I want to begin this blog by acknowledging my debt to Leonard Pitts, a columnist for the Miami Herald whose article
‘If I only had a gun’: Could the course of history been changed” which I read in The St. Petersburg Tribune on October 20, 2015, page 7. He very creatively and pointedly questioned the opinions of Dr. Ben Carson regarding the value of every citizen arming him or herself. Dr. Carson made following statements:
· The outcome of the Holocaust would have been different if Jews had guns. (One can goggle pbs.org, slate.com or any news site.
· “As a Doctor, I spent many a night pulling bullets out of bodies. … But I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm us away. Nationscapital.wordpress.com
As Mr. Pitts so eloquently states in this article “This has become a recurrent theme on the political right, the idea that unarmed victims of violence are to blame for their own troubles.” It is fascinating to me that so many in this country and others continue to be convinced that violence is the answer to violence, which is the answer to violence. Whether it is Dr. Carson, the Florida Legislators (advocating open carry and right to carry on college campuses) or our elected and appointed leaders deciding that after 14 years of the use of military violence and the killing of up to 50,000 (security forces and civilians) Afghanistan’s plus 3407 Allied individuals, more violence and subsequent killing (even bombing of hospitals) will eventually insure long-term peace. We may have become numb to the reading of facts about the suffering we humans inflict on each other and immune to the fact that killing each other off by swords, guns, machetes, hangings, or other methods has not brought enduring peace to the world. The use of force to get people to give us what we deserve (more than they) or to accept the imposition of a religious or political system has not worked long term in all of recorded history or so it seems to me, although I am aware of the very cogent arguments by many educated and thoughtful persons including men and women of the cloth.
Perhaps if Dr. Carson were not a neurosurgeon who also happens to be an African American the statements he makes would not be so surprising. Dr. Carson can trace his ancestry to Africa. He is also the son of an amazing mother who, although she herself could not read, had Ben and his brother turning off the television and giving her two or three book reports a week. This followed the discovery that Carson’s father had another family and his mother subsequently taking he and his siblings from Detroit to Boston where he was raised amid all of the poverty, drugs, and violence in some sections of Boston. Dr. Carson has written a number of books. He and his wife have been very personally generous and are known for their philanthropy. By all accounts there is much to admire about Dr. Carson and the legacy given to him by his mother.
Dr. Carson has also taken some version of the Hippocratic Oath. I am not sure which version. The original version which bears the name of Hippocrates, “the so-called father of medicine who lived in the early 5th”(pbs.org) century was:
HIPPOCRATIC OATH: CLASSICAL VERSION
I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfill according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art—if they desire to learn it—without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else.
I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.
I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.
I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about.
If I fulfill this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.
—Translation from the Greek by Ludwig Edelstein. From The Hippocratic Oath: Text, Translation, and Interpretation, by Ludwig Edelstein. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1943. (Pbs.org)
There is also a modern version of the oath such as the one below:
HIPPOCRATIC OATH: MODERN VERSION
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick; all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death? If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings that sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
—Written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University, and used in many medical schools today.
The question, for me, Mr. Pitts, and others is how to make sense of the fact that this very good man, Dr. Carson,who has sworn to some version of the Hippocratic Oath and has undoubtedly in his personal and professional life brought the reduction, if not the end, of suffering for many in his distinguished career also seems to be able to resolve what seems to some of us as the cognitive dissonance when offering the recommendations for more gun use and ownership alongside the Hippocratic Oath. Dr. Carson and his wife have generously helped others through such efforts as the Carson’s Scholarship fund. Although plagued by a temper, he seemingly overcame that through prayers and learning to channel the energy in a different direction. Yet, I am having a difficult time reconciling this man who I so admire in so many respects with the politician/thinker who says that:
Ben Carson Tells CNN the Holocaust Would Have Gone Differently If the Jews Had Guns
By Elliot Hannon
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson took to the airwaves again on Thursday to discuss his views on guns. The former neurosurgeon is a believer in the therapeutic powers of heavy artillery in America’s classrooms, for instance. And Carson’s views on gun control, laid out in his book A More Perfect Union, bubbled to the surface again on Thursday during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, where he suggested that the outcome of the Holocaust would have been different if Jews had guns. (Slate.com)
This is the same man who so vehemently opposes the Affordable Care Act and the VA health care system. He also says:
"You know Obama care is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," Carson said Friday. "And it is in a way, it is slavery in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control."
Carson was recently hired by Fox News as a contributor. He served as the director of pediatric surgery at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center for 39 years.
Carson has made other shocking comments in the past, once calling white liberals "racist."
"[White liberals are] the most racist people there are," Carson said in April 2013. "You know, they put you in a little category, a little box -- you have to think this way. How could you dare come off the plantation?" (Huffingtonpost.com)
While there is much about the Veterans Administration, which needs overhauling, and there are many changes I would like to see made in the Affordable Care Act, I do not think that a system that is based on making a huge profit off of the medical issues of we humans is moral or has been very workable. I would certainly like to see a single payer health care system and less focus at the VA and all government sponsored health care on possible misuse of the system thus making it very simple to get service as well as to bill and get paid. While I admire the generosity of the modern robber barons such as the Carson’s and the Gates, I do not think the a few individuals who were grossly overpaid to start with should be in charge of foundations which decide who gets assistance or what health related research gets done.
The sound bites of Mr. Carson and all the other political candidates garnish a lot of headlines and a lot of reaction but I am not convinced that they contribute to creating an atmosphere which is conducive to a coming together to create a more just, less violent, and loving society in which we share all the resources. If one or more of us is born with the wisdom of Dr. Carson’s mother, the native intelligence to become a neurosurgeon, or the ability to create a more effective treatment for cancer, we have much for which to be grateful. This does not, in my humble opinion, entitle us to an unequal share of the resources.
Dr. Rachel Remen in one of the books she penned, My Grandfather’s Blessings, talks a lot about the blessings of her life, including the lessons she learned from her illness and the search for effective/healing treatment. Although I have not heard her talk about the Affordable Care Act, the Veterans Administration Health Care System, or the use of guns, I strongly suspect that many of us would do well to sit down with her and other very thoughtful people. The use of terms such as liberal, gun advocate, NRA spokesperson, Obama Care, and other sound bites is very tempting, perhaps especially in this election year, but I am not sure they are all that useful. (I must, once again, give credit to my good friend Barbara Bonenberger for challenging me about the use of sound bites.)
I am personally going to, once again, resolve to make a concerted effort to avoid sound bites and to do my best to have respectful, adult, cogent, discussions with other humans such as Dr. Carson.
Written October 20, 2015
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