You have to sympathize with the man: No presidential candidate wants to fall in the buzz trap that opens up when you cross the line on gay rights, wherever the gay rights community then draws the line. (It has moved progressively and rapidly, as political conservatives willingness and ability to oppose the LGBT community’s definition of what is true, good, beautiful, reasonable and permissible to say fades).
In his latest communication with Sean Hannity, Dr. Carson explains he’s just not going to talk about those issues any more to avoid the MSM’s trap:
Famed neurosurgeon Ben Carson said Wednesday that he would no longer be talking about gay marriage because, in his view, he was taken out of context by “liberal press” when he claimed that prisons prove that being gay isn’t a choice.
“First of all, it was a 25-minute interview, they chopped — and you see what part they emphasized. We talked about some really important things, none of that was brought up. But, I did learn something very important, for certain networks, never do a pre-taped interview,” he said on the Sean Hannity radio show.
That is sensible advice: do only live interviews or live-to-tape-interviews. I adopted that one myself.
But in his interview with Hannity, Carson also explicitly adopted the Truce strategy:
“I simply have decided, that I’m not going to really talk about that issue anymore because every time I’m gaining momentum, the liberal press says ‘let’s talk about gay rights.’ And I’m just not going to fall for that anymore,” he said.
If you want to know why Republicans fall silent before the liberal onslaught, we have to understand this truce dynamic. This is one way we got to the point that the liberals who dominate mainstream news can determine key parts of the GOP agenda: through their capacity to dominate the news narrative and make conservatives look obsessed or foolish. I have sympathy for Dr. Carson.
But Dr. Carson has also shown that if you throw enough pressure at him, pressure in this case consisting of a bad 24-hour news cycle, he will wave the truce flag. I find it hard to see how he recovers, given he has no strong base of support other than that he is the outsider candidate who is not afraid to be politically incorrect.
Now Dr. Carson is afraid to speak. Reasonable fear, but still afraid.
It is important for the rest of us to recognize this is not a character defect in our candidates. It is a function of real power imbalances between conservatives and liberals, and especially conservative Christians and other minority groups.
Moving forward is going to require, as I just said, figuring out new political and cultural strategies.
Maggie Gallagher is the editor of ThePulse2016.com.
4 comments
A politician, if he/she expects to win cannot decide not to talk about important issues just because they are uncomfortable of they have no good response. I agree, Carson just found out how vicious politics can be. Nothing like the hospital environment where those skill are obviously not transferable and raw intelligence is inadequate. As a very credible medical professional he could have easily responded ” “The entire human genome has now been mapped. If one is born a homosexual, show me the “homosexual gene.” Without this scientific evidence, and until it’s produced, I will rely on several scientific studies with twins, prisoners, etc. to suggest it is a life style choice.”
Maggie, you hit the nail on the head.
If one is born a homosexual, where is the “homosexual gene?” What’s being done to Ben Carson is typical thuggery of the Progressive/Marxists. The gay movement is acutely aware that social change comes not through political
legislation, but upstream from politics – in the culture.In 1987 Marshall Kirk a Harvard researcher
in Neuropsychiatry and Hunter Madison a doctorate in politics
from Harvard and an expert on public persuasion tactics and social marketing
wrote an article that has since become the “Bible” of the homosexual movement,
titled The Overhauling Straight
America (To be further refined in a book titled: After the Ball).The article
presents strategies both to make homosexuals more acceptable and to demonize
opponents of homosexuality using three broad principles of “desensitizing”,
“jamming”, and “conversion”.Seven
specific steps are outlined as the basic strategy to “overhauling straight
America.”
Step 1: Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as
possible
Step 2: Portrayed gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers
Step 3: Give protectors of gays a just cause
Step 4: Make gays look good
Step 5: Make the victimizers look bad
Step 6: Solicit funds: the buck stops here
Step 7: Vilify Christianity
David Kupelian’s classic bestseller, http://superstore.wnd.com/s.nl/c.811217/id.1387/.f
Once again, in the absence of a full-orbed, deeply internalized conservative philosophy (rather than simply conservative instincts) a “conservative” candidate will find himself struggling to offer a compelling conservative vision … much less a convincing defense against similar charges (for those unfortunate souls, a truce must seem preferable to the beating that awaits those who haven’t done the heavy lifting required to respond reasonably and persuasively with conservative arguments).
Dr. Carson, while apparently a marvelous man, suffers, I think, from that phenomenon known as “transferred expertise”. He’s familiar enough with conservative thought to understand, instinctively, the direction he should be steering … but not knowledgable enough to know how to chart a course for that destination. Such a man will probably fail to lead many people to accept a conservative vision for America.
Reagan, painted by detractors as an amiable dunce, was anything but. His collected writings, correspondence and speeches suggest a remarkably nuanced understanding of conservative thought.
Aristotle’s “Politics”, Cicero’s De Re Publica and De Legibus, the writings and collected speeches of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith and indeed relative contemporaries like Hayek, Kirk and Buckley should, along with numerous others works, form the philosophical tapestry of those who seek to lead America at this juncture.
A quick glance at a cliff’s notes version of these classics just won’t do. We need a leader with carefully constructed and well founded conservative worldview who can educate and persuade an electorate yearning for change. Dr. Carson, at least at this juncture, is not that man.
We require a conservative. An authentic conservative. One who would never consider a “truce” because they understand the enormous appeal of a carefully articulated and complete conservative argument.
We don’t need another Romney and we don’t need another Cain … we need, very simply, a genuine conservative. Nothing less will do.
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