Monday, December 01, 2014

THE GOP'S GREAT NON-WHITE 2016 HOPE NEEDS TO MASTER CONSERVATIVE CORRECTNESS

Oops! Sorry, Dr. Carson, but you're in Wingnuttia now, and in Wingnuttia, this is not considered Correct Thinking:
Dr. Ben Carson ... argued that while Officer Darren Wilson did nothing wrong in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, police should be better trained in non-lethal force such as shooting aggressors in the legs on Tuesday's "Hugh Hewitt Show."

"First of all, I don’t think that the police officer did anything wrong. Nevertheless, there are probably additional techniques and knowledge that he could have been given. So all along, we probably need to beef up the instructions for police officers in general so that they don't place themselves in such dangerous situations" he stated.

Carson continued, "he [Wilson] had every right to protect his life. But I do think that there are probably other techniques that could have been used." ...
This happened before Thansksgiving, but the folks at Free Republic are still telling him that these are very wrong answers:
For such a smart guy Dr. Carson is remarkably stupid.

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That's like the idiots who say "why didn't Officer Jones just shoot the pistol out of his hand?" or "why didn't Officer O'Leery just use his stun gun?" and etc...

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Well, there goes my vote for president.

Last time I heard that one used, it was Warren Christopher asking the Delta Force commanding officer if he could refrain from killing Iranians of the ill fated hostage rescue mission and simply shoot them in the leg instead.

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Hollywood shooting invading common sense

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Carson is a "nice guy" but not Presidential material.
He doesn't fully understand the "rights come from God" thing either.
The latter is a reference to Carson's best-known deviation from conservative correctness, from 2013:
Appearing on Glenn Beck's radio show this past week, Dr. Benjamin Carson took a vastly different stance from most conservatives on the issue of gun control, claiming you shouldn't be able to own semi-automatic weapons in large cities....

Asked by Beck for his thoughts on the Second Amendment, Carson gave the popular pro-gun argument: "There's a reason for the Second Amendment; people do have the right to have weapons."

But when asked whether people should be allowed to own "semi-automatic weapons," the doctor replied: "It depends on where you live."

"I think if you live in the midst of a lot of people, and I'm afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it," Carson elaborated.

However, if you live "out in the country somewhere by yourself" and want to own a semi-automatic weapon, he added, "I've no problem with that."
Every True Conservative knows that gun rights are absolute (and, just for the record, come from God).This is hurting Carson as he begins ramping up his presidential campaign, so recently he recanted:
As he inches closer to the prospect of a presidential campaign, Carson used a conference call to try to address questions about his loyalty to gun rights....

"Perhaps I didn't convey it appropriately." he said. "I wanted to convey that, you know, I've lived in urban areas. I've worked in urban areas. I've seen a lot of carnage, and I'd prefer a situation where the kinds of weapons that create that kind of carnage don't fall to the hands of criminal elements or insane people. But that is secondary to the desire to always defend the Second Amendment."

Carson said that "under no circumstances" would he "allow a bureaucrat to remove any law-abiding citizen's rights for any kind of weapon that they want to protect themselves."

If he were in a position of national leadership, Carson said he would seek to allow people to possess any kind of weapon they can legally buy, including "automatic weapons and semi-automatic weapons."
Yes, Carson wants to make automatic weapons legal. Nice overcorrection, Doc!

You may not think any of this matters -- who the hell is Dr. Ben Carson? -- but in the most recent Quinnipiac national poll of Republicans, he finished third in a potential Republican primary field, ahead of Paul, Rubio, Cruz, Ryan, Walker, Jindal, Huckabee, Perry, Portman, and Santorum. Can he win? Probably not -- but recall the article that ran in The New York Times yesterday about the GOP's success this year in attracting female and non-white candidates. The GOP really, really wants a not-embarrassing non-white candidate in the race (i.e., not a Herman Cain or Alan Keyes), just to make persuadable Republican voters who may yet have lingering qualms about racial inequities feel okay about ultimately voting GOP in November. Carson has endorsed young-earth creationism, and compared Obamacare to slaver,y and likened gay marriage to bestiality, but he comes off as serious most of the time, so the GOP thinks he can make the party look better.

But he has to learn how to thread the needle -- don't make divisive statements on social issues that alienate moderates, but also don't suggest that gun ownership is ever bad, and don't suggest that anything Darren Wilson did in dealing with Michael Brown could possibly have been a mistake. (Every right-winger, deep down, agrees 100% with RedState editor Ben Howe's fantasy of shooting Brown ion the face. And this goes equally for every non-white victim of police violence, even twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland.)

It doesn't seems as if this comes easily to Carson. He may need more conservative reeducation than those who've pinned their hopes on him realize.

6 comments:

Victor said...

I'm at a loss when it comes to trying to figure out Dr. Carson.

How does a man as obviously intelligent and talented as he is, turn out to be like your drunken uncle raving about insane nonsense at Thanksgiving?

But then, there are a lot of conservative loons in politics who are MD's.

Maybe we need to check what they're being taught in Medical School?

What are they being taught there as far as empathy and bedside manner?
"Well, the tests came back, and you're a goner, MFer. Six months, TOPS!"

mlbxxxxxx said...

"...possess any kind of weapon..."

Carson's talking my language, now, always wanted an open-carry suitcase nuke.

Ken_L said...

I've known quite a few doctors who have had very strange political ideas. Maybe it's because they get taught to think in absolutes and they don't understand critical thinking.

Also about Carson: 'Asked by one call participant whether he would support convicted felons being allowed to possess guns after serving their time, Carson said it would “depend on what kind of criminal activity they were convicted for.” He added, “Is this somebody who is still considered a danger to society? If that's the case, they probably still should be in prison.”'

This is a novel approach to incarceration: do the crime and serve your time, but then you'll be assessed to see whether you're still "a danger to society". If so, you stay behind bars ... indefinitely, presumably. It's a nice extension of the Gitmo principle to domestic criminal law.

Carson just says whatever comes into his head. So far it's been lauded as evidence of his genuineness and immunity from the dreaded PC. But if he ever becomes a serious candidate, his nonsense will be shown up as the Palinesque incoherence it really is. Not that this will worry the base of course - being lampooned by liberals as a clown is a precondition for their support.

Joey_Blau said...

Automatic weapons are over-rated. The main prob with them is finding people to carry the ammo. That stuff is heavy.

Now with the new "bump stock" you don't need to bother with pulling the trigger for each round. Hokd it down and the recoil bumps the stock backwards and a new round feeds in and fires. Still counting as semi auto and so is perfectly legal right now.

Can be set for.single, triple shot burtst, or full continous fire.

Unknown said...

He blamed Women's Lib for Ferguson today in a roundabout way, so he's getting there. See TPM.

Ten Bears said...

Automatic weapons are for those who couldn't otherwise hit broad side of a barn. Over-rated is an under-statement.

I too don't get this notion That medical doctors are paradigms of wisdom. I don't even trust them with medicine.

No fear.