A Critical Examination of Ben Carson, Wrap Up
This is the final entry in my series to take a closer look at the views and positions of Ben Carson. The index contains links to all of the entries in the series. I've also copied it below.
As I wrote in the first entry, the few things I'd heard about Carson before I began this series were enough to turn me off from him. Now that I've looked into his positions in more depth, my opinion of him has sunk even lower. I haven't covered all of his positions in this series, but I tried to be fair by taking a 'snapshot' of the articles on his own homepage. There are other issues he's written about that I disagree with, some very strongly. And he's made some huge factual errors that I would love to point out. But including this entry, I've already devoted twelve blog entries in total to Dr. Carson (2 previously, 10 in this series). How much time should I spend writing about a single person that I disagree with? I don't want this blog to become the anti-Carson blog. There are other, more interesting things I'd rather be spending my free time writing about. So for now, this will be my last entry about the man. Unless he does something particularly noteworthy in the future, or actually has a chance to win the presidential nomination, I'm done writing about him.
But since this is my parting shot, I figure I'll provide a brief summary of some of those other positions I didn't already cover (or only covered in passing). The table below lists the issues, provides a link to Carson's position, and then another link to my position (something I've written if available, or an external link otherwise). When possible for long articles, I've linked directly to the relevant section. For many of Carson's positions, I've used the RunBenRen site, which provides links to the original sources. And keep in mind that this still isn't exhaustive, but like I wrote above, I think I've put enough time into responding to Carson's positions.
And even though there's already a separate entry for the index to this series, I'm going to repeat the index here, to make a one stop location on this site for issues dealing with Ben Carson.
Series Index
- Part 1 - Evolution
- Part 2 - Religious Privilege
- Part 3 - Healthcare & Romanticizing the Past
- Part 4 - Ebola
- Part 5 - Global Warming
- Part 6 - Equal Opportunity
- Part 7 - Honesty & Constitutional Literacy
- Part 8 - Torture
- Part 9 - Shoddy Scholarship
- Wrap Up (this page)
Previous Entries
- Local University Invites Creationist to Give Commencement Address)
- A Response to Ben Carson's Comments on Navy Bible Kerfuffle
It's actually a bit hard to pick the position of Carson's that's the worst. Out of the individual entries I wrote, I can pick three of Carson's positions that stand out as particularly bad - his disgusting apologism for torture, his non-acceptance of climate change, and his irresponsible scare mongering over Ebola. If I consider some of his other positions, his opposition to marriage equality ranks pretty high, as does his nearly constant conflation of religion and politics. But it's not just that there are a handful of big issues where I disagree with him and then a lot of other issues where I agree. In practically every article of his that I've read, I find myself in disagreement over the positions he's taken**. I'd be tempted to say that I couldn't imagine a politician I'd agree with less, but most of Carson's positions are typical right-wing positions, so they're not really all that different than any potential Republican or Tea Party candidate. In fact, it's when he shifts a little more to the left that I agree with him more. So, I suppose about the best I can say about Carson is that at least he's not Rick Perry, faint praise that it is. If he somehow does manage to become a viable candidate, I certainly hope there's a reasonable candidate opposed to him.
Related Links
- Forbes - Ben Carson's Odd Notion Of The Constitution And Same-Sex Marriage - I came across this one after I posted Part 7. So, I added the link there, but just in case anyone's been following the series and isn't likely to go back, I'm putting it here, too. It's another example of Carson not understanding how government works (thinking Congress has the power to overturn court rulings).
- Washington Post - The folly of term limits - I could have sworn I read or heard somewhere that Carson supported term limits for elected officials, but I couldn't find any quotes of him saying so. Still, I've seen it from his supporters in many comment threads under articles by or about Carson, so I figure it's worth the link. This article echoes my opinions on why I think term limits are a bad idea. (Basically - people with experience at a job do better than inexperienced people, and legislating is no different. We already have a process, voting, to get rid of the people we don't think are doing a good job. There are several issues giving incumbents too much of an advantage that should be addressed, but a measure that guarantees inexperienced legislators isn't the solution.)
- CNN - Ben Carson: Prisons prove being gay is a choice - I'm including this link because it just made the news today. It's not the most offensive thing Carson's every said about homosexuality, but it seems like just about every time he speaks about homosexuality, he sticks his foot in his mouth.
*Actually, a flat tax is one I've thought about a bit, and want to comment on a little more. A true flat tax might not be horrible (the liberal in me still would prefer progressive taxes, since I realize that I can afford to pay a higher percentage of my income compared to some of the less fortunate people I know, and that people wealthier than me can afford even more - the other way of looking at it is that those that have benefitted the most from this system should put the most back in), but a true flat tax would be a huge overhaul to the entire tax system and possibly even government in the U.S. Right now, the federal government has their taxes. State governments have theirs. Local governments have theirs. Even different departments can have different taxes (just read the fine print on where all your money's going when you buy an airplane ticket). Many of these taxes are regressive in nature, hurting the poor more than the wealthy, so federal income taxes are progressive to offset that, resulting in an overall tax burden that's fairly proportional to income. If taxes were going to be made truly flat, where each person paid the same percentage of their income, you couldn't just make federal income taxes flat but leave all the other taxes the same, or else overall tax burden would be very regressive. The only way to actually implement it would be to make people pay only one tax, and then distribute that one big pot of money to all the levels of government. And like I said, that would be a huge change to the current system, and one I doubt many state or local governments would be too happy about.
**Not quite every article. His position on vaccination, at least, seems pretty good (Washington Times - Ben Carson: Vaccines are good medicine, not political issue), even if he blames the anti-vax movement on liberals, when the only official party platform I've seen endorsing an anti-vax stance is the Texas Republican Party Platform. (I'm not saying that there aren't liberals that are anti-vax, but rather that the problem crosses party lines. A related issue is the general anti-science position of the right, which I discussed in The Progressive War on Science?.)