it is needed; there is a chance her election could have coat tails which moderate the Republican lock on Congress, which would make all the difference; and above all she happens to be the most qualified and skilled person running (so far) in either party – whether that translates into success for the nation and reelection (cough Jimmy Carter cough) I won’t predict, but she’s the person I would want picking any future SCOTUS seat fillers – and that is a really big deal.
Plus, Bill Clinton will make a fabulous First Lady! Whatever comes of her presidency, that’s a show I don’t want to miss!
“she’s the person I would want picking any future SCOTUS seat fillers – and that is a really big deal.”
Completely agree. Imagine a court with younger versions of Ginsberg and Meyer replaceing Scalia and Kennedy and Thomas.
On the other hand, I shudder at the idea of a right wing nut with support of the senate filling future SCOTUS vacancies. That might push our country culturally and morally backwards 30 years.
From your lips to Celing Cat’s ears …
Yes I agree, the SCOTUS appointments are paramount!
I don’t worry about a Carson presidency. He has retired from his career as a surgeon to begin his new career: professional Republican candidate grifter. Like his notable colleague Palin, he will always say he is considering a run as he allows groups to fund him and invite him to speak (for a fee). But in the end, he won’t run. Then four years later, he’ll do the same thing.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development:
Stage 1 – Behave because you’re told to and will be punished if you don’t.
Stage 2 – Behave because you’ll be rewarded.
Both of these stages are seen in young children. They are also prevalent in adults who believe you can’t be moral without god and will go to heaven or hell, depending on your behavior. It’s an extremely primitive basis for morality.
+1
Stage 2 is refulgent in this Amuricun society. Students in school are offered all kinds of external rewards for doing what they ought to be internally-motivated to do anyway. Woe is me, the pain. How will I ever get over not being materially-bribed to do what I otherwise did because I could clearly see it was in my interest and the right thing to do?
I suspect that simply being a physician doesn’t immunize one from being attracted to woo. I’ve known more than one doctor who liked to sell bogus medicines on the side.
I won’t. At the very least, it shifts the Overton Window dramatically in the worng direction. And ask Germans who lived through the 1933 election how good an idea it is to have a fringe “unelectable” candidate on the ticket….
b&
Actually, since Germany had a parliamentary system, Hister was not on the ballet in most of the country. However, his party did win a plurality of the seats.
Yes, but always nice to know, they dropped from 37.27% to 33.09% (November 1932).
So they had only one third of the vote.
Massive repression started immediately.
The next free election was not held until August 1949. (source: wikipedia)
I wouldn’t knock it. None of the parties in the just dissolved Knesset managed anywhere 33% of the vote.
The “poison” comment sounds like “incitement to domestic terrorism” to me…
Perhaps it’s time for a class-action lawsuit.
I’ve never really liked simple litmus tests for candidate suitability (other than obvious things like # of felony convictions) but I will never vote for a creationist. If you can’t navigate those waters, I have no confidence that you would be able to critically assess important political issues.
Saw my first “Ben Carson in 2016” bumper sticker today, attached to the rear of a SUV here in south Florida. Had to suppress the urge to vomit; in the summer months I’m in Maryland, where he was affiliated with Johns Hopkins Hospital…believe me, I’ve had this fool shoved down my throat for years (which probably explains the gag reflex I experienced earlier).
Carson needs to take a “Great Leap Forward” into the 17th century. British theologians of that era were already way ahead of him. For example, from the Earl of Shaftesbury’s “An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit,” which appeared in 1711:
“Sense of right or wrong therefore being as natural to us as natural affection itself and being a first principle to our constitution and make, there is no speculative opinion, persuasion, or belief, which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy it.”
“‘Tis impossible that this can instantly, or without much force and violence, be effaced, or struck out of the natural temper, even by means of the most extravagant belief or opinion in the world.”
“Religion (according as the kind may prove) is capable of doing great good or harm, and atheism nothing positive in either way. For however it may be indirectly an occasion of men’s losing good and sufficient sense of right and wrong, it will not, as atheism merely, be the occasion of setting up a false species of it, which only false religion or fanatical opinion, derived commonly from superstition and credulity, is able to effect.”
Note that the “mere philosopher” Shaftesbury was also far in advance of the “men of science” of most of the 20th century when it came to grasping the reality and significance of human nature.
BTW, an earlier version of the “Inquiry” appeared in 1699, which counts as the 17th century.
As a knowledgeable, former, long-time Ellenite Adventist that is now a Millerite Adventist, I will be opposing Dr. Carson on moral grounds, because he embraces the ideology of Libertarian propagandists, which is widely identified with the satanic philosophy of Ayn Rand.