BEN CARSON IS an actual brain surgeon – and he’s hoping to make it to the White House in 2016.
A high-profile figure in the US for years (he’s huge on the public speaking circuit) we’ve become a little more familiar with Carson in recent months thanks to a series of controversial and often bizarre public statements.
His laid-back debate style couldn’t be further from that of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump – but his pronouncements have often been equally headline-grabbing.
Pedigree
To seasoned observers of the US political scene, his views will have come as no surprise.
After all, this is a man who once described Barack Obama’s healthcare plan as “the worst thing that has happened this nation since slavery”.
Then, of course, there was this:
Here are some other things Ben Carson believes, and has been talking about in recent months…
He later apologised for this – but back in March, Carson told CNN’s Chris Cuomo he “absolutely” believed being gay was a choice, adding:
Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.
We probably don’t need to point out that there’s no research to back up Carson’s assertion.
Responding to a question during an interview broadcast on NBC’s Meet the Press in September, he described the Islamic faith as inconsistent with the constitution.
“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” Carson said.
I absolutely would not agree with that.
He made a distinction when it came to electing Muslims to Congress, calling it a “different story” from the presidency that “depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just as it depends on what anybody else says”.
Carson’s call for those caught in shooting situations to tackle their attacker drew criticism from public safety experts back in October.
He made the comments in the wake of a shooting at an Oregon community college that left ten dead.
The White House hopeful said that if he had been present at the attack, he would “not just stand there and let him shoot me”.
I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all’.
Just a few days after his comments on the Oregon shooting, Carson was back in the headlines suggesting the Holocaust would have been “greatly diminished” if German Jews had been armed with guns.
Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about an excerpt from his book A More Perfect Union, in which Carson linked the disarming of German citizens with the killing of 6 million Jews by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, the neurosurgeon said:
The likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.
He added: “there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first”.
Perhaps the statement that drew the most comment of his campaign to date was Carson’s assertion that the pyramids of Egypt were built by the biblical Joseph to store grain and were not, as archaeologists believe, tombs for pharaohs.
He initially made the remarks at a 1998 address at Andrews University, a school associated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to which he belongs.
“My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids to store grain,” Carson said.
Now all the archeologists think that they were made for the pharaohs’ graves. But, you know, it would have to be something awfully big if you stop and think about it. And I don’t think it’d just disappear over the course of time to store that much grain.
Carson has defended those beliefs - telling reporters in Miami that “some people believe in the Bible, like I do, and don’t find that to be silly at all and believe that God created the Earth and don’t find that to be silly at all”.
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