Ben Carson Says ‘Poverty Is a State of Mind’

May 25

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Generalizations and victim blaming does not resolve anything.

Roland Martin has a good panel discussing Dr. Carson’s comments and attitude.

 

 

 

 

Posted on 05/25/2017, in politics and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 28 Comments.

  1. Two sides to a story | 05/25/2017 at 5:00 pm

    Somewhere along the way, Carson forgot about compassion and service to the less fortunate!

    Liked by 5 people

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    • Xena | 05/25/2017 at 5:15 pm

      Two sides,
      Indeed! He also forgot that no matter the talents, on-hand experience, intelligence or confidence a person in poverty might have, it has to be validated by a school of higher learning. Without scholarships and grants, and having to apply for student loans, there are many young people who are not “poverty-minded” but devoid of hope minded because that is their reality.

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      • Two sides to a story | 05/25/2017 at 5:21 pm

        That, and so many other things! There can be karmic aspects that aren’t easily overcome. Many people work hard yet live simply. The Republican “billionaire class” makes it difficult for the little guy to survive. Carson apparently likes to suck up to them.

        Liked by 2 people

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  2. cindy knoke | 05/25/2017 at 5:04 pm

    Okay Carson. I take you up on your plan. We’ll put you on the street mid-winter, 6 months, homeless, no food, no bathroom, no hygiene, no shelter. Let’s put you in Detroit or better yet Birmingham. No relatives, no contacts to help you. You will smell horrible and look worse. You have to beg for food and deal with racist cops. You can dumpster dive and get along with the bullies on the streets. I’ll document you photographically in my blog, capturing you using your state of mind to get you out of this all by you lonesome.
    As a clinical social worker for 27 years this guy has NO IDEA what he is talking about and he is an A**.

    Liked by 8 people

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  3. cindy knoke | 05/25/2017 at 5:13 pm

    PS- Remember Carson you won’t have any medical insurance and your getting old, so don’t expect to get any medical care. Do try and tell people you’re a surgeon. They will just know you are schizophrenic like the street people who think they are the pope, but you won’t get any mental health care either. Mental health care has been further slashed by you, cutting off street people like you.
    Have fun with your mind Carson.

    Liked by 7 people

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  4. davidprosser | 05/25/2017 at 10:35 pm

    His statement just condemns people and takes away all hope. I thought doctor’s were meant to help people, what happened to his compassion? Do they exorcise that surgically in the Republican’s now?
    Hugs

    Liked by 5 people

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    • Xena | 05/26/2017 at 2:34 am

      David,
      Thanks for the sense of humor about surgical exorcism. I’d like to see an impoverished person with a wealthy mind-set call up a bank to buy a house and see how far they get.

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  5. Brenda Davis Harsham | 05/26/2017 at 12:13 am

    As if he knows squat about poverty.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Xena | 05/26/2017 at 2:30 am

      Brenda,
      According to Ben, his mom married in Tennessee at the age of 13. She and her husband moved to Detroit, MI where she became a single mother working 3 jobs as a housekeeper. When I heard him tell that story, I did not hear a man encouraging others but rather, a man of egotistical pride.

      Liked by 4 people

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      • Brenda Davis Harsham | 05/26/2017 at 5:59 am

        He didn’t become a neurologist without the help of many others, including a mother who stayed straight and gave him her all. He never experienced poverty as an adult, without skills or choices, after years of being told by his teachers he would amount to nothing. Not everyone can become a neurologist. But everyone can learn compassion.

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  6. yahtzeebutterfly | 05/26/2017 at 5:37 am

    He sounds like a person who doesn’t care about a person in need and like a person who doesn’t want to help people in need. Why would he accept a job at an agency that offers help to people?

    A doctor investigates the causes of a patient’s ailment so that he can heal his patient.

    Carson needs to investigate the societal causes of poverty and remove such causes as he can in order to lessen the number of victims of poverty.

    Liked by 4 people

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  7. yahtzeebutterfly | 05/26/2017 at 8:17 am

    Liked by 4 people

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  8. Lonnie Starr | 05/26/2017 at 11:08 am

    Life is waaaay more complicated than just having a state of mind to climb out of poverty. Even a highly motivated person can become so depressed by negative circumstances so as not to be able to climb or do much more than survive. People who read are familiar with the guy who made the climb, only to fall back and die flat broke, the ones who started out wealthy and went broke, some from spendthrift some to unfortunate circumstance. There’s a wide variety of mental and physical conditions as well as environmental, social, political, sexual etc., reasons why people either fall into poverty or remain trapped there. In short, we know that everyone cannot succeed because there are just too many variables to the problem.

    What we don’t want to see is these unfortunate people starving to death, suffering disease and the worst of deprivation, so the mission becomes one, not of diagnosing poverty, but one of compassionately supplying resources that put a floor under how far they can sink. Anything else has to be done on a case by case basis because the human condition has just too many variables to do anything else. All Ben is doing is, revealing how little compassion he has for his fellow citizens, by trying to shove them into some formulaic “one size fits all” solution, that won’t work, but who he can blame for it not working.

    The trouble is that while he keeps jawboning nonsensical impractical “solutions” people continue to suffer when what they really need at the moment is help. Mr. Carson is not going to go out on the street to help one person, or follow one family himself. Where is his data coming from? What studies is he citing? Obviously he’s just formulated some theory off the top of his head, and the only thing his theory does is excuse him for not caring for others.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Xena | 05/26/2017 at 3:16 pm

      Lonnie,
      it’s good seeing you. You hit the proverbial nail on the head when using the word “variables.”

      Carson heads the program that provides Sec. 8 housing. To qualify, the applicant must have income. They are not people on welfare. Many are working parents (men and women) who do not earn enough to pay the full amount of rent along with other cost of living expenses. They can’t force employers to pay them higher wages, neither force private Landlords to decrease the going rent rate.

      Dr. Carson doesn’t seem to have a solution for that.

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  9. Xena | 05/26/2017 at 3:21 pm

    Liked by 1 person

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  10. Xena | 05/26/2017 at 3:28 pm

    “The call is to restore and “to loose the bands of wickedness … to deal thy bread to the hungry … bring the poor that are cast out to thy house … when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him” (verses 6, 7). So as repairers of the breach, we are to restore and care for the poor. If we carry out the principles of the law of God in acts of mercy and love, we will represent the character of God to the world.”

    Homelessness and Poverty. This public statement was released by the General Conference president, Neal C. Wilson, after consultation with the 16 world vice presidents of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, on July 5, 1990, at the General Conference session in Indianapolis, Indiana.

    http://www.adventist.org/en/information/official-statements/statements/article/go/0/homelessness-and-poverty/48/

    Has Dr. Ben Carson forsaken the “heart” of his church denomination?

    Liked by 2 people

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  11. crustyolemothman | 05/27/2017 at 1:27 am

    I wonder if the child that goes to bed hungry and the only meal he will receive the next day is at school realizes that his hunger is only “a state of mind” and is not real? It seems that Carson has either embellished the stories of his youth or has suffered from republican amnesia… Either way, his words show what an evil and vile person he has become! He is living proof that education can give you knowledge but it is unable to provide a person with common sense…

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Xena | 05/27/2017 at 4:12 pm

      Mothman,
      In my opinion, Carson takes much credit for being a self-made man, forgetting his religious doctrine that “if not but for the grace of God, there goes I.” He judges others based on his own accomplishments, rather then using them to help and encourage those in conditions that he was raised in.

      Liked by 3 people

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  12. dancingpalmtrees | 05/27/2017 at 12:37 pm

    The more Ben Carson opens his mouth the more he proves himself to be a total egotistical fool and idiotic. Nor is Carson a Christian/Follower of Jesus because Jesus had compassion on the poor, widows, the disabled and children. The American Dream is just that. A Dream only for the rich and wealthy. He needs to watch the following documentary. The game is rigged from the Get Go:

    Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream – Why Poverty?

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Xena | 05/27/2017 at 4:16 pm

      Dancing,
      It is hypocritical for a man to head a government agency with judgments that are opposed to the purpose of the agency. Ultimately, HUD distributes money to counties, and it is then up to the counties to decide who qualifies for those services. The basic foundation for that is because the cost of living varies from county to county. In other words, Carson has stepped out of the role of heading HUD, to judging people needing HUD’s services when he knows nothing about the cost of living or available housing in those communities.

      Liked by 2 people

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    • Xena | 05/27/2017 at 4:17 pm

      Dancing,
      Thanks for the video. It’s interesting, but a bit long so I’ll finish watching it later.

      Liked by 1 person

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  13. dancingpalmtrees | 05/27/2017 at 12:38 pm

    Reblogged this on Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit and commented:
    The more Ben Carson opens his mouth the more he proves himself to be a total egotistical fool and idiotic. Nor is Carson a Christian/Follower of Jesus because Jesus had compassion on the poor, widows, the disabled and children. The American Dream is just that. A Dream only for the rich and wealthy. Ben Carson is a moron. He needs to watch the following documentary. The game is rigged from the Get Go:

    Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream – Why Poverty?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  15. Lonnie Starr | 06/08/2017 at 9:35 am

    Where do these guys get the idea that “one size fits all” in the game of life? Anyone with a life knows that just because you can do something in theory, doesn’t automatically translate into being able to actually do it. People start out in all different kinds of surroundings and circumstances any one of which can make great changes to any plans one might make for their life. Even people with the ability to handle college, more often than not don’t get to go, through no fault of their own. Parents die unexpected leaving a child to fend for his brothers and sisters, get a job and stick with it or even worse things happen. There is no magic pathway anyone can be sure they’re going to get to follow, even if they know what they should be planning to do.

    Are people of meager mental resources to be faulted for not making the climb? Or does he envision that we’re all born Einsteins? He’s obviously no all knowing god, that’s for sure, but to hear him utter such inane stupidity and not believe he should not be in an official government position is the height of insanity itself.

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