You know, I’m still not really in blogging mode but I just want to say that I wasn’t quite prepared to read about Ben Carson attacking people with knives, bricks, and baseball bats. I mean, I’m glad he really turned himself around and everything and I doubt he’s one bad afternoon away from braining someone with a brick, but I thought this campaign couldn’t get any weirder and it’s disconcerting to discover that I was wrong about that.
And, yeah, I think we can find someone else to give the nuclear launch codes to, thank you very much.
But hey….it could have been worse, right? He could have hugged Bill Ayers, or something.
He could have kissed bill Ayres. But I imagine that would have been over the top.
He could have smoked a dooby with his friends and gotten all chill. We see how the Republicans have treated that sort of teenage behavior.
IOKIYAR Forever!
A lot of us at that time were potentially violent. I burned my diaries of 66-69 when I adopted kids. I didn’t want them to see what I’d been thinking. It went with the turf. Every night we saw the news in Vietnam, knowing that unless you were rich, you were quite likely to be potentially in harms way … soon.
There’s lots to disqualify Carson. Being violent 55 years ago is not one of them. Too much water under the bridge.
But Carson didn’t say he was potentially violent. He said he actually went after people with rocks, bricks, baseball bats, and hammers. And that he tried to stab someone. That’s actively violent, and a very different thing. We all have times when we want to beat someone, but most of us would never really do it. Anyone who has it in them to actually attack others, on a regular basis, is not someone to trust with weapons.
Me thinks the establishment GOP is going after Carson. He is so much easier than The Donald.
And ironically he’s the one who would probably fade; it’s like the drunk looking for their keys under the streetlight because it’s dark where they were actually dropped.
Ben Carson’s book tour only has so many more stops.
Sounds like an Eagleton disqualification to me. And Eagleton was running for VP.
Eagleton was neither irrational nor ignorant. He was fine for decades after he experienced depression and sought treatment for it.
Yeah but it was the perception. First it was the shock of the news, then trying to wrap the mind around the notion of electroshock. By that point, very strong initial perceptions were being set in cement, hard to undo by calm appeals to look at it rationally.
The same initial perception process could work here, possibly, hopefully for our Nation and our Planet’s future. For chrissakes, even the GOP apologist Uncle Joe and his potted plant sidekick Jane weren’t trying to spin it as a refreshingly frank story of bad boy turned good.
Politically it’s a disaster. This story, or Dr Ben’s call to dismantle Medicare/Medicaid, either one might be, should be, the one to finally burst this nut job’s balloon.
CW of the time about electroshock therapy was derived from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Didn’t help that the treatment at that time was somewhat primitive and the doctors weren’t much more advanced.
The GOP apologists aren’t all over this one because they don’t know what their audience wants to hear. From the way Carson phrased it, he’s been open about this [being a youthful thug] with his flock for some time. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that it’s not even true but was crafted to gain him creds with the fundies.
I’m not sure his opposition to Medicare/Medicaid will hurt him as much as it should. Plenty of people loathe Medicaid (welfare) enough that if the price to get rid of it is losing their Medicare, they’d go for that.
About the political trajectory of Doctor Carson premised on the need of mean and selfish people to feel good about themselves once in a while and present to others as “not-bigots”. It seems to me that Carson satisfies that want; it might be argued he has made a career of it. Wreathed in smiles, patience, good works, bedside manner and evangelical Christianity he provides a ‘friendly’ encounter with their own unsupported and otherwise nasty beliefs. It’s a ‘not about racism’ theme park celebrating all the rest of their craziness. Supporting him for the nomination is just escalation for them and a handsome grift for him.
It also seems to me that this minority ‘movement’ Right would rather give their own party a bloody nose than win; so anything is possible. Ditto especially for Trump. They might nominate him just to sabotage the convention.
Speaking of sabotage I’m guessing we’ll default too on much the same premise; a very, very serious matter right up there with Iraq as an unforced disaster of world-historical proportions. A sizable cohort of our electorate has abandoned reason yet is obsessively political. We better hope they wreck their own party before they damage the nation.
I disagree with that statement. I live in the red red south and far too many of my fellow citizens of a pale skin color have tapped into Medicaid to provide nursing home care for elderly relatives. I honestly don’t think the gutting of Medicare/Social Security entitlements is something that the non-rich conservative base wants. I think this is a gimme to the ideological base that Ryan represents. Those who ostensibly are just horrified by the national debt.
Even so they don’t want to cut any defense spending, no siree. For one thing, too many of the economies of these states are way dependent on defense spending.
You’re assuming that fundies are rational.
On this issue, here´s how the fundies believe they are being rational. They are told a Republican President and Congress wouldn´t take Medicare away from them and the other Real Americans. In fact, taking health care away from those Undeserving Americans would protect and preserve health care for the Real Americans. That is exactly what the Republicans have run on, particularly hard, in every national election since 2010.
It´s extremely misguided, but it´s rational. And when we call them stupid, satisfying as that may be, we actively help the Republicans turn them out to the polls.
Irrational or stupid because there are legal definitions of Real Americans and only those that meet the definition qualify for Medicaid. Under our Constitution we’ve gotten rid of all the “Undeserving” group exclusions and it was principally only the application of Jim Crow laws that were used to identify and label individuals as were “undeserving.” Legally that’s been done away with; so, it is irrational and stupid for them to demand the application of non-existent and ethically and morally repulsive laws.
Ah, but in fundie-world when the Republicans control everything they’ll do away with all that equality bullshit the godless liberals have forced down the throat of Real America and reinstate all the group exclusions that the Real American God approves of. Because the Constitution says so! (Can’t find the exact section right now; I’ll get back to you on that….)
And given the sort of Supreme Court a GOP-controlled White House and Senate would install, is that really quite so irrational a belief?
There’s the problem: in fundie-world
“Fundie-world” is irrational and stupid. Based on a selective and condensed version of a book written over several hundred (thousand?) years when people rode around on dinosaurs.
Based on a book cobbled together from stories and myths originating in various preliterate pastoral tribal cultures, filtered through Eastern Mediterranean civilizations’ emendations and additions, translated and retranslated from at least two original languages with varying degrees of accuracy over the centuries, edited, purged, expanded and slanted to fit the agenda of whatever power structure happened to be in control of the religious organization at the time, and always, always the product of human beings on a mission to tell the world how to behave.
Yeh, very holy.
Possibly “fundie” code — the sinner/thug who is “saved” is admired, but he/she can only be known as one of the “saved” if he/she publicly tells of his/her past sins. A variation on the “prodigal son” story. Tweaked for an AA that did not grow up in privileged circumstances. Dr. Ben can reinforce the notion among white folks that AA boys/young men are thugs who require the intervention of the lord.
Abortion = slavery is also code that likens two human activities that are bad. That there’s no rational logic between the two doesn’t bother fundies. Same with Obamacare being equal (or worse) than slavery. Hitler and Nazis are also bad and therefore, can be used as equivalent to anything else fundies consider bad.
Such a simple and multi-purpose formulation for an ignorant, Xtian faith based population.
Oh yes, the fundamentalist churches don’t go in for confession to a priest, but they set great store on this sort of public “testimony” of the rock bottom sinner who is “saved”.
it would appear, that somewhere along the way, the good doctor confused the republican hypocrital oath with his hippocratic one.
I first saw Carson at the initial RatPub
rebate…errr, ahhh,,,debate. I thought then…and think even more so now…that presented a front that can be summed up by the psychiatric term “Reduced affect display.”From Wikipedia
I repeat:
“Expressive gestures are rare and there is little animation in facial expression or vocal inflection.”
Check him out:
A clinic in reduced affect display!
He frightens me.
AG
No clinical psych professional would ever diagnose an affective disorder from a TV appearance. Or use a Wikipedia entry for the diagnostic criteria. Plus, he does demonstrate affect in his TV appearances.
His demeanor is creepy because it’s abnormally calm. He’s scary because he spouts ignorant garbage.
I am not a clinical pysch professional, nor would I trust anyone who buys into the current drug-induced psychiatric morass within which we as a nation are currently thoroughly enmeshed…witness the almost daily killings by people who are (or have been) victims of that particular BigMed/Big Pharma scam.
And…those killings are only the tip of a very nasty iceberg. Bet on it. A compulsory drug scan for various pyschoactive drugs…almost all prescribed by the various Dr. Feelgoods who are part of each one’s ongoing entourage, bet on that as well…of our top 1000 or so “leaders”…military, political, business etc…would be horrrifying. They are drugged to sleep, drugged awake and drugged into action. For example…there is no way on earth that say Hillary Clinton could have kept up the pace that was set for her by her position as SecState. I have traveled for a living; I know what jetlag does and believe me, her schedule during that time period would make my wildest tours look like a Caribbean vacation. That goes for most of the members of the ruling class as far as I am concerned.
All you need to do is look at this famous photo of Obama and his advisors watching (what was purported to be…see here for more on the whole “purported” idea) the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden.
Talk about blunted affect!!! HRC must’ve skipped her meds that morning because she is the only one there who is registering shock at what must have been a bloody mess. The rest?
How blocked must one’s affect become…psychoactively adjusted or just plain, natural-born sociopath…to simply sit there in that office and watch a murder planned and executed by one’s underlings under orders from above? Guilty, innocent or anywhere in the middle, bin Laden was a living, breathing human being who had a belief in the justice of his cause. Once captured he deserved at the very least a public, Nuremberg-level trial regarding his crimes.
But NOOOOOOO…
Politics trumps humanity once again.
Back to Carson.
Omertica deserves him.
We’ve earned it.
Take yer meds and fasten yer seatbelts, folks.
It’s gonna be a bumpy ride no matter which hustler is elected.
Bet on it.
AG.
People consume drugs to feel better or good. Been doing so for a long time. Alcohol has long been a drug of choice (not prescribed by doctors) that leads to much violence. (There was a real and present danger for women that advocated for Prohibition — they weren’t just a gaggle of religious wackos and feminists although religion and women’s rights did play a role in the failed experiment in Prohibition.)
New “wonder drugs” and “cures” for dis-ease in living has been a feature of medicine for at least a century and a half in the US. They come and they go.
However, that’s not what you were speaking to in your original comment. You engaged in armchair clinical diagnosis of Carson with zero qualifications to do so. I’m actually on record as suspecting that Carson does use some sedative, but not because he has some psychological condition covered in the DSM which even if he does cannot be ascertained from TV appearances.
You are3″actually on record as suspecting that Carson does use some sedative, but not because he has some psychological condition covered in the DSM which even if he does cannot be ascertained from TV appearances>?>?>?”
Oh.
Maybe he just “use some sedative” for fun???!!!
“…not because he has some psychological condition covered in the DSM which even if he does cannot be ascertained from TV appearances???”
Give me a break, Marie!!!
Universe protect us from sedated…and otherwise psychoactively altered “leaders.”…
PLEASE!!!
AG
Tapped into a great PR operation.
A fascinating comparison:
Alexa Canady – born 11/7/50, Lansing, MI
Ben Carson – born 9/18/51, Detroit, MI
Canady – BS Zoology 1971, Univ MI
Carson – BA Psychology 1973, Yale
Canady – Univ MI Medical School 1975, cum laude
Carson – Univ MI Medical School 1977
Canady – Yale – internship; Univ MN – residency, neurosurgery, completed 1981
Carson – Johns Hopkins, residency, neurosurgery
More from Dr. Canady
(Perhaps not less at Johns Hopkins or if a pediatric neurosurgeon’s salary is supplemented with seats on the Board of Director’s of Kellogg Company and Costco and several autobiographies of one’s exceptionalism are published.)
(Note: all the write-ups on Carson list his graduation from high school with honors but no mention of honors for undergrad or medical school.)
Dr. Ruth Jakoby was the first US female neurosurgeon.