Transcript of Dr.
Benjamin Carson's Speech at the National Prayer Breakfast
from February 7, 2013
Dr. Carson began with the following four scriptures and then
moved into his address.
Proverbs 11:9 With his mouth the Godless destroys his neighbor,
but through knowledge the righteous escapes.
Proverbs 11:12 A man who lacks judgement derides his neighbor,
but a man of understanding holds his tongue
Proverbs 11:25 A generous man will prosper. He who refreshes
others will himself, be refreshed.
2nd Chronicles 7:14 If my people who are called by my name will
humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their
wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their
sins and heal their land.
Dr Carson said he has many opportunities to speak before people,
and to speak with people, and he often asks what is their
greatest concern about the spirituality and the direction of our
Nation and our world. He said he speaks with very prominent
Democrats and very prominent Republicans: "I was surprised
by the uniformity of their answers and those have informed my
comments this morning. Now it is not my intention to offend
anyone "
Begin transcript:
Education:
Here we are at a time in the world, the information age, the age
of technology and yet 30% of those who enter High School in this
country do not graduate. Forty-four percent of those who start a
4-year college program do not finish it in 4 years. What is that
about?
Think back to a darker time in our history, 200 years ago when
slavery was going on, it was illegal to educate a slave,
particularly to teach him to read. Why do you think that was?
Because when you educate a man, you liberate a man.
And there I was as a youngster placing myself in the same
situation that a horrible institution did because I wasnt
taking advantage of the education. I was a horrible student. Most
of my classmates thought I was the stupidest person in the world.
They called me Dummy. I was the butt of all the jokes. Now,
admittedly, it was a bad environment.
Family and Education:
Single parent home. You know my Mother and Father had gotten
divorced early on. My mother got married when she was 13. She was
one of 24 children. Had a horrible life. Discovered that her
husband was a bigamist. Had another family. She only had a third
grade education. She had to take care of us in dire poverty. I
had a horrible temper, poor self-esteem. All the things that you
would think would preclude success.
But I had something very important. I had a mother who believed
in me. And I had a mother who would never allow herself to be a
victim, no matter what happened. Never made excuses and she never
accepted excuses from us. If we ever came up with an excuse, she
would say, do you have a brain and if the answer was yes, then
she said, you could have thought your way out of it. It
doesnt matter what John, or Susan or Mary or anybody else
did or said. It was the most important thing she did for my
brother and myself because if you dont accept excuses
pretty soon people stop giving them and they start looking for
solutions. That is a critical issue when it comes to success.
We did live in dire poverty and one of the things I hated was
poverty. Some people hate spiders, some people hate snakes. I
hated poverty. I couldnt stand it. But my mother
couldnt stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school,
and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could
she do to make her young sons understand the importance of
developing their minds so that they could control their own
lives. And you know what? God gave her the wisdom, at least in
her opinion. My brother and I didnt think she was that
wise, cause it was turn-off the TV. We could watch only two or
three TV programs during the week. It was in all that spare time,
read two books a piece from the Detroit Pubic Library and submit
to her written book reports which she couldnt read, but we
didnt know that. She put check marks and highlights and
stuff but you know, I just hated this. My friends were out
having a good time her friends would criticize her.
Theyd say you cant make boys stay in the house
reading books. Theyll grow up and theyll hate you. I
would overhear them and I would say, Mother, you know
theyre right, but she didnt care, you know.
After awhile I actually began to enjoy reading those books,
because we were very poor but between the covers of those books I
could go anywhere, I could be anybody, I could do anything. I
began to read about people of great accomplishment, and as I read
those stories I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see
that the person who has the most to do with you and what happens
to you in life is you. You make decisions. You decide how much
energy you want to put behind that decision, and I came to
understand that I had control of my own destiny, and at that
point I didnt hate poverty anymore because I knew it was
only temporary. I knew I could change that. It was incredibly
liberating for me.
Alexis de Toqueville:
To continue on that theme of education, in 1831 Alexis de
Toqueville came to study America. The Europeans were fascinated.
How could a fledgling Nation, barely 50 years old already be
competing with them on virtually every level. This was
impossible. De Toqueville was going to sort it out and he looked
at our government and he was duly impressed by the three branches
of government four now because we have special interest
groups, but it was only three back in those days. He said, WOW,
this is really something, but then he said, let me look at their
educational system and he was blown away. See, anybody who had
finished the second grade was completely literate. He could find
a mountain man on the outskirts of society who could read the
newspaper and have a political discussion, could tell him how the
government worked.
Dr. Carson's Book America the
Beautiful:
If you really want to be impressed, take a look at the chapter on
education in my latest book, America the Beautiful,
which I wrote with my wife it came out last year, and in
that education chapter you will see questions extracted from a
sixth grade exit exam from the 1800's a test you had to
pass to get your sixth grade certificate. I doubt most college
graduates today could pass that test. We have dumbed things down
to that level and the reason that is so dangerous is that because
the people who founded this Nation said that our system of
government was designed for a well-informed and educated
populace, and when they become less informed, they become
vulnerable. Think about that. That is why education is so vitally
important.
Five Doctors Signed the Declaration of
Independence:
Now some people say, ahhh, youre over blowing it, things
arent that bad, and youre a doctor, a neurosurgeon.
Why are you concerned about these things? Got news for you. FIVE
doctors signed the Declaration of Independence. Doctors were
involved in the framing of the Constitution, in the Bill of
Rights, in a whole bunch of things. Its only been since
recent decades that weve extracted ourselves, which I think
is a big mistake.
We need doctors, we needs scientists, we engineers. We need all
those people involved in government, not just lawyers I
dont have anything against lawyers, but heres the
thing about lawyers Im sorry, but I got to be
truthful what do lawyers learn in law school? To win, by
hook or by crook. You gotta win, so you got all these Democrat
lawyers, and you got all these Republican lawyers and their sides
want to win. We need to get rid of that. What we need to start
thinking about is, how do we solve problems?
Celebrating and Encouraging Intelligent
Children Carson Scholars:
Now, before I get shot, let me finish. I dont like to bring
up problems without coming up with solutions. My wife and I
started the Carson Scholars Fund 16 years ago after we heard
about an international survey looking at the ability of eight
graders in 22 countries to solve math and science problems, and
we came out No. 21 out of 22. We only barely beat out No. 22
very concerning.
Wed go to these schools and wed see all these
trophies: State Basketball, State Wrestling, this, that and the
other. The Quarterback was the Big Man on Campus. What about the
intellectual Superstar? What did they get? A National Honor
Society pin? A pat on the head, there, there little Nerd? Nobody
cared about them. Is it any wonder that sometimes the smart kids
try to hide? They don't want anybody to know they are smart? This
is not helping us or our Nation, so we started giving out
scholarships from all backgrounds for superior academic
performance and demonstration of humanitarian qualities. Unless
you cared about other people, it didnt matter how smart you
were. Weve got plenty of people like that. We dont
need smart people who dont care about other people.
We would give them money. The money would go into a Trust. They
would get interest on it. When they would go to college they
would get the money, but also the school gets a trophy, every bit
as impressive as a sports trophy right out there with the
others. They get a medal. They get to go to a banquet. We try to
put them on a pedestal as impressive as we do the All-State
athletes. I have nothing against athletics or entertainment.
Im from Baltimore. The Ravens won. This is great
okay. But, what will maintain our position in the world? The
ability to shoot a 25' jump shot or the ability to solve a
quadratic equation? We need to put the things into proper
perspective.
Reading Rooms:
Many teachers have told us that when we put a Carson Scholar in
their classroom, the GPA of the whole classroom goes up over the
next year. Its been very gratifying. We started 16 years
ago with 25 scholarships in Maryland, now weve given out
more than 5,000 and we are in all 50 states, but weve also
put in Reading Rooms. These are fascinating places that no little
kid could possibly pass up. They get points for the amount of
time they spend reading, and the number of books they read. They
can trade the points for prizes. In the beginning they do it for
the prizes, but it doesnt take long before their academic
performance begins to improve.
We particularly target Title One schools where the kids come from
homes with no books and schools with no libraries. Those are the
ones who drop out. We need to truncate that process early on
because we cant afford to waste any of those young people.
For every one of those people we keep from going down that path
of self-destruction and mediocrity, thats one less person
you have to protect yourself and your family from. One less
person you have to pay for in the penal or welfare system. One
more taxpaying productive member of society who may invent a new
energy source or come up with a cure for cancer. They are all
important to us and we need every single one of them. ( http://www.carsonscholars.org
)
Moral Decay:
Why is it so important that we educate our people? Because we
dont want to go down the pathway as so many pinnacle
nations that have preceded us. I think particularly about ancient
Rome. Very powerful. Nobody could even challenge them militarily,
but what happened to them? They destroyed themselves from within.
Moral decay, fiscal irresponsibility. They destroyed themselves.
If you dont think that can happen to America, you get out
your books and you start reading, but you know, we can fix it.
Responsibility in Leadership Debt
and Deficit:
We can fix it because were smart. We have some of the most
intellectually gifted people leading our Nation. All we need to
do is remember what our real responsibilities are so that we can
solve them. I think about these problems all the time, and my
role model was Jesus. He used parables to help people understand
things. One of our big problems right now our deficit is a
big problem. Think about it. Our National Debt $16.5
Trillion dollars you think thats not a lot of money?
Count one number per second, which you cant even do because
once you get to a thousand it will take you longer than a second,
but one number per second. You know how long it would take
you to count to 16 Trillion? 507,000 years more than a
half a million years to get there. We have to deal with this.
The Parable of Some People More Special
Than Others:
Heres a parable: A family falls on hard times. Dad loses
his job or is demoted to part time work. He has 5 children. He
comes to the 5 children, he says were going to have to
reduce your allowance. Well, theyre not happy about it but
he says, except for John and Susan. He says, theyre
special. They get to keep their allowance. In fact, well
give them more. How do you think thats going to go down?
Not too well. Same thing happens. Enough said.
Taxes:
What about our taxation system? So complex there is no one who
can possibly comply with every jot and tittle of our tax system.
If I wanted to get you, I could get you on a tax issue. That
doesnt make any sense. What we need to do is come up with
something that is simple.
When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest
individual in the Universe, God, and hes given us a system.
Its called tithe. Now we dont necessarily have to do
it 10% but its principle. He didnt say, if your crops
fail, dont give me any tithe. He didnt say, if you
have a bumper crop, give me triple tithe. So there must be
something inherently fair about proportionality. You make $10
Billion dollars you put in a Billion. You make $10 you put in $1
of course, you gotta get rid of the loopholes, but some
people say, thats not fair because it doesnt hurt the
guy who made $10 Billion as much as the guy who made $10. Where
does it say you have to hurt the guy. Hes just put in a
billion in the pot. We dont need to hurt him.
Its that kind of thinking that has resulted in 602 banks in
the Cayman Islands. That money needs to be back here, building
our infrastructure and creating jobs and were smart
enough to figure out how to do that.
Health Care and Death Panels:
Weve already started down the path to solving one of the
other big problems, health care. We need to have good health care
for everybody. Its the most important thing that a person
can have. Money means nothing, titles mean nothing when you
dont have your health, but weve got to figure out
efficient ways to do it. We spend a lot of money on health care,
twice as much per capita as anybody in else in the world, and yet
not very efficient. What can we do?
Heres my solution. When a person is born, give him a birth
certificate, an electronic medical record and a health savings
account [HSA], to which money can be contributed, pre-tax from
the time you are born, to the time you die. When you die, you can
pass it on to your family members so that when youre 85
years old and youve got 6 diseases, youre not trying
to spend up everything. Youre happy to pass it on and
nobody is talking about death panels.
For the people who are indigent, who dont have any money,
we can make contributions to their HSA each month because we
already have this huge pot of money instead of sending it to
bureaucracy lets put it into HSAs. Now they have
some control over their own health care and what do you think
theyre going to do? Theyre going to learn very
quickly how to be responsible. when Mr. Jones gets that diabetic
foot ulcer, hes not going to the Emergency Room and blowing
a big chunk of it. Hes going to go to the Clinic. He learns
that very quickly gets the same treatment. In the
Emergency Room they send him out. In the Clinic they say, now
lets get your diabetes under control so that youre
not back here in three weeks with another problem. Thats
how we begin to solve these kinds of problems. Its much
more complex than that, and I dont have time to go into it
all, but we can do all these things because we are smart people.
The Parable of Just Because You Are the
Biggest and Most Powerful :
Another parable: Sea Captain, and hes out on the sea near
the area where the Titanic went down. And they look ahead and
theres a bright light right there another ship he
figures. He tells his signaler to signal that ship: deviate 10
degrees to the South. Back comes the message, no you deviate 10
degrees to the North. Well, hes a little bit incensed, you
know. He says, send a message, this is Captain Johnson, deviate
10 degrees to the South. Back comes the message, this is Ensign
4th Class Reilly. Deviate 10 degrees to the North. Now Captain
Johnson is really upset. He says send him a message, this is a
Naval Destroyer. Back comes the message, this is a Lighthouse.
Enough said.
An Example of Why Left and Right Work:
What about the symbol of our Nation? The Eagle. The Bald Eagle.
Its an interesting story how we chose that but a lot of
people think we call it the bald eagle because it looks like it
has a bald head. Thats not the reason It comes from the Old
English word Piebald, which means crowned with white. Why is that
eagle able to fly, high, forward? Because it has two wings: a
left wing and a right wing. Enough said.
The Turning Point of the War of 1812:
Two hundred years ago this Nation was involved in a war, the war
of 1812. The British, who are now our good friends thought that
we were young whippersnappers. It was time for us to become a
colony again. They were winning that war and marching up the
Eastern Seaboard, destroying city after city, destroying
Washington D.C., burned down the White House. Next stop
Baltimore. As they came into the Chesapeake Bay, there were
armadas of war ships as far as the eye could see. It was looking
grim. Ft. McHenry standing right there. General Armistead, who
was in charge of Ft. McHenry, had a large American flag
commissioned to fly in front of the Fort. The Admiral in charge
of the British Fleet was offended, said take that flag down. You
have until dusk to take that Flag down. If you dont take it
down, we will reduce you to ashes.
There was a young amateur poet on board by the name of Francis
Scott Key, sent by President Madison to try to obtain the release
of an American physician who was being held captive. He overheard
the British plans. They were not going to let him off the ship.
He mourned. As dusk approached he mourned for his fledgling young
Nation, and as the sun fell, the bombardment started. Bombs
bursting in air. Missiles, so much debris. He strained, trying to
see, was the flag still there? Couldnt see a thing. All
night long it continued. At the crack of dawn he ran out to the
banister. He looked and could only see dust and debris.
One Nation Under God, Indivisible, with
Liberty and Justice for All:
Then there was a clearing and he beheld the most beautiful sight
he had ever seen the torn and tattered Stars and Stripes
still waving. Many historians say that was the turning point in
the war of 1812. We went on to win that war and to retain our
freedom and if you had gone onto the grounds of Ft. McHenry that
day, you would have seen at the base of that flag, the bodies of
soldiers who took turns. Propping up that flag, they would not
let that flag go down because they believed in what that flag
symbolized. What did it symbolize? One Nation, under God,
[applause] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank
you. God Bless.