ALL ABOUT DR. BEN CARSON

Last week was a whirlwind for Dr. Benjamin Carson in which he catapulted himself into the national discussion about some of the important issues of the day.  He may have also laid the foundations for a future career in politics. 

It started on February 7th at the 61st Annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.  With President Barack Obama sitting just feet away, Dr. Carson stood up for conservative principles, discussing the national debt, political correctness, education and, yes, health care. The video of the speech immediately went viral.  All you have to do is watch it to understand why it has become such a hit.



While Obama, the grand master of class warfare, sat and listened, Dr. Carson delivered this statement which goes directly to the heart of the matter:

"What we need to do is come up with something simple. And 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 a tithe.

"We don't necessarily have to do 10% but it's the principle. He didn't say if your crops fail, don't give me any tithe or if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10 billion, you put in a billion. You make $10 you put in one. Of course you've got to get rid of the loopholes. Some people say, 'Well that's not fair because it doesn't hurt the guy who made $10 billion as much as the guy who made 10.' Where does it say you've got to hurt the guy? He just put a billion dollars in the pot. We don't need to hurt him. 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."

My suggestion is to watch the video and focus on Dr. Carson.  Then watch it again and focus on Obama as he's being forced to listen to this gentle but devastating critique of the Left's failed ideologies.  The reason that MSNBC types went ballistic over this speech is not really because Dr. Carson brought politics into the prayer breakfast but because he did it with sophistication and absolute clarity.

The following evening Dr. Carson appeared on Hannity and provided additional insight.

    

That same day, the Wall Street Journal came out with an article titled "Ben Carson For President."  

Last Wednesday Politico ran an article written by Rich Lowry titled "Ben Carson vs. Obama."  Lowry wrote:

…Carson has a very traditional American attitude toward success. He celebrates it unabashedly and believes in the gospel of self-reliance. Don’t become dependent on anyone else. Don’t consider yourself a victim. Don’t begrudge others their success. Get an education; work hard; and thank God every day you were born in the greatest country in the world.

Carson’s is a voice of hope and aspiration but also of rigor and of standards. He spent a long part of his speech decrying the decline of American education.

From Billy Hallowell at The Blaze: 

Dr. Carson is a Famous Pediatric Surgeon

Carson, 61, is the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital (he obtained this lead position at the age of 33). His career focus is on traumatic brain injury and brain and spinal cord tumors, among dire health issues.

According to his biography, he has written over 100 publications about neurosurgery and he has penned numerous books. On top of that, the renowned doctor has received more than 50 honorary doctorate degrees and President George W. Bush gave him the Presidential Medal of Honor (see other honors over at Bio.com). Read more about Carson’s professional background here.

He's a Pioneer in the Separation of Conjoined Twins

Among his many talents, Carson has made bold attempts to separate conjoined twins. His first surgery in 1987 ended up being a success, as he was able to separate two 7-month-old twins from Germany. While Patrick and Benjamin Binder walked away with some brain damage from the procedure, it was an encouraging move in the right direction for an extremely-dangerous procedure. Carson’s surgery paved the way for other attempts to help ease the pain and horror craniopagus (joined at the head) twins experience.

Bio.com has more about other similar surgeries that the doctor conducted over the years:

In 1994, Carson and his team went to South Africa to separate the Makwaeba twins. The operation was unsuccessful, as both girls died from complications of the surgery. Carson was devastated, but vowed to press on, as he knew such procedures could be successful. In 1997, Carson and team went to Zambia in South Central Africa to separate infant boys Luka and Joseph Banda. This operation was especially difficult because the boys were joined at the tops of their heads, making this the first time a surgery of this type had been performed. After a 28-hour operation, both boys survived and neither suffered brain damage.

It was these operations that brought a plethora of media attention to Carson, paving the way for popularity and a public profile that continues to expand in scope.

Carson's Early Life Wasn't Easy

Judging from his career, one would never assume that the doctor’s early years were difficult. However, his story truly is a rags to riches tale, as his mother was instrumental in teaching him the values needed to succeed. He shared many of these struggles during Thursday’s address. He was raised by a single mom (named Sonya) who devoted herself to hard work in an effort to support her two children. Despite only having a third-grade education, she instilled educational values that forever resonated with her son.

Bio.com provides some snapshots into his early life:

There were occasions when [Sonya's] boys wouldn’t see her for days at a time, because she would go to work at 5:00 AM and come home around 11:00 PM, going from one job to the next. She was frugal with the family’s finances, cleaning and patching clothes from the Goodwill in order to dress the boys. The family would also go to local farmers and offer to pick corn or other vegetables in exchange for a portion of the yield. She would then can the produce for the kids’ meals. Her actions, and the way she managed the family, proved to be a tremendous influence on Ben and [his brother]. [...]

Determined to turn her sons’ [bad grades] around, Sonya limited their TV time to just a few select programs and refused to let them go outside to play until they’d finished their homework. She was criticized for this by her friends, who said her boys would grow up to hate her. But she was determined that her sons would have greater opportunities than she did. She required them to read two library books a week and give her written reports, even though with her poor education she could barely read them. She would take the papers and review them, scanning over the words and turning pages. Then she would place a checkmark at the top of the page showing her approval.

Considering his background, his push for hard work and responsibility was notable during yesterday’s prayer breakfast speech. While many utter such sentiments without experience to accompany them, Carson’s life shows that devotion to education really can pave the way to prosperity.

There Was a Movie Made About His Life

Carson’s life and work are so coveted, in fact, that a feature film was made about the doctor. “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” was a made-for-television film that came out in 2009. A synopsis provides more information about the movie, which has relatively high ratings on IMDB:

From Amazon.com: Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. (Actor in a Supporting Role, Jerry Maguire, 1996) stars in this true story about a renowned brain surgeon who overcame obstacles to change the course of medicine forever. Young Ben Carson didn’t have much of a chance. Growing up in a broken home amongst poverty and prejudice, his grades suffered and his temper flared. And yet, his mother never lost her faith in him. Insisting he follow the opportunities she never had, she helped to grow his imagination, intelligence and, most importantly, his belief in himself. That faith would be his gift – the thing that would drive him to follow his dream of becoming one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons.

Here’s the trailer:

He Runs a Non-Profit Aimed at Helping Young Scholars 

Education is clearly important to Carson. And considering his own path to success, his focus upon the need for a more knowledgeable and prepared populace is understandable. With his wife, Candy, he founded the Carson Scholars Fund in 1994, an organization devoted to helping solve America’s education crisis.

Recognizing that the public education system is in crisis, the Carsons decided to help motivate young people to take interest in learning at an early age. Here’s a description of what the Carson Scholars Fund does:

Carson Scholarships are awarded to students in grades 4-11 who exemplify academic excellence and humanitarian qualities. Winners receive a $1,000 scholarship to be invested toward their college education, along with a recognition package, and an invitation to attend an awards banquet. Carson Scholars become role models and leaders at their schools.

You can find out more about the organization on its official web site.

Carson Is a Cancer Survivor 

Carson helps children who are battling brain cancer, but he is also a prostate cancer survivor. In 2002, while in the midst of his bustling medical career, the doctor found out that he had an aggressive form of the disease. He found out this shocking news while in the middle of performing a surgery on a child.

In an interview with “Good Morning America,” Carson later described putting the news out of his mind so that he could successfully finish the procedure. However, rather than focusing exclusively on himself in that terrible moment, he selflessly thought about the many patients he would be unable to help if the disease took his life.

“I have the ability to put things out of my mind, so I just put it out of my mind and finished the operation,” he said. “But certainly, you know, that evening it did weigh heavily upon me as I began to realize that wow, I have cancer. The thing that bothered me was the fact that I would be leaving so many people behind.”

Inevitably, he overcame the disease and is now healthy.

He's Also a Devout Christian

In case you didn’t know, Carson is a Christian. Jesus Christ was a fixture in his National Prayer Breakfast speech (as was the Bible). He’s a Seventh-Day Adventist who believes that the United States has been uniquely blessed by God. In addition to caring deeply about his patients’ physical health, he has expressed a deep devotion to addressing the nation’s spiritual and political issues — something he did head-on during yesterday’s speech.

The Christian Broadcasting Network once profiled Carson, noting that his views about America are rooted in its history and founding:

Dr. Carson believes as a nation, America has been favored by God because we have acknowledged Him. The forefathers of our nation were clearly guided by Sovereign leadership when they knelt and prayed for wisdom at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Together they stood up and assembled a seventeen page document known as the Constitution of the United States of America. Our nation was founded on principles revealed to us in the Bible by a righteous and just God. These teachings began in the home and continued at school. In early public schools reading from the Bible was not only common, it was expected.

In order for America to continue leading the world, Carson believes that it’s important to apply God’s standards to individuals’ lives. Rather than embracing partisan solutions, CBN notes that he wants the nation to “stop being political and start being logical” in addressing key issues.

And from Daniel Foster at National Review:

He has an IMDB page.

Carson has achieved worldwide recognition as a bold pioneer in the surgical separation of conjoined twins. His path-breaking work also led to a Hollywood stint. In 2003, a mutual friend put Dr. Carson in touch with the Farrelly Brothers, the comedy-directing duo behind There’s Something about Mary. The Farrellys wanted Carson to play himself in their new project Stuck on You, starring Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon as conjoined twins. Carson agreed, but on the condition that the Farrellys promised to host the premiere in Baltimore and use it to raise funds for his educational foundations. The directors agreed. Carson, along with his wife and two children, had cameos in the movie, and the Baltimore premiere raised over $400,000.

He almost killed his friend over a radio-station selection.

As a child, Carson earned himself a reputation for having a violent temper. How violent? As a seventh-grader, he swung at a much bigger boy with a combination lock in his hand, after the boy had tormented Carson for being “dumb.” The blow tore a three-inch gash in the boy’s head. A year later, after another boy hit Carson with a glancing blow from a small rock, Carson grabbed a much bigger rock and winged it at the boy’s face, destroying his glasses and breaking his nose. In the ninth grade came the worst incident of all. While arguing with his friend Bob over which station to listen to on a transistor radio, the 15-year-old Carson took a camping knife from his back pocket and lunged toward Bob, miraculously snapping the blade in half on the boy’s belt buckle.

“In general I was a good kid,” Carson wrote in his autobiography. “It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.”

Carson was so terrified by the near-stabbing that he ran home and locked himself in the bathroom and tearfully read his Bible and prayed for God to take his temper from him. After a few hours, Carson says, a feeling of “lightness” came over him and he found himself a changed person. He never had a problem with his temper again.

He was a teenage shrink.

Carson knew he wanted to be a doctor from the age of eight. But it was psychiatry, not brain surgery, that was his first love. His older brother Curtis had scrimped and saved to buy young Bennie a subscription to Psychology Today for his 13th birthday. Carson struggled with the articles but was enthralled, and read every book on the field he could get his hands on. All the headshrinkers on TV seemed so worldly and smart, and, as Carson puts it, he “figured that with so many crazy people living in the United States, psychiatrists must make a good living.” The teenage Carson grew so confident in his budding knowledge of psychology that he fancied himself Kid Analyst to schoolmates and friends. He’d ask them “What’s troubling you today?” and “Do you want to talk about it?” and many in his cohort confided their hopes and fears to him.

He was a medal-winning marksman and a dining companion of General William Westmoreland.

Despite having joined high-school ROTC a semester late, Carson was a superstar cadet, racking up medals in drill and riflery. He flew through the ranks, moving from private to second lieutenant in a year and change and then so thoroughly acing his field-grade exams (he set a new record) that he leap-frogged straight to lieutenant colonel, and then became one of three full-bird colonels in all of Detroit. In recognition of his achievement, a 17-year-old Carson was given the opportunity to dine with General William Westmoreland, the top U.S. commander in Vietnam, and was offered a full scholarship to West Point.

Obama isn’t the first president he’s rubbed elbows with.

This was Carson’s second appearance at a National Prayer Breakfast. He first addressed the gathering in 1997, when it was President Bill Clinton seated at his right (he got in a few un-PC digs there as well, bashing touchy-feely modern parenting and using the same U.S./Rome comparison). In 2008, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush, who called Carson “a scholar, a healer, and a leader.” He is also a recipient of the Horatio Alger Award, which is given to extraordinary self-made Americans. Other recipients include Herman Cain, Bob Dole, and Phil Gramm, along with Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Ronald Reagan. Perhaps there is a trend here.

Last Friday, Dr. Carson joined Twitter.

Today I've officially joined the twitterverse.
— Dr. Ben Carson (@RealBenCarson) February 15, 2013

  
Finally, here is another video of Dr. Carson being interviewed in 2010.  This one deals more with his medical career but on the issue of our health care system he mentions the same ideas that he brought up at the prayer breakfast.  Like the others, it is well worth the time to listen to the entire interview.