Dr. Ben Carson: 'We Can't Be Free if We Are Not Brave'

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Few people have emerged on the conservative scene in recent years who have become as instantly beloved as Dr. Ben Carson, the renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and Professor Emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who endeared himself to the Right by speaking on conservative values at the National Prayer Breakfast just inches away from captive audience member Barack Obama.

That was the case again on Saturday, when the good doctor visited the CPAC main stage to deliver his remarks.

Dr. Carson spoke about how America for him is the land of dreams, of his no-excuses mother, and of belief in God. Upon his recent retirement, the doctor imagined he would learn to play the organ and get in some golf, but, “The good Lord had a different plan.”

Since that time, Carson and his wife of 39 years, Lacena, whom he introduced at the top of his remarks, have traveled around the country, visiting states both red and blue. What he found, whatever their political persuasion, was a people that are beaten down. Dr. Carson referenced Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, and how one of the so-called rules is to make people believe that there is only one correct way to think, and it is not their way.

Dr. Carson hates political correctness. He talked about it at that legendary prayer breakfast, and he talked about it at CPAC. What is PC today is what is espoused by left wing “ideologues,” but Dr. Carson found his own words catching on as he traversed the country, because people recognized “common sense” when they heard it. The practice of medicine, according to Carson, promotes out-of-the-box thinking as well as familiarity with controversy. It was missed by few that “common sense” falls under the out-of-the-box column and is controversial in a PC world.

Yet Dr. Carson’s common sense words are often subject to distortion and outrage, as when he said that Obamacare is the worst thing to happen in this country since slavery. “Oh, he just called Obamacare equivalent to slavery,” they say. Of course, slavery was much worse. Carson’s point was that the most important thing people have is their health, and it should be in their own hands, not the government’s. Dr. Ben Carson urged Americans to “redo it and put power back in the hands of the people.”

Carson also said that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. He believes that gay people should have the same rights as all people but not extra rights. For statements such as this, he is accused by the left of “spewing poison.” If that is the case, he will continue spewing the poison of self-reliance, education, and putting what God says before what any man says.

In discussing the $17+ trillion debt our country has accrued, Dr. Carson employed a couple of apt metaphors. He said the ship of state is going off the edge of Niagara Falls, and we are about to die. Don’t say, “But there are barnacles on the ship. We have to stop and clean the barnacles off.” Carson said, “Forget the barnacles!” When it comes time to vote in the primaries, whether you think a Republican candidate is a “RINO” or a “Bagger” – vote for them! 

“If you don’t want an exceptional nation, go jump in a lake!” he declared. And the next time you hear the Star Spangled Banner, heed the words: “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” In closing, Dr. Carson admonished: “We cannot be free if we are not brave.”

Update: Dr. Ben Carson, although he claims not to be a contender for the 2016 Presidential nomination, came in third in the CPAC straw poll, following Rand Paul (1st) and Ted Cruz (2nd).