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Reece Terry, publisher
Opinion
Mark Boehler, editor
4 • Saturday, January 4, 2014
Corinth, Miss.
Independence, common sense bring rewards BY BEN S. CARSON Columnist
Earlier this year, one of the mainstream media networks was planning to do a special on my retirement from neurosurgery. They recorded a lecture I gave at my medical school, as well as one given at a high school in Detroit. They also accompanied me to my old stomping grounds, where many of the neighbors came out to greet me and talk about old times. I was struck by some of their comments, including the notion that I always had lofty, unrealistic dreams, but that they would enjoy hearing about them anyway. Someone else told me that people would always murmur among themselves when I approached, “Here comes Mr. Know-It-All. Let’s get out of here.” While the network decided not to air the special for some reason unknown to me, it was still a valuable opportunity for me to catch up with old acquaintances. Similarly, some years ago, I attended the 25th reunion of my high school graduating class. The thing that struck me the most was that many of the “really cool” guys were dead. Many of my other classmates told me how proud they were of my accomplishments and asked me if I remembered how they used to encourage me. Of course I did not -- no such encouragement took place -- but people’s memories tend to change over time. Many of my fellow members of the Horatio Alger Society of Distinguished Americans have recounted similar stories of being regarded as different and not always being part of the “in” crowd when they were growing up. The Horatio Alger Society inducts 10 to 12 new members each year. These are people who grew up under very difficult circumstances and went on to achieve at the highest levels of their respective endeavors. Many of their names would be quite familiar to the public. Are their stories aberrant, or are we truly the captains of our own destiny? In the game of chess, pawns are just used for the purposes of the royal pieces. In real life, many in power selfishly use “pawns” -- average citizens -- while at the same time vociferously proclaiming that they are the only ones looking out for the interests of the pawns, who happily follow their commands, thinking that this “royal” contingent has their interests in mind. However, in a chess game, a pawn can become any one of the royal pieces, if it can make it to the other side of the board. Although no analogy is perfect, it is pretty easy to see the point here. By keeping large groups of Americans complacent and afraid of challenging authority, the position, wealth and status of those in power is secure. The last thing they want is for independentthinking citizens to realize that this country was designed for them and not for an arrogant ruling class. By using strong-arm tactics and a sheepishly compliant news media, the supposed guardians of truth, they have become very successful at pawn control. I can’t remember how many times during my medical career I was told, “You can’t do that; no one has done that before” or “Do you think all the incredibly bright people who have preceded you didn’t think of that?” Certainly, if I had listened to those comments instead of critically analyzing the problems and using the triumphs and mistakes of others to produce innovative solutions, my career path would have been considerably different. We have these magnificent brains with outstanding reasoning ability in order to be creative and to critically analyze what we hear and see. We must stop acting like pawns and start acting like masters of our own destiny. We can play the role of nice little pawn or we can be smart, courageous and move out of our comfort zone to accomplish something truly great for our future. It might be a lonely journey at first, but eventually others will see the light. We will shed the pawn mentality and be promoted to the position of proud and independent citizens of America. Ben S. Carson is professor emeritus of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. He is a new syndicated columnist and takes the place of Bill O’Reilly who has stopped writing his weekly syndicated column.
Prayer for today Lord God, help me to see my mistakes, and bring me to the realization of my life. Grant that I may no longer use the time that thou gavest me to learn in, heedlessly, but to give it my best thought and care. Amen.
A verse to share “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3
The war on poverty at 50 In his State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty.” Today, with roughly the same number of people below the poverty level as in 1964 and with many addicted to government “benefits,” robbing them of a work ethic, it is clear that the poor have mostly lost the war. In 1964, the poverty rate was about 19 percent. Census data from 2010 indicates that 15.1 percent are in poverty within a much larger population. The lack of government programs did not cause poverty, and spending vast sums of money has not eliminated it. A policy analysis by the Cato Institute found that federal and state anti-poverty programs have cost $15 trillion over the last five decades but have had little effect on the number of people living in poverty. That amounts to $20,610 per poor person in America, or $61,830 per poor family of three. If the government had sent them a check they might have been better off. As Robert Rector and Jennifer Marshall have written for The Heritage Foundation, “President Johnson’s goal was not to create a
massive system of everincreasing welfare benefits for an ever-larger number of Cal b e n e f i c i a Thomas ries. Instead, he Columnist sought to increase selfsufficiency, enabling recipients to lift themselves up beyond the need for public assistance.” Johnson sounded conservative when he said, “(We) want to offer the forgotten fifth of our people opportunity and not doles.” Unfortunately, the war on poverty neglected a key component: human nature. Substantial numbers of people came to rely on government benefits and thus lost any sense of personal responsibility. Teenage girls knew they could get a check from the government if they had babies and so they had them, often more than one. The law discouraged fathers from living with, much less marrying, the mothers of their children and so legions of “single mothers” became the norm, and the lack of male leadership in the home contributed to additional cycles of poverty,
addicting new generations to government. When President Clinton signed the welfare reform bill in 1996, liberals screamed that people would starve in the streets. They didn’t. Many got jobs when they knew the checks would cease. Over time, government enacted rules to prevent churches and faith-based groups from sharing their faith if they wanted to receive federal grants, thus removing the reason for their success. These groups, which once were at the center of fighting poverty by offering a transformed life and consequently a change in attitude, retreated to the sidelines. In public schools, values that once were taught were removed because of lawsuits and the fear of lawsuits, creating a “naked public square” devoid of concepts such as right and wrong, with everyone left to figure it out on their own. There are two ways to measure poverty. One is the way the Census Bureau does, by counting income earned by individuals and families without including government benefits. The other is not measurable in a statistical sense. It is a pov-
erty of spirit. People need to be inspired and told they don’t have to settle for whatever circumstances they are in. This used to be the role of faith-based institutions, and it can be again if they refuse government grants and again reach out to the poor. One condition for maintaining tax-exempt status should be for these faithbased institutions to help people get off government assistance and find jobs, becoming self-sufficient. If people need transitional money for daycare or transportation, it can be provided, either temporarily by government or by the thousands of churches, synagogues and other faithbased groups. There is no undiscovered truth about the cure for most poverty: Stay in school; get married before having children and stay married; work hard, save and invest. The “war on poverty” can be won, but it must be fought with different weapons, not the ones that have failed for the last half-century. (Thomas is the host of “After Hours with Cal Thomas” on the FOX News Channel. Readers may email him at tmseditors@ tribune.com.)
Obama should go to Sochi With twin suicide bombings in Volgograd, 34 Russians are dead and scores are injured and hospitalized. Moscow and the world have been put on notice by Doku Umarov, the Chechen Islamic terrorist, that the winter Olympics in Sochi, six weeks away, may not now be safe for visitors. How should friends of Russia respond? President Obama, in a gesture of solidarity with the Russian people, who have suffered more than any European people from Islamic terror since 9/11, should announce he has changed his mind and will be going to Sochi. The impact would be dramatic. The Western boycott of the winter Olympics would collapse. The attention of the world’s TV cameras, along with the rest of mankind, would turn to Sochi. Success of the games would be assured. A message would be sent to the world that no matter where America disagrees with Russia, terrorists do not tell us where we can or cannot go, and we stand in solidarity with the Russian people in our detestation of and determination to com-
Reece Terry
Mark Boehler
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Willie Walker
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bat terror. Vladimir Putin, who has his prestige fully invested in the Sochi games, Pat would see Buchanan this as a magnaniColumnist mous gesture, a reaching out of America’s hand, to him and to Russia. What would be the downside? Those who have been calling for boycotting the Sochi games to protest Russia’s law prohibiting distribution of pro-homosexual propaganda to youth have already had their point made. In an in-your-face gesture, the U.S. delegation is headed by Billie Jean King, tennis legend and lesbian, who will travel to Sochi with gay athletes Brian Boitano, the ice skating gold medalist, and Caitlin Cahow, a two-time hockey medalist. “This is the grandest of snubs, to Putin and to Russia,” exults Chad Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign. Yet U.S. relations with the world’s largest nation are too serious to allow petty quar-
rels to prevent our working together. Earlier presidents showed the way. Three years after Nikita Khrushchev’s tanks ran over the Hungarian freedom fighters, Eisenhower invited him to tour the United States. Six months after Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba, JFK extended his hand in his American University speech. Months after Leonid Brezhnev had sent Warsaw Pact armies to crush the “Prague spring,” President Nixon was sounding him out on arms control and reciprocal summits. Though the Red Army was brutalizing Afghanistan, President Reagan sought to meet with the Soviet leaders and finally did at Geneva and Reykjavik. These Cold War presidents recognized that their distaste for Soviet tyranny aside, U.S. vital interests and the peace of the world dictated that they meet with their coequal nuclear power. Moreover, as measured by freedom of speech, religion, assembly and the press, China in 2008 was a far more repressive place than is Putin’s Russia. Yet that did not prevent George W. Bush attending the summer Olym-
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pics in Beijing. And U.S. presidents have been able to work with Putin. Putin approved NATO strikes on Libya. He has gone along with U.N. sanctions on Iran. He has held off sending Russia’s most advanced air defense system to Iran. He has assisted the United States in the war in Afghanistan. He pulled Obama’s bacon out of the fire in Syria when the American people and Congress told Obama that he had no authority to bomb Syria. Moreover, Russia is a part of our civilization. Before World War I, Russia was an ally of France and Britain against Germany. And when it comes to the war on terror, we are in it together. If Russia’s end of the boat sinks, how long do we think ours will stay afloat? Obama going to Sochi would turn a page, start a new chapter. Perhaps it would not be reciprocated. But what does Obama have to lose with such a brave and bold beau geste? Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”
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