Ben Carson at CPAC: The speech

Dr. Ben Carson’s speech at CPAC, March 8 in National Harbor, Maryland:

Well, thank you for that very warm welcome. I just have a lot to say so I’m going to go pretty quickly here. 

You know, America is a land of dreams, and it has fulfilled dreams of so many people from so many places. As a child, you know, I had a dream of becoming a physician. I loved anything that had to do with medicine: Dr. Kildare, Dr. Casey, anything, you know. I even liked going to the doctor’s office, so it tells you I was pretty weird. 

But what an incredible career it provided for me. If somebody had sat me in front of a keyboard and said, ‘I want you to type out the career you want to have,’ I could not have come up with a better scenario, because we live in a land of opportunity, because I had a mother who was no excuses, and because I believed in God. And those are really incredible things.

I thought last year when I retired that I was going to learn to play the organ and learn some new languages and play golf. Well, I think the good Lord had a different plan, and I’m not sure what the culmination of that plan is, but I am having a good time and Candy is having a good time as we go all over the country: red states, blue states, north, south, east, west. 

Enormous, enthusiastic crowds coming out, and it’s like they’re saying, “You mean there’s somebody else with common sense, I’m not the only one.” 

Well here’s the good news: The majority of people in this country have common sense, the problem is they have been beaten into submission.

You know, the PC police and all these people, and people are afraid to speak up for what they believe and, you know, one of the principles of Saul Alinsky is you make the majority believe that what they believe is outdated and nobody thinks that way and the way that they think is the only way intelligent people think.

And if you can co-opt the media in the process, you’re far ahead of the game. That’s exactly what’s happened, and it’s time for people to stand up and proclaim what they believe and stop being bullied. 

You know, one of the most wonderful things. You know, people say, ‘Don’t you miss medicine?’ Well, I miss what medicine used to be, I don’t miss what it has become. But I do miss the patients, but the good thing is I’ve operated on so many thousands of patients there’s virtually no where that I go that I don’t get to see some of them, so it’s actually a wonderful thing to be able to get involved in people’s lives. 

The most important thing that they have is their health care, and that is the reason that we need to fight to make sure that stays in their hands and not in the hands of the government. 

You know, medicine prepared me for out-of-the-box thinking, and it prepared me for a lot of controversy. You know, I got involved in doing, you know, new procedures and, you know, there was some people who didn’t like that very much, but I’ll tell you the difference.

In medicine, we actually talked about it. We talked about the differences. We talked about the evidence and the facts, and when the facts were shown, people made adjustments.

Unfortunately, that does not happen in a political world because you’re dealing with ideologues. They don’t care how many facts you show, they just believe what they believe. And they want to keep doubling down on it. And the only people who could stop them are us, the American people. This is where it lies. 

Now as you know, I am not a fan of political correctness. I hate politically correctness. I will continue to defy the PC police who have tried in many cases to shut me up. You know, I actually find them pretty amusing.

I still believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. You know, because I happened to mention that nobody gets to change the definition of marriage and mention some other categories, they said, ‘Carson said that gay marriage and bestiality are the same thing.’

Well, that’s preposterous, of course they’re not the same thing. Anybody who believes that is a dummy, but anybody who believes somebody who said that somebody said that is a dummy. You know, that’s the problem, okay.

And then, of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else, but they don’t get extra rights. They don’t get to redefine marriage.

And then I said that Obamacare was the worst thing since slavery. Now, let me tell you why I said that. Of course, they said, ‘Carson said that slavery and Obamacare are the same thing.’ Of course they’re not the same thing; slavery is much worse. 

But, bear in mind. What happens with Obamacare? We, the American people, have with that program shifted the power that was given to us by the Constitution and by the founders to the government. It’s the most massive shift of power in America that has ever occurred.

That’s why we need to redo it. We need to put the power back in the hands of the people, and we need to make sure we keep it there.

And then, recently, I said that in Nazi Germany, people did not believe in what Hitler was doing, most of them didn’t. But did they speak up, did they say anything? Absolutely not. And look at the atrocities that occurred. 

And, of course, the left says, ‘Carson says progressives are Nazis and that they are changing American into Nazi Germany.’ Well, of course that’s not the case, but that’s what they do.

They repeat these lies over and over again because they cannot argue the actual facts. They don’t want to talk about the real issues.

And it’s important for the American people to understand the tactics of these people who simply sit around and try to demonize people. Comes straight out of the book: ‘Rules for Radicals,’ by Saul Alinsky.

He said never have a conversation with your adversary because that would humanize them and you’re job is to demonize them. That’s why you see that all over. Intelligent people will understand that, because, you know, I find that, you know, there are so many people that get intimidated so easily. Stop being intimidated. 

You know, I look at somebody like Dr. Melanie Cooper who is having a banquet a week from tonight in Atlanta: New Community Horizons, Victory over Diabetes. She’s a wonderful woman who is concerned for the welfare and health in that community, and there are some organizations there that are telling people to boycott her, not to support her. 

Why? Because I’m coming to be the speaker, and they say we don’t want him spewing his poison, particularly to the young people. 

Well, I wonder what kind of poison that would be. Would that be the poison of self-reliance and self-respect that people should have?

Would that be the poison of telling people in minority communities that they need to learn how to turn over the dollar a few times in their community before they send it out and that’s how you create wealth? You should reach back and pull others with you, and if you do that you don’t have to depend on anybody else.

Would it be the poison of talking about how education is the key, and that you don’t have to be a victim? It’s a matter of your mind and what you decide to do, and the most important person when it comes to your future is you and the decisions that you make?

This is America. We are free. We can do that. 

And most importantly, would it be the poison of putting what God says in front of what any man says? Think about that.

You know, we have the debut of a new black conservative magazine called ‘CurrentSee.’ It will be starting this Monday. It’s an e-magazine through The Washington Times. 

But you’re going to see a different point of view, and it’s not going to be about being victims. It’s going to be about how we use our collective intellect and our resources to move up. And that’s what all of us as conservatives should be emphasizing. 

Not like some other people to keep people down and keep a voting bloc. We want everybody to move up, and I’m going to go there, let me tell you, I don’t believe in political correctness. I’m going to go there to the 47 percent, because I used to belong to the 47 percent, I  belong to the 5 percent. I belong to the 1 percent, but I made the way up there, and I know there are a lot of people in the 47 percent who are decent, hardworking Americans who want to realize the American dream, and we’re here to make sure that they do it.

We’re going to bring them up.

And, the other thing, so important, Save our Healthcare, part of the American Legacy PAC. And I thank all the people who have signed the petition, over 200,000 already. Keep signing, we want millions of people because, see, the left wing says the reason why people don’t like Obamacare is because it doesn’t go far enough. That’s not true.

Sign that petition. Show them that we don’t like it. We want it changed. We want something better. We want the health care in our own hands. We can do it. We pay twice as much per capita for health care in this country than the next closest nation. We can easily do this. We have a lot of alternatives. You’ll be able to read about them on the American Legacy PAC.

And then, the other thing I can’t go without saying. 17 and a half trillion dollar national debt. Think about the implications of that. The only reason why we can do that is because our currency is the basis of the international reserve currency system and we can print money.

You now, if Greece could print money, they wouldn’t be in trouble either. You know, in the 5th century B.C. they could, you know. It was a drachma. And they did, they were the currency, but that was a long time ago, and they’ve been pretty irresponsible. We’re being just as irresponsible, quite frankly.

17 trillion. Do you know how long it would take to pay that off if you paid $10 million a day? 4700 years. That is absolutely absurd. We are killing the next generation. We have to think about that.

And what did Putin say last week? He said, We, Russia, if you put sanctions on us, we may just decide that the American dollar will no longer be the reserve currency that we use.

Quite frankly, that’s not going to hurt us very much with just Russia. It’ll probably hurt them more than it would hurt us, but what if they get other people to do that? China has voiced some concerns. The U.N. committee in 2010 voiced some concerns. It’s because we are irresponsible, and the only way we can get out of that is we have to know who our representatives are and the ones who are voting to raise that debt ceiling — get them out of office and make a place for somebody else. 

You know, I have several other things to say, but my time has expired, but one of the things that is so important for conservatives: The ship is about to sail off Niagra Falls and we’re all going to be killed. And we got a bunch of people looking over the side of the ship and they’re saying, But there’s barnacles on the side, we’ve got to get the barnacles off. 

Forget about the barnacles. We got to get the ship turned around first, and, you know, when we get through with the primary season, if you’re person hasn’t won — and you can call them whatever you want to call them, you can call them a RINO, you can call them a tea bagger, you can call them whatever you want — vote for them, okay. We need those people. Okay? We need them.

Also, we have got to get back to the same mentality that Americans had in the pre-Revolutionary days. They got together with their friends and with their neighbors and their associates, and they talked about what kind of America do we want to have. What do we want to pass on to our children? And they encouraged each other. And that’s how a bunch of ragtag militia men defeated the most powerful army in the world at that time. 

You need to go out and talk to people, everybody you know. Have the discussion. Don’t let the left shut you up. Everybody needs to talk about what we are doing and what we want to have as a nation. Encourage each other. 

Talk to your 87-year-old aunt who hasn’t voted in 20 years. Go and make sure that she understands what the issues are. If she’s an invalid, make sure she signs up for an absentee ballot. If you need to go and help her fill it out, go and help her fill it out. Get all of those people, bring them back to the fold.

I run into particularly elderly people all the time, all over the country. They say I’ve given up on America. I’m just waiting to die. We have got to bring them back in. The Greatest Generation can help us save this nation once again.

Finally, you think about the people who sacrificed so that we can be free. I could talk about a lot of them, but you can read about them in our book, ‘One Nation.’ And I know the left will say, He’s just hawking his books, all he wants is money.

I’ve got plenty of money. That’s not the problem. But, you know, what we need are action steps. We have action steps to help people, every American citizen to get involved and [get back] to having a country that is for, of and by the people. We can get it back, but we have to be brave.

Think about those people during World War II. Nations falling like dominoes, one by one. The whole world coming under tyranny except for one thing: this nation, the United States of America that sent young men from the cities and suburbs of this country to fight a war on two fronts of the world. A country that sent young women into the factories to build more airplanes, tanks and mortars than anybody could imagine. A country that through its strength, and its might, and its determination changed the course of the world. 

You want to tell me we’re not an exceptional nation? You go jump in the lake. That is absolutely not the case.

Why were they willing to fight? Why, on D-day, did those guys storm the shores of Normandy, being mowed down by machine gun fire? Hundreds, thousands, stepping over their comrades, overwhelming the Axis powers. They did it because they wanted you to have a land that was free. They didn’t do it so that you can have a land where our leaders pick and choose the laws that they want to enforce, a land where we pick winners and losers. They did it so we can have a nation where there was freedom and justice for all.

And the next time you sing the national anthem, when you get to the end of that first stanza and it says “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” don’t just let those words roll off your tongue. We must remember we cannot be free if we are not brave.

Thank you, and God bless you.