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The Daily Wildcat

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Column: Top neurosurgeon moonlighting as politician

With the presidential election coming up in 2016, we have been hearing some pretty ridiculous comments from some of the candidates. Everyone is trying to stand out, and some have gotten far in the polls by portraying themselves as an atypical candidate.

One infamous former neurosurgeon, however, has repeatedly made blatantly ignorant and shocking remarks—party lines aside—proving that he is not fit to be president.

Dr. Ben Carson was a brilliant neurosurgeon, and in that line of work he should have remained.

Since the start of his very short political career, Carson has managed to make several politically incorrect, or even factually incorrect, statements.

Let’s focus on a recent interview, on “Meet the Press,” in which Carson compared abortion to slavery. Yes, slavery. He claimed that, like slave owners, who “thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave,” pregnant women, even those pregnant by rape and incest, were treating their unborn children like slaves by choosing to abort.

What is simply ridiculous, however, is the fact that he actually had the nerve to compare a woman impregnated by rape to a slave owner because she wanted to make a choice about her own body. Carson also wants to overturn Roe v. Wade, a U.S. Supreme Court decision passed over 40 years ago. Doing so would take away a woman’s right to choose.

According to statements given at a rally, Carson believes that “there is no war on women.”

“There may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country,” Carson said.

Is what’s inside of a woman not part of the woman? Shouldn’t a world-class brain surgeon be able to understand that a woman’s uterus is a part of her body? I assume they taught this in medical school.

That Carson is trying to claim that a woman’s uterus is not part of her body, and is using that logic to defend his argument shows his clearly misogynistic, backwards, 1940s views.

Now, according to Dr. Carson, slavery is a versatile argument, applicable to all aspects of everyday life. He also believes Obamacare is the worst thing that has happened in America since slavery.

“[Obamacare] is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control,” Carson claimed at the Values Voter Summit in October.

Right, the Affordable Care Act was never about providing affordable health care to millions of citizens. It was about turning the country into a band of minions under the control of the government.

Our master of analogies has made a rational and compelling statement on CNN that homosexuality is a choice, because some people “go into prison straight—and when they come out, they’re gay.” In 2013, he also compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia.

Earlier this year, Carson stated that gay people were seeking “extra rights” in pursuing same-sex marriage and that Congress should impeach Supreme Court judges who rule in favor of it.

Just to give a little glimpse into the crazy mind of this neurosurgeon, Carson, at an event called Celebration of Creation, said he personally believes that the theory of evolution was forced into Charles Darwin’s head by Satan. He claims that a practicing Muslim should never be allowed to be president.

According to Carson, the Holocaust would likely not have occurred if the Jews had guns and that progressive gun control will turn the country into the next Nazi Germany.

The more nonsense he spouts, the more Carson proves that he is not suitable to be president.

Career politicians have plenty of problems, but at least they know how the government works. They know how to speak to people, and that is a part of the president’s role. The president can’t go meet with foreign leaders and offend them with some nonsensical analogies. The president needs to be diplomatic.

What we have learned from this brilliantly logical neurosurgeon is that people need to be free to choose what they want, unless of course, the person is a woman, gay or Muslim. In that case, the government decides what they can and cannot do, just like how slave owners got to decide what their slaves did.


Follow Apoorva Bhaskara on Twitter.


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