We here at Lions of Liberty are profiling each presidential candidate and examining the good and bad traits of their political careers. Each article will wrap-up by answering if their candidacy will have a net positive or negative impact on the liberty movement. Check out previous profiles here.

Background

Ben Carson burst onto the political scene with a controversial speech critiquing some of President Obama’s health care and tax policies at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013. Since then he has used the momentum from that day to launch a political career as a conservative favorite, which has included many appearance on the cable news circuit and of course the obligatory time served as a Fox News contributor.

On May 4th he took his political aspirations to the next level by announcing his candidacy to secure the Republican nomination for President. Most people only know Ben Carson as a political pundit and are not well acquainted with the man he was before challenging President Obama that winter morning more than two years ago.

According to his official campaign website, Ben Carson grew up in a single-parent household in Detroit. His mother, who only has a third grade education, encouraged him to reach beyond his surrounding and build his knowledge base through reading. Carson developed a love for reading and learning that would fuel his intellectual growth. He went on to graduate high school and attend Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in psychology. After working as an X-ray technician, a bank teller, a school bus driver, a supervisor for highway cleanup crews, and a crane operator, he was accepted into The University of Michigan School of Medicine. After graduating medical school Dr. Carson married his Yale sweetheart and moved to Baltimore, where he performed his residency at the John Hopkins University Medical Center.

Dr. Carson went on to direct the pediatric neurosurgery unit at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center for twenty-nine years. The honors he achieved in the field of neurosurgery are staggering and too numerous to mention in this forum. In addition to his medical career, he has written six books. The first book, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story was an autobiography and it was made into a television movie. The movie premiered on TNT in 2009 with Cuba Gooding Jr. playing Dr. Ben Carson.

Due to Carson lacking a traditional political background, many in the mainstream media have dismissed him as a fringe candidate who is only using this platform to further his personal wealth. These pundits are dead wrong. Dr. Carson has some rough edges and we’ll get into those later, but recent polling data points to Carson as a candidate on the rise.

It’s easy to see why so many Republicans are attracted to Carson’s campaign. He is the unconventional candidate. Dr. Carson’s path to politics followed a different path than the scores of career politicians he is competing against for the nomination. This is probably because he comes across as a human being and not a robot. When Dr. Carson speaks he appears to be a trustworthy and honest man who truly cares about this country. However, he is far from a “perfect candidate.” His policy positions lack a strong foundation and he has had to scramble to realign his positions on multiple occasions. Dr. Carson has made a few statements that have libertarians shaking their heads and wondering if he actually favors tyranny over liberty.

Without further ado, let’s begin examining the good and the bad of presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson. At the end we will try to determine the impact Dr. Carson’s candidacy could have on the liberty movement.

The Good

Wants to dismantle Obamacare

As a retired neurosurgeon Dr. Carson is intimately aware of the vast problems plaguing the health care system. He understands that the health care system was broken before Obamacare was signed into law and that the answer to the problem will not be solved with more government intervention. In January 2013 Carson told Newsmax TV that there is no reason politicians cannot unravel or outright repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Health care is a gigantic issue, and there’s no question that the system was broken and that we needed to do something about it. What we did not need to do is create another massive government program, and we need to be looking at different ways of taking care of it, putting responsibility back into the hands of patients and to their health care providers. There are things that can be done. We keep listening to people saying ‘the horse is out of the barn, you can’t get it back in there, end of story,’ [and] that’s a bunch of crap. We can do anything. This is America.

Carson’s lack of political experience plays in his favor on this topic. Healthcare is a polarizing topic and his views are a breath of fresh air. He recognizes the health care industry will not be fixed with a few tweaks; rather the syndicate controlling the industry via coercive means needs to be broken up. He understands that Obamacare was sold as a solution to fix a real problem, but the ACA only strengthened the grip crony interests hold throughout the industry. Dr. Carson would advocate for allowing the market to function by returning choice to the consumer and removing coercion from the equation.

Warned President Bush about Iraq invasion

This is another area where Carson differentiates himself from the Republican thoroughbreds he’s competing against for the nomination. Carson claims he sent President Bush a letter after the September 11, 2001 attacks and before the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.

I actually wrote President Bush a letter before the war started and I said, you know, what I would do is I would use the bully pulpit at this moment of great national unity and, very much in a Kennedy-esque type fashion, say within 10 years we’re going to become petroleum independent.

As other GOP presidential hopefuls stumble over questions surrounding the Iraq invasion, Carson has communicated a clear message that would have allowed for a peaceful resolution that is much more preferable to the destruction and blowback caused by the Iraq war. You could argue that if President Bush followed Carson’s advice, ISIS wouldn’t even exist today.

Don’t mistake Dr. Carson for a non-interventionist. He does hold some hawkish foreign policy views, but all Americans can agree that the world would be much better off if President Bush took his advice to avoid the Iraq war.

Favors overturning Common Core

Ben Carson is a real life example that the American Dream can become reality. He was born into poverty and made himself into a success story through hard work and education. Carson understands the way to correct the fledging education system in this country is not by pouring more federal dollars into public school or by introducing more standardized testing.

He understands the importance of competition in schooling. Carson favors school choice and understands that decisions regarding your child’s education should be handled locally by the child’s parents, teachers, and principals. For this reason he advocates for overturning Common Core.

Supports banning abortions after twenty weeks

Carson supports the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act and has a petition on his website to support the Act. The Act would make it illegal to have an abortion more than 20 weeks after fertilization, allowing exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the mother. Dr. Carson has not said if he would use the presidency to push to overturn or uphold Roe v Wade.

There needs to be a line drawn in the sand as to when life starts. Personally, I’d like the line to be drawn somewhere prior to twenty weeks, but this proposal is a good start. As liberty lovers it is important to remember that our most important objective should be to defend life. At twenty weeks, a fetus has clearly developed into a life. Carson has my full support in his quest to defend the most helpless in our society through the advancement of this act.

The Bad

Holds an unprincipled stance on gun rights

Ben Carson has been an inconsistent supporter of the Second Amendment. During an interview on Glenn Beck’s radio show in March 2013, Carson said people have the right to own weapons, but he then quickly qualified that statement with a caveat.

I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.

Carson was skewered for that statement. Recently, he has changed his tune on the Second Amendment, but his stance on gun rights does not appear to be rooted in principle. During a speech at the NRA Annual Meetings in April, Carson attempted to set the record straight. He said the Second Amendment has been historically necessary and will continue to be essential for two reasons: to fight against foreign invasion and to prevent tyranny from the government. Carson neglected to mention that the rights of individuals to defend their life and property is an essential tenet in a free society and the only justification needed for the Second Amendment.

As president, Carson would not use the position to advocate for a repeal of the Second Amendment, but his unprincipled stance could lead him to compromise on gun rights and could lead to rights violations of American citizens.

Believes the minimum wage should be raised

Earlier this month Carson appeared on CNBC and stated that he believes the federal minimum wage should be higher than it is currently. He attempted to justify this statement by pointing out that government assistance often provides more than minimum wage, which encourages people to stay home instead of accepting a lower paying job.

The scenario Carson speaks of is real. It should not be surprising that individuals are choosing to sit back and receive more money from the government doing nothing, instead of getting off their butts and getting a job that pays less. However, this does not justify the raising of minimum wage. If anything it justifies applying more scrutiny to those who receive government assistance payments.

This unprincipled stance by Carson demonstrates that he doesn’t fully understand how markets work and he does not comprehend the damage inflicted to workers lacking skills, who desperately need low wage jobs to survive.

Embraces cronyism when convenient

Not only does Ben Carson lack a basic understanding of economics 101, he also is not reluctant to use crony tactics to gain favor with certain groups. During a recent campaign stop in Iowa Carson was asked about Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the federal mandate that fuel refiners blend a certain volume of ethanol and biodiesel in to their gasoline and diesel supplies. His answer started off on the right track. He said he doesn’t like the idea of government subsidies, because it interferes with the free market. Then he quickly changed course, perhaps after realizing some of those who receive subsidies might be in the crowd, and said the following.

Therefore, I would probably be in favor of taking that $4 billion a year we spend on oil subsidies and using that in new fueling stations for 30 percent ethanol blends.

For someone who spent so many years in the medical field, Dr. Carson has ditched his ethical standards in a shockingly short amount of time and it appears he is learning how to play the political game rather quickly.

Thinks criticizing cops will make them timid

Ben Carson’s recent comments on avoiding criticizing cops were alarming. The comments occurred during a speech in Baltimore, where he lived the majority of his adult life. He claimed that community leaders need to tell the people to “stop beating up” on the police. Carson did not mean physically beating up on the cops. He was referring to the criticism cops face when they harm citizens or abuse their power. Carson’s message to the church was one-sided and did not appear to even consider the citizens’ rights during encounters with police.

What we don’t want to happen is we beat up on the police all the time, and they get to the point where they second guess themselves and they become timid. And then it endangers them and it also endangers the people they are supposed to be protecting, so that ends up being a worse situation.

This is a truly bizarre statement. Cops are paid to serve the public, not the other way around. If a cop violates the rights of a citizen, then they deserve to be criticized and held accountable for their actions. Holding the police on a pedestal above the rest of society and allowing them to run roughshod over the populace does not guarantee a safe society either.

Considers marijuana to be a “gateway” drug

In January 2014, during an appearance on Fox News, Ben Carson said that Americans should be concerned about the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. He admitted that there are health benefits to marijuana, but claimed that marijuana is a “gateway” drug to more dangerous substances.

You know, we’re gradually just removing all the barriers to hedonistic activity and you know, it’s just, we’re changing so rapidly to a different type of society and nobody is getting a chance to discuss it.

It’s hard to believe that a presidential candidate in 2015 believes the “gateway” drug argument. The most alarming aspect of his statement above is that he does not understand the proper role of government in a free society. Carson seems to believe that it is the role of government to regulate morality by determining what substances individuals are permitted to put into their bodies. On this topic Carson finds himself in the rapidly shrinking minority.

…and the Liberty?

Ben Carson is not a typical presidential candidate. He’s never held political office and prior to his retirement he was a world renowned neurosurgeon. The story of Dr. Carson was inspirational enough to be made into a movie. The man is a walking testimony for the American dream.

In theory, Ben Carson represents the type of individual this country needs in a position of leadership. He’s enjoyed an extremely successful career outside of the political arena and has capitalized on the opportunities presented to those that work hard and pursue a goal with relentless passion.

His prior career as a neurosurgeon gives him a unique perspective of the healthcare industry. A major topic in this election is sure to be healthcare; Carson and Rand Paul, an optometrist prior to his Senate career, will be primed to offer a doctor’s perspective and provide ideas how to make the healthcare industry competitive again.

Ben Carson does not have a long history in politics, so he’s been slowly building his resume over the past two years. His presidential platform is evolving more and more by the day. At this point he lacks a consistent principled approach and appears to be shooting from the hip on many issues.

Carson does grade favorable in several areas. Ben Carson’s favorable positions include his opposition to Obamacare, disapproval of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, push to remove the government from education, and support of legislation that would ban abortions after twenty weeks of pregnancy.

In contrast, he grades poorly with regards to his inconsistent support of the Second Amendment, appeal to raise the federal minimum wage, opportunistic approach to government subsidies, reluctance to criticize criminal behavior by police officers, and insistence on categorizing marijuana as a “gateway” drug.

Ben Carson’s lack of a track record and his inconsistent behavior during his brief time in the political arena make him a wild card in race for the GOP nomination. Professionally, Carson has achieved more in his sixty-one years on this earth than most men could achieve in ten lifetimes. Hopefully he will offer practical, but not necessarily principled rebuttals to the hawkish foreign policy touted by neoconservatives in the Republican primary. Also, he’ll have an opportunity to add some clarity and context to the Obamacare debate and provide some methods for transferring choice back to the patient.

Ben Carson is a far cry from a libertarian candidate. If he was elected to the Oval Office, then his lack of principles and affinity for legislating morality would almost guarantee that his Presidency could prove to be problematic for liberty. Carson could still play an important role by influencing other candidates and moving them towards a libertarian leaning stance on healthcare, education, and avoiding unprovoked foreign interventions.

There are worse candidates for president than Ben Carson. He’s by no means a libertarian, but I look forward to his contribution and the impact he could have influencing the conversation on certain topics.

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