Silencing the Lambs

He's a product of Detroit's mean streets.  His parents divorced when he was only eight.  His father Robert, was a Baptist Minister. His mother, Sonya, was an under-educated domestic servant who often worked eighteen hour days to provide for her two young sons.  Ben, was the youngest, his brother Curtis is two years older.  He was a poor student, often at the bottom of his class, plus he had anger issues.  Ben was headed for a lifetime of trouble --  or so logic would seem to dictate. 

Ben's mom, Sonya, had other ideas. Her boys were not going to end up spending their best years rotting in a jail somewhere.  Ben's TV time was limited and he had to read two books a weak and write reviews of them.  He soon started liking it and realized he was actually pretty smart.  Sonya told him that he could be anything he wanted to be.  He was soon at the top of his class.  He still had his anger issues and they would not begin to get under control until he tried to stab someone.  By luck, grace, fate or whatever you want to call it, the knife broke on his target's belt buckle and in his panic and fear, he turned to the Bible.  In Proverbs 16:32, he found salvation: "Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city" 

Long story short, Ben changed his life around, worked his way through school.  He went to Yale and then to the University of Michigan Medical School.  Ben became Dr. Benjamin Carson, a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon at John Hopkins and winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  Hard work, a deep and abiding faith, and a belief in his own abilities helped him overcome what might have been a wasted life.  Because of him, thousand of children are alive.

Oh...did I mention that the world renowned neurosurgeon was a conservative?  Indeed, Dr. Carson is a Tea Party style conservative.  And why, after that lengthy introduction do I bring his particular brand of politics to the fore?  Because it is his politics that the administration tried to silence him.

Dr. Carson spoke out against President Obama and his healthcare debacle at the National Prayer Breakfast a few months ago.

Shortly after that rather public shellacking of Obama by Dr. Carson, some folks with calculators, computers and copies of his tax returns knocked on his door and said they wanted to audit his real estate holdings.  Finding nothing, they then started a full and complete audit of his tax records.  Again, they found nothing.  Dr. Carson, a deeply religious man, is honest to a tee and did not cheat on his income taxes.

Oppressive regimes need to control the message that gets out.  They need to stifle those who would speak out against them and they do this in several ways.  Some places just throw their adversaries into a prison or they just disappear quietly in the middle of the night.  Another way is by intimidation.  In the US, we haven't resorted to the two ways yet (as far as I know), but the government is now using intimidation and what better way than the threat of the IRS. 

The IRS has near Gestapo powers when it comes to auditing your taxes.  They obviously did not intimidate Dr. Carson.  Seriously, you just aren't going to make someone from the inner city of Detroit sweat much. 

But the message was sent.  I'm quite sure they didn't expect to find much if anything on Dr. Carson, but how many others were silenced.  Even if your taxes are in order, everyone fears the IRS.  Maybe it was just a coincidence, maybe it wasn't.  I think it it was intimidation and so does Dr. Carson.

What better way to keep the lambs silent!

Mike