THE DUOPOLY WATCH
By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Takes
his clothes off, eh, and it’s not pretty? So, you might ask, you must be
talking about the various apparent confabulations about his youth? Well, no.
So how about his thought that China has troops (or something) on the ground in
Syria? Well, not that either. So, how about, as a pediatrician,
recommending that parents ask their physicians not to follow the American
Academy of Pediatrics recommendations
on vaccination spacing? Nope.
OK. What about the one
where he said that African-Americans are being manipulated by the media to
protest, indeed (now in an increasing number of venues) demonstrate against
racial injustice and racism. Not that one either. OK. So it’s
gotta be the one where he said that the Jews could have prevented the Holocaust
had they been armed (showing that he knows nothing either of the history of
Nazi Germany or the Holocaust). Still not it. Or the one where he
compared a woman choosing to have an abortion with a slave-owner (showing that
he knows nothing either about slavery or about pregnancy, the latter being
surprising because he did go to medical school). Not it either. The
confabulation about “getting a scholarship to West Point” when there are no
such things — it’s free for appointees? Well, nah. (If you want
some really funny ones, fictional, but consistent with what Carson talks about,
see a recent
issue of The Onion.)
Then, not so funny, saying the
following,
about Cuban policy, in South Florida: “ ‘There are a lot of
policies that I lack knowledge on,’ he told reporters during his book signing
in Miami on Thursday. ‘I’m gaining knowledge. But I don’t by any stretch of the
imagination confess to knowing everything. That’s the reason you have advisors.
Even Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said, “A multitude of counselors
is safety.”’” So here is a candidate for the Presidency of the United
States quoting scripture to defend himself about his lack of knowledge about an
issue of vital importance among the Cuban-American community in South
Florida. Now we are getting there: using a Biblical passage to justify
his lack of knowledge. Then there was the statement that the “Pyramids
were for grain storage because the Bible says so.” Well, now we are
getting even closer to the moment. Here he is quoting the Bible as an
historical authority, over-riding, in his view, archeological science.
Actually, Dr. Carson truly
took his clothes off in public, revealing himself to be a full-bore Dominionist
— truly dangerous in U.S. politics and governance — in his speech at Liberty
University on Armistice Day (which is how we old folks refer to the Nov. 11
holiday). Dominionism,(1)
briefly, is a political theology that places “God,” as of course interpreted by
the Dominionists, who regard the King James Version of the Bible as “the word
of God, above any law or Constitution in the United States. (That that
translation of the Bible was actually written by a committee of 48 scholars and
theologians at the beginning of the reign of King James I in England doesn’t
seem to get in the way of their thinking that it is the “word of God.”
But that is another story.)
At any rate, among other
things, Carson
said that he relies on the Bible to guide him through
controversy: “Proverbs 3, 5 and 6. It says trust in the Lord with all your
heart, lean not to your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and
he will direct your path,” He quoted Romans, chap. 8: “If God is for you, who
can be against you?” And presumably if Carson decides that God is not on
your side, as he apparently does for LGBTQ folk wanting to get married, then
you are just out of luck, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and
a Supreme Court decision aside.
This is what is the most
frightening about Carson. He took his clothes off as a Dominionist at
Liberty University, one of the major homes for Christian Rightist in general
and Dominionism in particular in the United States. And the sight was indeed
very ugly. To repeat, for him “God” (as he interprets him, her, it or
them, of course) stands above the Constitution and the law. And this is
what is at the base of his popularity with the Christian-Right (the so-called
“Evangelicals”) in the Republican Party, especially strong in Iowa. It is
not a coincidence that that last two Republican Iowa caucuses were won by
fellow Dominionists, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee. Let us just hope
that Carson’s future in the Republican primaries follows that of Huckabee and
Santorum. And gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if, at some time during this
primary process a journalist asked Carson the simple question, “Doctor, are you
a Dominionist?”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Senior Editor, Politics, Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at
Stony Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-
Dr. Jonas’ latest book is The 15% Solution: How the
Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A Futuristic
Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books,
Punto Press Publishing,
2013, and available on Amazon.
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