Book review: Dr. Ben Carson’s ‘America the Beautiful’ a love letter, message of hope
Written by Rich Rogers
“AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL.” Ben Carson, M.D., with Candy Carson. 2012. Zondervan. Trade Paperback. 205 pages. $14.99.
Dr. Ben Carson has seen the good and the bad of life. As a young black man, he knew racism intimately. He’s seen both extremes of the economic spectrum. He came out of that winnowing process as a world-class neurosurgeon.
“America the Beautiful” is a love letter, a warning bell, and hopeful dream. In writing his love letter, Carson looks at America’s history — the American penchant for rebelling for change, the Revolutionary War, the give-and-take that created the Constitution, the War of 1812, and even the Civil War.
In examining the nation as a whole, he has chapters such as “What is a Moral Nation?”, “Who are We the People?”, “Is Health Care a Right?”, and “Are We a Judeo-Christian Nation or Not?” He also looks at the differences and pros and cons between capitalism and socialism, and talks of America as a nation that can learn from our mistakes.
Carson takes a strong Constitutional view of things, regularly saying that both sides of the political spectrum — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — have strayed from the precepts for running America laid out in the Constitution. It’s an issue that he returns to time and again. Although he’s a regular commentator on Fox News, he says he’s a registered independent these days. (However, for all his calls to return to the Constitution as the main guiding framework of the U.S. government, when it comes to one of his suggestions for bringing down health care costs and providing more general practitioners and fewer specialists, he never gives a Constitutional justification for it.)
Another issue he addresses consistently is the need for an educated public as the framework for our society; our Founding Fathers believed in education and having a citizenry that was educated. He points out that the signers of the founding documents of our nation came from every walk of life — from doctors to farmers — and that for the nation to remain free, people must be educated in the role of government and exactly what the Constitution says about the role of government.
Carson’s time is extremely tight, what with his writing, his position on the board of directors of many Fortune 500 companies, and his duties at Johns Hopkins, and yet, he says it’s important for every U.S. citizen to be involved in their government, to be aware of what’s going on — it makes the country stronger and safer that way.
Two of his greatest concerns are the growth and power of special interest groups and career politicians. As Carson relates, the Founding Fathers envisioned servant leaders, men who wanted to do best for their country, but were not desperate to hold onto political power and special interest groups that wield far too much influence on politicians and the political process, carving out things for themselves while ignoring the nation as a whole. And when it comes to special interest groups costing Americans more money as a whole, trial lawyers are one group he really dislikes. In his view, the Trial Lawyers Association is one of the groups most responsible for raising health care prices, due to all the lawsuits they force doctors to pay malpractice insurance for. Some specialists pay upwards of $300,000 in annual malpractice premiums alone.
Another major danger, in Carson’s view, is political correctness, which he views as an assault on free speech rights (he gives an interesting personal anecdote on this involving a Supreme Court justice) and a stifling of individuality, ironically, in the name of individuality.
Using an easy-to-read style and everyday language, Carson looks at the nation he loves and is proud to be a citizen of, and acknowledges we have made many mistakes in the past. But points out that as a nation, we have learned from many of those mistakes, and if we have the collective will, we can continue to learn from our mistakes, and continue to be the nation all others look up to.
Carson is both deeply patriotic and realistic, and proves those two terms are not mutually exclusive.
