WS Chronicle

Members of The Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity during the press conference to protest Ben Carson on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at Emmanuel Baptist Church. (Photos by Tevin Stinson)

By Todd Luck

The Chronicle

Presidential candidate Ben Carson spoke to a packed crowd Tuesday afternoon at Berean Baptist Church.

Carson, one of the leading Republican presidential candidates, is a retired John Hopkins neurosurgeon who is famous for his work separating conjoined twins.

Carson has no political experience and gained national attention for a speech he made at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, while President Barack Obama was in attendance, in which he talked about conservative ideas like a flat tax, health savings accounts and how “dangerous” political correctness is.

The Carson campaign picked Berean Baptist because its pastor, Dr. Ronnie L. Baity, founded Return American in 2006 to “stand up for Judeo/Christian values.” The organization has rallied against gay marriage and for Christian prayer at county commissioner meetings.

During his speech, Carson once again decried secular progressives, who he claimed were attempting to remove God from the country. He said progressives have demonized him and lied about his positions.

“The thing I will tell you about progressives, is they feel like if you belong to a certain race, that you have to think a certain way,” he told the largely white crowd. ”They don’t believe that if you are black that you have the ability to be an independent thinker, and you know what that’s called? Racism.”

He claimed political correctness was used by progressives to shut down conversation on opposing views. He said people need to express opposition to what’s happening in the United States. He said that many Germans didn’t agree with Hitler, but didn’t speak out against the Nazi, leading to atrocities and tyranny in that country.

“We have to stop sitting down and shutting up,” he said.

Cason has garnered attention for his controversial remarks, like one on a recent “Meet the Press,” where he said a Muslim shouldn’t be president and that Islam is incompatible with the Constitution. He did not address that during the speech on Tuesday, but did talk about his earlier controversial remarks on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in which he said it is the worst thing to happen in the nation since slavery. He said those remarks weren’t because he didn’t want people to have healthcare.

“The reason I was so opposed to it, is because instead of having a country where the people dictate the course, with the Affordable Care Act, the government comes along and says ‘This is what we’re doing, we don’t care what you think, we’re going cram it down your throat. If you don’t like it, too bad’,” he said.

Carson gave few policy specifics, other than a six-month corporate tax holiday for corporations in which they’d be required to spend 10 percent to create new jobs. He instead focused on his life story and his opinions on many issues. He urged attendees to throw out any lawmaker who votes to raise the debt ceiling. He said overregulation that makes goods and services more expensive for the average consumer is the reason for the country’s income gap. He claimed the reason that the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates low is so the country can pay less interest on the National Debt. He said things other candidates want to do, like the plans by Democrats to help with college debt, would cause society to collapse from the debt they’d incur.

On Monday, Carson visited Victory Junction, a camp for children with chronic and serious illness in Randleman. The family of famed retired NASCAR Driver Richard Petty, who was the Republican nominee in a failed run for North Carolina Secretary of State in 1996, started the camp. At Berean, Carson praised the camp, saying it was an example of how effective the private sector can be at serving others.