You know, just because someone knows how to crack open a skull and mess around with the creamy middle doesn't mean he should be making policy on immigration. But don't tell that to people who are supporting Dr. Ben Carson for the Republican nomination for president. Oh, no. To them, his surgical prowess and his ability to tell Kellogg's what cereals to sell as a board member there are enough experience to put him in a room with world leaders and go at it. Mostly, though, what comes through in Carson's interviews and appearances is that he's a fucking idiot. He doesn't know shit about the world, and he's a dangerous fool who sounds calm and rational, even when he's saying the most batshit insane things.
Check out his interview in today's Wall Street Journal (motto: "Soulless capitalists and wannabes still strangely read us"). Whenever the reporter tries to pin Carson down to anything specific, the good doctor hedges, avoids, and defers. It's like boxing someone who only wants to dance, not throw a punch for fear of being punched back.
When it comes to abortion, Carson says, "I support the law that we have on the books but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t try to change it." Asked how he would change it, he says, "I would try to appoint people who believe in the culture of life and not the culture of death. But you do it legally and through the process that we have in place." What the fuck does that even mean? It's like saying, "I want to fuck you, but I won't do it by raping you." Well, hey, that's great, Dr. Ben, that you want to do shit legally, which might be a requirement if you're the goddamn president.
On immigration, he's got one idea: "[N]othing else matters if you don’t seal the borders. You’ve got to seal the borders. And we’ve got the ability to do it, we just have not had the will to do it. In a Carson administration, the border would be sealed within a year." How he'd "seal" the border goes unexplained. Ben Carson is about concepts, man, and if you can't get down with the concept, then you just don't get it.
Carson envisions a guest worker program for the "good" immigrants, which you can tell, apparently, by some kind of fuckin' mind meld or something: "I would certainly encourage people to look at the lives that people have led and see whether they have led positive lives and are likely to be individuals who are going to strengthen our society rather than tear it down." As for who will choose who gets to stay, you gotta see this exchange:
"WSJ: Is there a panel or an element in the government that would make that decision?
"Mr. Carson: The criteria would be set with the immigration department.
"WSJ: Border control? ICE? What is the immigration department?
"Mr. Carson: There are many components to the immigration department. ICE is only one of them. The people who decide citizenship are another component."
In other words, Ben Carson doesn't even know how the immigration system of the United States government is set up.
And that means that Carson is a fucking idiot. He may talk as if he's taken too much klonopin, but what's dangerous is how many people take his fucking idiocy for some kind of zen wisdom.
Welcome to the 2016 election where Republicans hate their politicians so much that they can't stand to vote for anyone who has held office before.