Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: //24

America’s Perilous Fight. When it comes to an impressive resume, it’s hard to outdo Dr. Ben Carson. As the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, he led a surgical team that successfully conducted the first known separation of conjoined twins who were attached at the back of the head. After retiring, he wrote several bestselling books, ran for president in 2016 and served as President Trump‘s Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient holds more than 70 honorary doctorate degrees and with his wife, Candy Carson, co-founded the Carson Scholars Fund which recognizes young people of all backgrounds for exceptional academic and humanitarian accomplishments that is currently operating in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

In his new book, The Perilous Fight: Overcoming Our Culture’s War on the American Family, he warns of what he sees as the true threat to the very foundation of American democracy.

JWK: Why did you write The Perilous Fight and what do you hope people take from it?

Dr. Ben Carson: Well, you know, our country was born in the crucible, of war and people fighting for their freedom. I think we’re in that situation again, unfortunately.

When Benjamin Franklin came out of the last constitutional convention he was asked by a woman “Sir, what do we have here? A monarchy or a republic?” He famously said “A republic if you can keep it.” We’ve kept it for over 240 years but we’re as close to losing it right now as we have ever been.

Most people even ten or twenty years ago would not have even been able to imagine that we would be in a situation where one political party was utilizing the Justice Department to try to imprison and eliminate their main political opponent. You would just say that’s fantasy, that’s Cuba, that’s Russia, that’s China – but it’s going on right here in the United States of America.

You wouldn’t have thought you would have the government of America trying to tell people what kind of car they could drive or what kind of oven they could have in their house. We’ve allowed the market forces to determine that and we created an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship  which propelled us to the pinnacle of the world. As we’re moving away from those things, you don’t have to be very observant to see that we’re declining very quickly.

Is this just a coincidence or is it done on purpose? A lot of people think that this is just the way things are but, as I point out in the book, you can go back to the congressional record of January 10th, 1963, and Congressman Herlong from Florida read in the 45 goals of communism in America. It’s kind of chilling when you look at them – gain control of the public school system, remove God from the public system, gain control of the teacher unions, gain control of Hollywood and of the media so that you can manipulate the people, make sexual perversion normal and healthy, destroy the relationship between parents and children. I mean it goes on and on (to include) things are going on generally right now. I believe that’s the reason that Khrushchev said to Eisenhower over sixty years ago “Your grandchildren’s children will live under our system and we won’t have to fire one shot.” All of these things are going on.

I want the American people to realize that this is not coincidental what’s going on. We’re being played. We’re being manipulated. We, the American people, are not the enemy. We’ve got to stop allowing ourselves to be divided on the basis of race, age, income, gender, political affiliation and religion. All these things (are being manipulated) in order to divide us, to destroy the unity that has been our strength and to make government our savior instead of God. 

JWK: Why do you think faith and family are particularly under attack?

BC: Because those are the foundations of a society. A community is composed of families and a community makes up a nation. The solid foundation is those families. That, of course, is where values are passed on. We have fewer and fewer traditional nuclear families in our country. More and more children are getting their values from their peers and from social media – from Tik Tok, from all these places – rather than where they traditionally came from.

A combination of removing the family influence or distorting the family influence and, at the same time, getting rid of our faith is having a very deleterious effect. It’s been going on for decades now. In the sixties they said you can’t put up the 10 Commandments in public schools. Exactly what is wrong with “Thou shalt not kill,” “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery”? When you ask them, they can’t tell you what’s wrong with them. They just say “We don’t want it.” If we’re not giving our kids a moral foundation in our families and in our faith institutions, where are they going to get their moral compass from? Obviously, it’s not a good place. That’s why you’re seeing what you’re seeing. Tremendous crime, disrespect for other people’s lives, depression, anxiety and suicide are just rampant today because we’ve removed the safeguards.

JWK: With these negative forces in control of the government, the media, education, corporate executive suites and, it seems, virtually every institution in America, people who think differently – and who embrace traditional values – are feeling a little bit out of control. What do you think can be done to reverse these trends?

BC: That’s a very good question. I think just about everybody realizes that we’re in trouble but they’re expecting somebody else to do something. That’s why I wrote this book. I want people to realize that YOU are somebody else. You’re the one that needs to do something. Government’s not gonna fix itself. It never has.

That’s why we the people were given the power by our founding fathers. The power of the vote is so critical. Most people don’t use it appropriately. Most people go into a voting booth or take their voting sheet and they look for the name that looks familiar. It could be Satan – “Yeah, I know that name.” That’s not the way you vote. That’s not how you exercise your power. You’ve got to know who these people are, whether they align with you and what has been their history. If you’re not doing that, you’re basically disempowering and disenfranchising yourself and allowing your nation to be taken away.

Also, you don’t have to stand for ridiculous things like people saying at a polling site “You can observe – but you have to observe from waaay over there on the other of the building where you can’t see what’s going on.” Or “The addresses don’t have to match.” Or “A thousand ballots can come from the same address.” Or “The signatures don’t have to match.” We (don’t have to) tolerate that stuff – but we do. As long as we tolerate it, it’ll continue to go on.

JWK: That’s a big problem – when you reach a point where people no longer trust the election results. What do you do when the level of trust has eroded to that degree because there appears to be so many opportunities for manipulation and those concerns are being dismissed rather than addressed?

BC: They always say “Well, yeah, there’s some stuff going on but it’s not enough to affect the election.” That’s what they always say but, you know, you add all that stuff up and that’s a lot of stuff that’s going on. Look at a country like France. They outlawed regular mail-in balloting in 1975. They said there were too many ways to cheat. They just couldn’t control it. There are very few places in the world that allow what we allow in election season with all of these ballots being sent out to people. That just doesn’t make a whole of lot of sense, to be honest with you – unless you’re being advantaged by it and there are some that are being advantaged by it. That’s why they push so hard for it. The whole concept of not needing a voting ID, I mean how ridiculous is that?

JWK: It’s crazy – but it seems like in Campaign 24 the train has already left the station. Is there time to put rules in place that will prevent the sort of issues that led to such doubt last time around?

BC: The fact that we have some new leadership at the RNC is encouraging. I know Lara Trump very well. She’s gonna be a bulldog on those things. She’s not gonna allow the same kind of things to get by that got by last time. We’re going to get a lot more people at polling locations to watch – just like Glen Youngkin did in Virginia. He had 95% of the precincts covered and he won in an area where you’re not supposed to win as a Republican. We just need to bring transparency and clarity. If we can bring fairness to the system I think it will then begin to reflect the actual feelings of the populace rather than a small minority who have learned how to manipulate things.

JWK: Youngkin won his governor race but, of course, he lost Virginia’s two legislative houses last time around. Is it possible that, even in a fair election, the Democrats still might win? Maybe most people agree with them.

BC: Regardless of who wins, we need to have fair and transparent elections. As long as we don’t have fair and transparent elections, we’ve got an issue on our hands. We’ve got a big issue and it’s gonna keep manifesting itself. It’s gonna get worse and worse.

JWK: Of course, they hate Donald Trump and are hurling everything including the kitchen sink at him through the legal system.

BC: Yeah, the lawfare – and they’re trying to bankrupt him. They’re trying to make him into an example. Ultimately, they’d like to put him in jail and who knows what would happen to him there? Because he will not become a member of the swamp. There are people in both parties who are members of the swamp. That’s why they don’t like him and they won’t deal with him. He knows where the dead bodies are and he wants to…bring a system into play that works for the people – that puts the American people first, that puts their interests first. The traditional Washington crowd does not like that. They will do anything possible to stop him. What they don’t realize is…if God wants him there, he’s gonna be there no matter what they do.

JWK: Would you consider running as his VP if you were asked?

BC: I’m gonna be working either inside or outside of government. I’ve given up on the concept of retirement and recognize that our country needs us to work extremely hard to save it.

JWK: So, no retirement for you.

BC: No – not until I get to Heaven.

JWK: Looking forward ten years, what do you see ahead for this country?

BC: It depends on who wins. If there’s another Biden Administration I see total destruction. Everything he touches turns to poop. There’s no reason that that’s gonna change – in fact, it will probably get worse. If Trump wins, it’ll be very contentious. They’ll be a real battle but I think we will be able to turn the ship around and start moving in the right direction again.

JWK: Specifically, what changes do you think need to be made to turn the ship around?

BC: For one thing, we can have integrity when it comes to elections. I think that’s critical. I think economically, if we utilize our fossil fuels in an appropriate way and gain independence in that direction, that it will have a domino effect on a lot of other aspects of our economy. We can begin to concentrate on the people themselves, start bringing manufacturing back to our shores (and) start changing the incentives of the educational system. We want to educate our kids so that we’re not on the bottom rung when it comes to STEM education among industrialized nations and to forget about all of this transgenderism and just crazy stuff that’s been introduced into our system. It has absolutely no reason to be there whatsoever other than to confuse impressionable and curious children. I think a lot of that kind of stuff will be gone and that will make a much better environment for families as well.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.