Carson, Character, Consistency, Caring, Contrast

Ben Carson and West Point, another look | Power Line:

"In general" (always a dangerous statement), people of a conservative bent care deeply about character and consistency. Liberals at least say that they "care about caring" -- they say they want to have a belief that their candidates "care", although from a conservative perspective the fact that they have no concept of consistency in the sense of any general application makes it hard to even understand how they can support their oft repeated "we care" claim.

The problem seems to be desires vs results. They at least claim to believe that their government programs "help", although the facts show that among the groups targeted by those programs, families have been destroyed, poverty, substance abuse and crime have risen, and thousands of young black men shoot each other each year. They claim that they fervently desire to help black families, their programs demonstrably destroy those families consigning the vast majority of them to poverty, substance abuse, despair and early often violent deaths.

But liberals FEEL good about their programs, so the programs continue.

Conservatives actually have feelings as well -- no matter what liberals say. A person like Ben Carson, a child of poverty, who lived the dysfunction of the liberally imposed system in Detroit, rose to be the pre-eminent brain surgeon in the nation, is a Christian and a conservative, brings a shiver of pride to our spines and maybe a bit of a tear to our eye. While we know in our hearts that he is "just a man", our tendency is to love him and idolize him. A guy like Carson makes conservatives FEEL really good!

I've said before, I have doubts about him as a presidential candidate -- he is brilliant, but he has no executive experience nor political experience, and being president is BOTH -- big time. But I'm human too ... he is a symbol of what I believe many more black men could be if their culture were recovered from the clutches of The Party.

I also knew that the left must HATE Carson! They have no choice -- in their world model he is Satan. A successful "real black man" ... of the inner city, of a single mother and according to his genesis story, even angry enough to try to stab someone until he found Christ. If Ben Carson is real, then at least a significant amount of what liberals feel good about is a lie -- which if they looked at data, they would already know to be true, but humans need stories and liberalism depends on mythology. If Carson and his story are true, then what liberals feel very good and completely smug about is at least significantly false -- not just statistically, but in terms of a real human narrative.

So Carson must be destroyed -- and since he is human, we know he has flaws, so the likelihood is that he will be. Since conservatives DO care about character and consistency, the liberal onslaught tends to have the desired effect on us  -- like Nixon swearing on the tapes, or W Bush's DUI, conservatives can't help but feel bad when flaws are pointed out in leaders that we had hopes were at least closer to "perfect".

I thought the linked column was a great example of the effects of media attack on even those that are among the most intelligent in the conservative camp -- the universal human tendency to write our own stories with an eye to positive mythology is of no concern from the left, it is almost "endearing" (eg. Hillary named after Edmund Hillary, etc, etc), but from the right it is immediately translated as a disappointing "lie". It isn't "all politicians" that have a life story that is somewhat mythological, it is ALL HUMANS,  ME! -- but for those of us not in public life, our friends and family share in the covering of the secrets and the celebration of the triumphs -- both the embellished "real", and the very nearly entirely myth.

Conservative Christians aren't allowed to hate anyone -- BUT, we certainly can hate policy and sin -- as in abortion, gay "marriage", single parenthood, etc, and feel bad when they win and lives are destroyed. Being Christian and conservative often means feeling sorry for our own sins and the sins of those of like belief in this world as well as those who war against belief itself. We have the hope in Christ of ultimate victory, but we deal with the knowledge that in our walk through this very imperfect world, we will often be disappointed in both our own feet of clay, and of those who take on the mantle of leadership for our cause.

The left has no admonition against hate -- and we can observe that they hate Ben Carson as they must, and have great joy in attacking him with abandon. He makes them feel bad -- and one of the big reasons to be liberal is that you desire to feel GOOD ... superior, smart, just,  powerful (at least as a group), self righteous, proud and smug -- the fruits of the left. Conservatives trade some good feelings for virtue in this world and the promise of the next, for liberals, this life is it, and they are willing for others to pay ANY price so that they can feel good! (we Christians can't brag -- Christ paid even more for our hope than the millions of dead babies, tens of thousands of dead young black men, and now rising death toll of lesser educated whites sacrificed on the altar of liberal good feeling)

Such is the shape of the battle that will continue until the day Christ returns -- we often need to prayerfully "let go and let God", because how the manner in which the victory is to the righteous often seems very well shrouded.

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