On the heels of his gun control-Nazi comparison, Dr. Ben Carson was busy campaigning through Georgia (where people LOVE him, by the way) when he said a few things that have gotten some liberals riled up. He was in Gainesville, Georgia on Sunday speaking to a large crowd at Free Chapel, a mega church with multiple campuses, when he dropped a truth bomb about welfare.
“We shouldn’t give away our values for the sake of political correctness,” he said. Then he added that conservatives have, “no desire whatsoever to hurt the poor … but I believe in true compassion, providing the poor with a mechanism to climb the ladder of success. False compassion is patting them on the head and saying, ‘You can’t take care of yourself and I’m going to give you food stamps, a housing subsidy and free health care and all the things you need so you can stay dependent and vote for me.'”
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His comments about welfare in America are sure to rattle some sensitive liberals, but speaking as a man who came from deep poverty, Carson has more than a little first-hand knowledge of that which he speaks. Liberal America has forgotten the time-worn adage “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Today’s conservatives wish to impart the same kind of advice. We must reform welfare to stop pouring money into growing the welfare state, and instead use those resources to make welfare unnecessary.
Furthermore, this kind of “compassion” is not for the government to provide. Welfare services should always fall to private charities, religious organizations, community groups and family relations. The government’s role in our lives should be as minimal as possible – in this way the government would really be providing the best “welfare” possible for all Americans.
Carson didn’t stop with welfare, either. He also gave a lesson about being informed citizens. He told the gathered crowd that “it is incumbent upon us to be well-informed” which is why he wrote his recently released book “A More Perfect Union.”
“Most Americans know we have a constitution, but few people actually know what’s in it and what’s behind it. And yet, it’s essential to the maintenance of our liberties and for the restraint of our government.
Our government has gotten a little bit unruly and is doing some things that indicate that perhaps they have forgotten about our constitution.
You can do what you want to do as long as it doesn’t infringe upon somebody else’s rights, but it was never intended that anybody should have extra rights and that they should get to redefine everything for everybody else. That’s a problem for me.”
He further added that, “I don’t think (justices) read the part where it says civil issues should be handled at the local or state level. … The country is supposed to be about the people and not a bunch of judges who are not elected. If you continue to allow this oligarchy of judges to do whatever they want, they will become even more emboldened. Everything needs to be restrained in its proper setting.”
Amen, Dr. Carson.
To learn more about his campaign stop in Gainesville, Georgia read about it at the Gainesville Times.
