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.
A still, small, voice (see 1Ki 19.11-12)
Dr. Ben Carson speaks to O
and to the rest of us
Watch the video ( http://bit.ly/1czvRiH
), and / or read the transcript ( http://bit.ly/1fA5ho8
) regularly. It will greatly improve
your effective understanding of the State of the Union. Too much is repeatedly obscured by the speech of our president, the
blather of the liberal bubble addicted, and the media echoes reverberating
throughout the great liberal bubble that surrounds us all, not just the perfectly
enclosed liberal bubbleheads.
Excerpts from Dr. Ben
Carson's National Prayer Breakfast Homily of Feb. 8, 2013
Source - http://lybio.net/tag/benjamin-carson-national-prayer-breakfast-transcription/
or http://bit.ly/1fA5ho8
[...] [Political Correctness:] People are
afraid to say Merry Christmas at Christmas time. Doesn’t matter whether the
person you’re talking to is Jewish or, you know, whether they’re any religion.
That’s a salutation, a greeting of goodwill. We’ve got to get over this sensitivity. You know, and it keeps people
from saying what they really believe.
You know, I’m reminded of a very successful young businessman, and he loved to buy his mother these exotic gifts for mother’s day. And he ran out of ideas, and then he ran across these birds. These birds were cool, you know? They cost $5,000 apiece. They could dance, they could sing, they could talk. He was so excited, he bought two of of them. Sent them to his mother, couldn’t wait to call her up on mother’s day, mother, mother, what’d you think of those birds? And she said, they was good. [laughter] He said, no, no, no! Mother, you didn’t eat those birds? Those birds cost $5,000 apiece! They could dance, they could sing, they could talk! And she said, well, they should have said something. [laughter] And, you know, that’s where we end up, too, if we don’t speak up for what we believe. [laughter] And, you know, what we need to do — [applause] what we need to do in this pc world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought, and we need to concentrate on being respectful to those people with whom we disagree.
And that’s when I believe we begin to make progress. and one last thing about political correctness, which I think is a horrible thing, by the way. I’m very, very come — compassionate, and I’m not never out to offend anyone. But pc is dangerous. Because, you see, this country one of the founding principles was freedom of thought and freedom of expression. and it muffles people. It puts a muzzle on them. And at the same time, keeps people from discussing important issues while the fabric of this society is being changed. And we cannot fall for that trick. And what we need to do is start talking about things, talking about things that are important.
You know, I’m reminded of a very successful young businessman, and he loved to buy his mother these exotic gifts for mother’s day. And he ran out of ideas, and then he ran across these birds. These birds were cool, you know? They cost $5,000 apiece. They could dance, they could sing, they could talk. He was so excited, he bought two of of them. Sent them to his mother, couldn’t wait to call her up on mother’s day, mother, mother, what’d you think of those birds? And she said, they was good. [laughter] He said, no, no, no! Mother, you didn’t eat those birds? Those birds cost $5,000 apiece! They could dance, they could sing, they could talk! And she said, well, they should have said something. [laughter] And, you know, that’s where we end up, too, if we don’t speak up for what we believe. [laughter] And, you know, what we need to do — [applause] what we need to do in this pc world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought, and we need to concentrate on being respectful to those people with whom we disagree.
And that’s when I believe we begin to make progress. and one last thing about political correctness, which I think is a horrible thing, by the way. I’m very, very come — compassionate, and I’m not never out to offend anyone. But pc is dangerous. Because, you see, this country one of the founding principles was freedom of thought and freedom of expression. and it muffles people. It puts a muzzle on them. And at the same time, keeps people from discussing important issues while the fabric of this society is being changed. And we cannot fall for that trick. And what we need to do is start talking about things, talking about things that are important.
[Education:] […] You know. [laughter] after a while, 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 didn’t hate poverty anymore, because I knew it was only temporary.
I knew I could change that. it was incredibly liberating for me, made all the
difference.
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 now 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, but 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.
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 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.
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 now 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, but 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.
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 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.
[Lawyers:] We need doctors, we needs scientists, engineers.
We need all those people involved in
government, not just lawyers…I don’t have anything against lawyers, but you
know, here’s the thing about lawyers…I’m
sorry, but I got to be truthful…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?
[An Education Solution:] Now, before I get shot,
let me finish. I don’t like to bring up problems without coming up with
solutions. My wife and I started the Carson Scholars Fund 16 years ago […]
We we’d to to these schools and we’d 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. And 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 didn’t matter how smart you were. We’ve got plenty of people like that. We don’t need smart people who don’t 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 t 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. I’m from Baltimore. The Ravens won. This is great – okay. But, but – what will maintain our position in the world? The ability to shoot a 25 foot jump shot or the ability to solve a quadratic equation? We need to put the things into proper perspective.
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. It’s been very gratifying. We started 16 years ago with 25 scholarships in Maryland, now we’ve given out more than 5,000 and we are in all 50 states, but we’ve also put in Reading Rooms. These are fascinating places that no little kid could possibly pass up. And uh, 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 doesn’t take long before their academic performance begins to improve.
And we particularly target Title One schools where the kids come from homes with no books and they go to schools with no libraries. Those are the ones who drop out. We need to truncate that process early on because we can’t afford to waste any of those young people. You know, for every one of those people we keep from going down that path – that path of self-destruction and mediocrity, that’s 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 it makes a difference. And when you go home tonight read about it, carsonscholars, carsonscholars.org
We we’d to to these schools and we’d 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. And 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 didn’t matter how smart you were. We’ve got plenty of people like that. We don’t need smart people who don’t 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 t 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. I’m from Baltimore. The Ravens won. This is great – okay. But, but – what will maintain our position in the world? The ability to shoot a 25 foot jump shot or the ability to solve a quadratic equation? We need to put the things into proper perspective.
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. It’s been very gratifying. We started 16 years ago with 25 scholarships in Maryland, now we’ve given out more than 5,000 and we are in all 50 states, but we’ve also put in Reading Rooms. These are fascinating places that no little kid could possibly pass up. And uh, 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 doesn’t take long before their academic performance begins to improve.
And we particularly target Title One schools where the kids come from homes with no books and they go to schools with no libraries. Those are the ones who drop out. We need to truncate that process early on because we can’t afford to waste any of those young people. You know, for every one of those people we keep from going down that path – that path of self-destruction and mediocrity, that’s 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 it makes a difference. And when you go home tonight read about it, carsonscholars, carsonscholars.org
Why is it so important that we educate our
people?
Because we don’t 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 don’t
think that can happen to America, you get out your books and you start reading,
but you know, we can fix it.
Why can we fix it because we’re 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 the
problems.
[National Debt:] I think about these
problems all the time, and my role, you
know, model was Jesus. He used parables to help people understand things.
And one of our big problems right now, and like I said, I’m not politically
correct, so I’m sorry, but you know – our deficit is a big problem. Think about
it. And our National Debt – $16.5 Trillion dollars – you think that’s not a lot
of money? I’ll tell you what! Count one number per second, which you can’t 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.
[Special Interests:] Here’s 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 we’re going to have to
reduce your allowance. Well, they’re not happy about it but – he says, except
for John and Susan. They’re, they’re
special. They get to keep their allowance. In fact, we’ll give them more.
How do you think that’s going to go down? Not too well. Same thing happens.
Enough said.
[Taxation:] 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
doesn’t 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 he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to do it 10% but it’s principle. He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes. He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. 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 now now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He’s just put in a billion in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him.
It’s that kind of thinking –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 we’re smart enough – we’re smart enough to figure out how to do that.
When I pick up my Bible, you know what I see? I see the fairest individual in the Universe, God, and he’s given us a system. It’s called tithe. Now we don’t necessarily have to do it 10% but it’s principle. He didn’t say, if your crops fail, don’t give me any tithes. He didn’t say, if you have a bumper crop, give me triple tithes. 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 now now some people say, that’s not fair because it doesn’t hurt the guy who made $10 Billion dollars as much as the guy who made $10. Where does it say you have to hurt the guy. He’s just put in a billion in the pot. We don’t need to hurt him.
It’s that kind of thinking –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 we’re smart enough – we’re smart enough to figure out how to do that.
[Health Care:] We’ve already started down the path to
solving one of the other big problems, health care. We need to have good health
care for everybody. It’s the most important thing that a person can have. Money
means nothing, titles mean nothing when you don’t have your health, but we’ve
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?
Here’s 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 you’re 85 years old and you’ve got 6 diseases, you’re not trying to spend up everything. You’re happy to pass it on and nobody is talking about death panels. That’s number one. Also –
For the people who are indigent, who don’t 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 – let’s put it into HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care and what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to learn very quickly how to be responsible. When Mr. Jones gets that diabetic foot ulcer, he’s not going to the Emergency Room and blowing a big chunk of it. He’s 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 let’s get your diabetes under control so that you’re not back here in three weeks with another problem. That’s how we begin to solve these kinds of problems. It’s much more complex than that, and I don’t have time to go into it all, but we can do all these things because we are smart people. [...]
Here’s 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 you’re 85 years old and you’ve got 6 diseases, you’re not trying to spend up everything. You’re happy to pass it on and nobody is talking about death panels. That’s number one. Also –
For the people who are indigent, who don’t 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 – let’s put it into HSAs. Now they have some control over their own health care and what do you think they’re going to do? They’re going to learn very quickly how to be responsible. When Mr. Jones gets that diabetic foot ulcer, he’s not going to the Emergency Room and blowing a big chunk of it. He’s 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 let’s get your diabetes under control so that you’re not back here in three weeks with another problem. That’s how we begin to solve these kinds of problems. It’s much more complex than that, and I don’t have time to go into it all, but we can do all these things because we are smart people. [...]
Watch the video ( http://bit.ly/1czvRiH
), and / or read the transcript ( http://bit.ly/1fA5ho8
) regularly. | Washington Times articles by Dr, Ben Carson - http://bit.ly/1jOmjnS | Dr. Carson's personal
site - http://www.realbencarson.com
| Carson Scholars site - http://www.carsonscholars.org
| Wikipedia entry for Dr. Ben Carson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson
I2C
140130a Pro 11v9 v12 v25 2Ch 7v14 A still small voice / I2C / 140130 1114 / Prov
11:9, 12, 25 2Chron 7:14 | A still, small, voice / Dr. Ben Carson speaks to O
and to the rest of us
