Thursday, May 21, 2015
Letter
A Plea To My Idol
Dear Mr. Carson,
My name is Patrick Hoffman and I am twenty three years old. I am back in Detroit for the moment which is where I, like you, grew up. I know you probably won’t read this, but it’s worth a shot.
You’ve been an idol of mine since I was six. I was finishing first grade and I was trying to teach myself basic math. Although it was very elementary, things like addition and multiplication, my parents couldn’t help me much because they were too busy and my teacher had to spend all her time focusing on the kids whose parents were always present. Their parents raised a fuss so they got attention and the cards were stacked against me. That’s why your story was so inspiring to me. You grew up in Detroit, had experiences like mine, and you were able to make it out. I have big dreams too. I want to be a lawyer. Not a corporate lawyer though; I want to be the kind of lawyer who makes the world better. I will defend the people who are actually innocent and prosecute the real criminals.
I read your autobiography “Gifted Hands” again when I saw that you were running for president and it was as amazing as the first time I read it. I started researching your political campaign and quite frankly I was confused. The man who I constructed mostly in my imagination with the autobiography as a guiding hand isn’t like the one running at the forefront of the Tea Party in 2016. You’re at the top of my list of inspirational people because of your unrelenting drive to help others. But how can the same man who separated twins conjoined at the head believe that women shouldn’t be able to choose to have a baby or not? How can that man seriously think that healthcare should be a privilege of wealth?
Call me insane (you probably have at this point if you’ve decided to continue reading this), but
I’ve constructed a story I want you to validate or deny:
Ben Carson is the hero I imagined. He lives with the goal of bettering living conditions for those who need it. The politician I see running is not this Ben Carson. The politician holding extreme right wing views is a product of ludicrous campaign financing. When I read about how you’re not attached to being president, and you’re running because of how many people have suggested it. I want to believe that you are running to make some rich folks happy and that you’re ready to move on and continue to do the amazing public speaking work that has kept you busy in retirement.
Am I right? I want to be. This election gives me doubts though. I now doubt the beliefs of politicians if you, an incredible man, maybe the best man, believes in modes of thought that unequivocally compromise the wellbeing of millions and millions of Americans. It’s more than my being liberal and your being conservative. This is about the compassion and drive to help others that I saw in your autobiography. I want to know if it actually exists.
Thank you for indulging me. Thank you for doing what you have done in your life. And most of all, a preemptive thank you for confirming that your campaign doesn’t reflect the real Ben Carson.
-Patrick
Anger Personification
Anger’s Rein of Terror
Anger likes to hang out where you least expect him. Just yesterday, Anger came strolling out of Central Park onto 66th and Madison en route to his 16 million dollar Manhattan apartment. It’s one of his many abodes. Anger confidently waves to his kinfolk clustered amongst other successful New Yorkers. Anger sips his overpriced beverage smirking as the wind presses his button down shirt onto his stomach just right so all of New York City can see the six pack he has sculpted so meticulously the past seven years. Life in New York City is good for Anger; he thrives. Anger is a bit of a mystery man in the sense that one moment he is swaggering through the upper east side and the next he is protesting the funeral of a gay soldier with the Westboro baptist church. That’s probably one of the places you’d expect to find Anger. In the same way a hot, sweaty crevasse allows bacteria to grow, Anger is able to grow tall and strong with groups like the Westboro baptist church.
Anger is having a bit of an existential crisis; he doesn’t know where he fits in best. Is it in his New York City apartment? Probably not. In New York Anger can’t show his true colors; Anger is hiding in New York. Anger certainly feels like he can be out in the open in the Middle East. Anger is able to sleep at night because everyone supports his efforts to fit in. Believe it or not Anger brings together the worst of enemies. You could even say Anger is the only thing they share - a singular disgusting mutual friend. Not many people can fully take control of another human being, but Anger can. Anger grips you with his sweaty hands and frantically shakes you back and forth making you blind to everyone else. Anger confuses the human race. Some communities have tried to rid themselves of Anger’s ubiquitous presence. These communities fail. Anger’s arch nemeses are the dreamers, the ones who think about a world where people coexist. The vampire that is Anger captivates in the most putrid ways. No one is scared of Anger, but they should be.
Haikus
Misdirection
None know where to go,
A right, a left, commotion;
I have been roped in.
Wanderer
The wanderer goes
Through foes and what he can’t see
Through seas and above.
Trigger Warning
Please stop and listen.
There are thoughts to be spoken,
Comfort to be lost.
Expository Essay
Money and Politics is like Bread and Butter….NOT
Climate change is lining up well with the disintegration of the American political climate. As global warming ravages the planet extreme partisan views polarize America further and further apart. Because in a democracy politicians win by appealing to the most voters, politicians have begun to cater to these polarizing American political views. From the erudite liberal hipster sipping his five dollar coffee to the religious conservative farmer American politicians must choose how to sell themselves and decide which subset of the population is worth winning over. Political psychology has become an interdisciplinary academic field that aims to understand political behavior from a psychological perspective. It makes sense to have a field dedicated to understanding this branch of psychology because politicians have a unique duty to change the way they act to please their citizens. The American political process becomes corrupted at the point where politicians are no longer elected public servants but instead tabula rasa suits whom money holds complete control over.
Preliminary research into the current state of the American political process suggests that
recent surge in political money is a result of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010. Kristin Sullivan of the Connecticut General Assembly sums the decision up well writing “the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions have the same political speech rights as individuals under the First Amendment” (Sullivan). The court extended this “same political speech rights” to mean inordinate amounts of campaign funding are also permitted. The Citizens United decision makes the government less responsive to the people living in this country because of an influx of money from independent expenditures. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the total amount spent during Federal elections increased from 5.2 billion in 2008 to 6 billion in 2012 with independent expenditures increasing from 146 million to a little over a billion, more than accounting for the change (Center for Responsive Politics). This increase is particularly daunting because it highlights the funding increase in one year; what could come thiry, or one hundred years down the road is scary to say the least.
Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig explains, “The framers intended Congress to be ‘dependent upon the People alone.’ But the private funding of public campaigns has bred within Congress a second, and conflicting, dependency. That conflicting dependency directs their focus more and more toward the challenge of raising money” (Lessig). This dependency weakens our governmental institutions which is definitionally institutional corruption. An additional problem with the flow of money into democratic elections is voter turnout. According to the Brennan Center, 80 percent of Americans disapprove of the Citizens United decision. This opposition is bipartisan; disapproval percentage registers in the high seventies to low eighties for both parties. The Brennan Center goes on to explain that 70 percent of Americans believe Super PAC spending will lead to corruption and according to that same study, 1 in 4 Americans said that they were less likely to vote. To make it worse, these numbers were statistically significantly higher among minorities compared to whites (Brennan Center).
The ramifications of increased campaign spending are quite visible in the 2016 presidential election which is forecasted to be the most money saturated one yet. Ben Carson, retired neurosurgeon gone Tea Party poster boy, raised 13.5 million dollars in the first round of funding in 2014 before he announced that he was even considering running for president (Time). This means that now when enough powerful Americans, likely White business men, get together and say “we like this person” they can essentially force them to run. Carson has explicitly stated that he doesn’t have much skin in the game when it comes to being president; he feels obligated to run because so many people gave him stupendous sums of money to run on their behalf. Carson is a one of the few preeminent black neurosurgeons most well known for performing the first surgery to separate siamese twins conjoined at the head. It his infamous story, of growing up impoverished in Detroit and becoming rich, that political funders cling to (Carson 20). Money corrupts politics by allowing those with it to delegate who runs, however what’s worse is that money lets the rich construct their politicians. “Constructing” a politician happens when there is money floating around to be awarded and politicians change who they are to win the rich over. Something clearly doesn’t add up when Ben Carson, a man who relied heavily on public programs growing up, has a campaign platform rooted in extreme spending cuts (Carson 91).
The democratic process relies on voters endorsing candidates they trust to act in the best interest of the United States. Of course, that “best interest” is up for debate and that is why there are competing political ideologies. The problem with money saturating the democratic process is that a vote is no longer an endorsement of a set of ideas; instead, a vote is increasingly the product of campaign financing and may become solely a marker of wealth in the future.
Works Cited
"The 2012 Election: Our Price Tag (Finally) for the Whole Ball of Wax." Opensecrets RSS. Center for Responsive Politics, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 20 May 2015.
Altman, Alex. "Ben Carson: The GOP's Accidental Candidate for President." Time. Time, 4 May 2015. Web. 22 May 2015.
Carson, Ben, and Cecil Murphey. Gifted Hands. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990. Print.
Lessig, Lawrence. "Democracy After Citizens United." Boston Review. N.p., 9 Sept. 2010. Web. 22 May 2015.
"National Survey: Super PACs, Corruption, and Democracy | Brennan Center for Justice." Brennan Center for Justice. Brennan Center, 24 Apr. 2012. Web. 22 May 2015.
Sullivan, Kristen. "SUMMARY OF CITIZENS UNITED V. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION." SUMMARY OF CITIZENS UNITED V. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION. Connecticut General Assembly, 2 Mar. 2012. Web. 19 May 2015.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
In-Process Post #2
Researching Ben Carson’s presidential campaign further is going to be the basis for the expository essay I write. I like that I am focusing on something current because I can pull information straight out of the headlines and use sources that I’ve worked with a lot for debate. I’m thinking that I may research the current American right wing. It is absolutely absurd. In talking to my neighbor from London at a Mother’s Day dinner he explained that being “conservative” in Britain is nothing like being conservative here. In America we have a war-hungry and quite frankly bigoted right wing. Of course there are some reasonable conservatives, but the politicians dominating the 2016 campaign need to appeal to their voters who fall into this unique American far right.
From my preliminary research it looks like Ben Carson should stick to medicine. According to Bloomberg Ben Carson is extremely unclear about how judicial review and the whole process of checks and balances (Bloomberg). The article mentions the precedent set by Lincoln in wanting to disregard the egregious Dred Scott decision made by the supreme court. Critics of Carson highlight that he wants to become president and shrink the role of government, eliminating some of the programs that have gotten him to where he is. A photo made by liberal opposition reads “Tea Party icon Ben Carson is running for president in order to ‘eliminate dependency on government’ But he doesn’t mention that he grew up in public schools, got public housing and food stamps, got free glasses from a government program, was helped by affirmative action and got pell grants for college. Hypocrisy, much?” This is propaganda and I know that because many of these facts are simply not true. The website “politifact” which fact checks the comments made by politicians checked this message with Carson’s autobiography and found that it is false that he got free glasses and it is impossible to determine if affirmative action played a role in his admission to Yale. The hypocrite argument is an interesting one though because Carson did rely heavily on public services.
When Carson responded to this argument he said “This is a blatant lie. I have no desire to get rid of safety nets for people who need them. I have a strong desire to get rid of programs that create dependency in able-bodied people." This quote could be the spark for my research. The American far right constantly complains about how we spend too much money unnecessarily and of course they believe in principles of small government. But I am curious what Carson and other right wingers believe are “programs that create dependency in able-bodied people” (Politifact). Carson has one of the worst plans for healthcare ever created. He thinks that we should revoke medicare because people should have privatized and government subsidized health savings accounts. Salon reported earlier this week that Carson is actually making the party look worse by running for president because when asked about important policy questions his answers are obscure to say the least (Salon). Another interesting direction for my research could be into the change in identity that happens to politicians. Anyone who dedicates that kind of time to appealing to as many people as they can must adjust their personality in ways they otherwise would not. I have to wonder if Carson actually believes in right wing medical policy or if he just needs to be the Tea Party poster boy because those people have encouraged him to run for president. If I do find sufficient information of the change of identity that comes with political fame, or something along that line, I think that is what I’ll do.
Monday, May 4, 2015
In-Process Post #1: Ben Carson (A Living Legend?)
I just finished reading Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story which is Ben Carson’s autobiography. It was published in the late ‘90’s but I was especially interested in reading it this year because Ben Carson announced today that he is running for president in 2016. He became a poster boy for extremely conservative voters earlier this past summer when he stood up and argued extensively with many of president Obama’s policies at an exclusive event that he was invited too. My mom had recommended that I read this book as I am somewhat interested in neurosurgery but seeing that Carson was a serious contender for the 2016 election sparked my interest anew. As this is the first election I will be voting in it has been in the back of my mind to actually become an informed voter. On both sides of the political spectrum there are voters who refuse to actually get a full picture of the candidates and they stick to their partisan lines. I do not want to be one of them; they are the problem. That was my impetus for reading the autobiography, and here are my thoughts after reading it:
Ben Carson is very unique. He grew up in impoverished Detroit, and his illiterate single mother struggled to raise him and keep him well fed and in school throughout his childhood. Carson starts from the very beginning of his story, capturing many moments in elementary school perfectly. The racism that Carson experienced, especially during his years spent at predominantly White grade schools, could not derail him from his aspirations. Carson’s mother saw something special in him and tried her best to support her son but outbreaks of extreme mental illness prevented her from doing this job sufficiently. Carson begins the book with a lengthy recognition the outstanding effort put forth by his mother, which is meaningful considering the very successful life he has led since. Carson forged his own path out of poverty. He was told that he could send one college application, because his mother could only afford to pay the $10 once. He chose Yale, and got in with a full scholarship. A major theme throughout Carson’s life in the autobiography, and the developments in his life since, is his belief in God. I find this particularly interesting because he is a man of science as well. He has to be for the kind of procedures he carries out. The balance between Carson’s faith and his procedural ability to complete brain surgery is intriguing. Before every procedure he sat down with the parents of the patient (he mostly focused on pediatric neurosurgery) and insisted that they say a prayer. Sometimes this would make the parents nervous but it was a crucial ritual for Carson and he insists that it was integral to his success.
Carson’s candidacy has not been going that well. Earlier today Time (http://time.com/3845535/ben-carson-the-gops-accidental-candidate-for-president/) published an article explaining that Ben Carson has repeatedly and explicitly said he “does not want to be a politician.” This is concerning to me as a reader, especially considering that when asked what his reaction would be to losing he said “Whew! Because it’s not something I really want to do.” A bizarre series of events led Carson to actually enter the race. This summer he generated more money than Hillary did. He thinks that it would be wrong to not run because of the outcry of support that he has received. I’m fascinated by Carson’s unpredictability. Who would think that the first preeminent black neurosurgeon in America, famous for his separation of twins conjoined at the head, would be a very conservative God-loving, pro-life presidential candidate? Not me, I know that much.
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