A DECENT MAN NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME

 

By James Wilson

            Dr. Ben Carson has much to recommend him as a presidential prospect.  A black man from the Detroit ghetto, he overcame poverty and learning disability to become director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.  He electrifies Americans with politically incorrect but compassion-laced addresses and books, including the speech he delivered at 2013’s National Prayer Breakfast while standing a few feet from another black leader – Barack Obama – whose positions are diametrically opposed to those held by Carson. 

He quotes himself in his book, One Nation, “The future of my grandchildren and everyone else’s is put in jeopardy by a continuation of reckless spending, godless government, and mean spirited attempts to silence critics…”  Mocked by critics as unintelligent because he calls evolution a faith, it occurs to this writer that if a neurosurgeon believes in divine creation it might be worth considering as science.  Aside from his obvious brilliance – he pioneered several lifesaving neuro-surgical techniques – he demonstrates courage, compassion, and abiding faith in God.  He is currently the only credible (possible) candidate for leadership of the nation to be so straightforward on the polarizing questions of our time.  But he is not ready for prime time.

  Axiomatic for Carson is his conviction that if liberals and conservatives would only dial back the flaming rhetoric and actually converse they would see they have common goals and discover common ways to achieve them.  This is true in principle and just as axiomatic for an ambassador of reconciliation like myself.  But equally realistic factors like self-righteousness, intellectual laziness, and that old lust for power can block that mutual goodwill which is pre-requisite for authentic reconciliation.

Theoretically it should be doable to negotiate a healthcare reform plan that actually addresses the abuses of insurance companies in bed with malpractice attorneys in bed with pharmaceutical companies in bed with medical technology concerns and recover a reasonably priced way to deliver healthcare.  It is called competition and it requires consumers to cross state lines to buy coverage they both want and need – and not be forced to purchase what they don’t.  Tom Price, doctor and congressman from Georgia, made a good try at this, but his plan was never seriously discussed because the power brokers of Obamacare were too busy ingratiating themselves with the very industries they were supposed to be reining in to do their homework or engage rational discussion.  Throw in the ideologues who desire power for its own sake and the prospects are grim at best.  Dr. Carson decries this status quo, but he does not seem to recognize the motivations.  The contending parties understand the situation perfectly, and they accept it  because it works for them.

In one discussion of gay marriage as a dividing issue he endorses civil unions as an alternative to actual marriage for gays.  He believes this will give traditional marriage advocates the boundary they seek while permitting gays to make the alternative arrangements they seek.  Yet he speaks in a book published in 2014.  There is virtually no place in 2014 America where civil unions are not available.  Unions are not what gays want.  And study after study – conducted in nations that have had gay marriage for years – document twin disasters for the practice.  Gay marriages rarely succeed.  Straight marriages suffer in their wake.  It is not about what we want to believe.  It is about ways in which human beings are hardwired whether we believe it or not.  And Carson is not being unintelligent here, but he is hopelessly naïve for a man who would lead a nation.

Carson has the courage to come out squarely for life at conception, traditional marriage, and a world created to reflect its creator.  He is proud to stand in deference to a Lord who trumpets these values in His Holy Word.  He rejects the “false unity of political correctness and submission,” to a secular power structure serving only itself.  He has faithfulness to hold for a “true unity that comes with liberty, justice, and (personal) responsibility.”  He has wisdom to see a world in which everybody can win if we actually seek authentic and reality-based reconciliation and enough realism to see “this unity doesn’t succeed without some conflict.”  He calls ordinary Americans to accept personal responsibility for it.

His naivete manifests in his failure to realize the leaders of both major parties and most major interest groups do not want this world he envisions.  The one we have suits them fine.  Ordinary Americans have not yet accepted their responsibilities under God.  And Dr. Carson stands as a beacon of decency who is really not ready for prime time.  Not yet, anyway.