he also makes recommendations on what should be done to deter america are following the same path. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> let me just say that's more than a quart of a century. i'm a little older than that. it's a real -- okay, it's a real pleasure to be here with you all this evening. i've heard a lot about the institute, and the next lectureship, and i'm very honored to be a part of this distinguished group. i wanted to talk a little bit this evening about some of the things that really shaped my own life and my own philosophy. you know, i was one of those people who kind of knew what i

wanted to do from very early on. medicine was always the thing that interested me. if there was ever a story on television, or on the radio about medicine, i was right there, just like a magnet. i even like going to the doctor's office. [laughter] the thing that really caught my attention was the church, you know. they frequently have stories on about missionary doctors. and these are people who at great personal expense travel all over the world not going to bring physical and spiritual healing, it seemed like the most noble people on the face of the earth. and i decide when i was a chiseled that i was going to be a missionary doctor. and that was my dream, until i was 13. at which time having grown up in dire poverty, i decided i would rather be rich. so at that point missionary doctor was out, and psychiatrist was in. now i didn't know any

psychiatrist on television they seemed like rich people. they drove jaguars, lived in big fancy mansions, a plush offices and all the have to do is talk to crazy people all day. it seem like i was doing that anyway so i said this is going to work out extremely well. and i started reading psychiatry today, i was the local shangkun high school. everybody brought me their problems. i would stroke my chin -- [laughter] tell me about your mama. and then i even majored in psychology in college, get advanced site in medical school. i was gung ho for coming, i was going to be the worlds greatest psychologist. and then i started meeting a bunch of psychiatrists. need i say more? [laughter] i'm just kidding. so my best friends are psychiatrist, but what i discovered very quickly and what psychiatrist do on television and what they did in life are to very different things. and actually what to do in real life is considerably more

important than what they do on television. they are some of the more intellectual members of the medical community. but it just wasn't what i wanted to do. i had to say now what. and i said, what are you really good at? i believe god gives everybody special gifts. and i stopped and analyze my own gifts and i realized that i had a lot of i hand coordination. i was a very careful person, didn't knock things over to a good characteristic for brain surgery by the way. i could think and see in three dimensions, and i loved to dissect things. that coupled with the love of the brain, i said, you know it would be a natural, some people thought that was kind of a strange occupation for me because at that time had only been been eight black neurosurgeon in the world. but i never really stopped to think about things like that. i stopped and i thought about

where do you fit? and it turned out a very excellent choice for me. i started out as an adult neurosurgery but i very quickly learned that no matter how good, they never get any better. not until they get their settlement. whereas -- [laughter] as with children, you know, what you see is what you get. when they feel good, they feel good. when they feel bad, you know they feel bad. and here's the thing. you can operate on a kid for 12, 14, 16 hours, and if you're successful your reward maybe 40, 50, 60 years of life. were as with an old geezer come you spend all that time offering and they they die in five years of something else. so i like to get a big return on

my investment. i'm just getting. i like old people. [laughter] actually i am one of them now. and actually a large part of my practice now involves a condition that affects primarily older people, very, very painful condition. used to be called suicide disease it got so bad. we have the ability to get rid of that pain, and i'll play, there's nothing like seeing somebody who had a light just turned upside down and to be able to do a procedure and all of a sudden they have their life back. really doesn't medicine is all about, being able to intervene at times like that to make a difference. before i go any further, i want to take just a brief moment for disclaimer. everybody makes disclaimers these days. did you notice at? i belong to this board, no, i was associate with this group and, therefore, you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

well, what i've noticed in recent years is that now virtually impossible to speak to a large group of people without offending someone. have you noticed that? when i was a kid, you know, they used to say sticks and stones break my bones but words were never hurt me but i don't think it's know that any more. they don't hear that phrase anymore, because everybody walks around with her feelings on the shoulders way for somebody to say something. then, did you do that? been a candidate anything else you say to our member member want us talking to a group about the difference between a human brain running. and a man got offended. these that you can't talk about dogs like that. and then another time i talk to a group about how the fashion industry has gone beyond what to think they're supposed to be so skinny, they look like they escaped from a concentration get. a jewish man got offended and said you can't mention concentration camps, that's way too sensitive.

if i said something to do about slavery, i said you can talk about slavery all you want, doesn't bother me. but some people choose to get offended. so this is my disclaimer. it is not my intention to offend anyone here this evening. and if anyone is offended, too bad. [laughter] because i got today, i don't really believe in political correctness. and, in fact, i actually think it is a very destructive force that is in the process of ruining our nation. i talk about this a lot in my latest book, "america the beautiful," but think about this. a lot of the people who founded this nation came here trying to escape from people who tried to tell you what you could think and what you could say. and here we are reintroducing it through the back door, exactly

the same thing. and it's absolutely absurd. and really, the emphasis should not be on unanimity of speech, and unanimity of thought. the emphasis should be on learning how to be respectful of people with whom you disagree. and if we would begin to do that then we could be in to have an intelligent, rational dialogue. how can you have real dialogue when you can't even say what you believe? you can't even say what you mean. you have unnecessarily artificial conversations. and our society is now full of artificial conversation. and it's one of the reasons that we are making very little progress. and it's something that i think people are going to have to get excited about once again, recognizing that, you know, our

society is changing quite dramatically right now. there is a very secular segment that is trying to change the nature of our society. and they have employed political correctness as a means continued discussion on what is being done. and the only way they can combat is that people have to learn how to speak up. because there are few people with microphones and podiums who impose their will on the rest of the people, to the point that, in this nation, where all of our coins and all of our bills say in god we trust, we are afraid

to say merry christmas. i mean, how did that happen? and the only way that kind of thing happens is when vast majority of people allow themselves to be controlled by a vocal minority. you know, you think back to nazi germany, most of those people do not believe in what hitler was doing, but did they speak up? no. they kept their mouths shut, and you see what happens. we are in the process of watching a lot of things that characterize our greatness, go down the tubes. because of capacity -- festivity. and when people start wrapping things up a bit, like a tea party, they get labeled as anarchists and crazy people come

because because there is an establishment consisting of democrats and republicans who want to maintain the status quo and want to maintain their power and to grow their power, and to grow their intrusiveness, and they don't want anybody to say anything about it. and that's really what a lot of political correctness is all about. you will read about that in great detail in my newest book, but, you know, i had this tremendous dream of becoming a doctor, but there were problems along the way. not the least of which was the fact that my parents got divorced early on. that was devastating to some of you have been through the you know what i'm talking the. if anybody out there is think about getting a divorce and you have children, please think about it again. please ask yourself, wait a

minute, am i being selfish? because, you know, it's the same person you loved and adored not too long ago, and most divorce is secondary to selfishness, start thinking about themselves, not about the unit. not about the family, not about the child. just a little food for thought. but at any rate, you know, my parents got divorced, and in this particular case my mother discovered that my father, was a big mess and didn't have enough them so i don't think she had a whole lot of choice there. she only had a third grade education, and there she was faced with the prospect of raising to the young sons in inner-city detroit with little money and little education. and we ended up moving to boston to live with her older sister and brother-in-law in a typical tenement boarded up windows and doors, sirens, games, mergers or

both of my older cousins who we love were killed. and i never expected to live to be beyond 25 years of age. because that's what i saw around all the time. there was never money for anything. you know, when we go to the store and my brother and i would want some ballgame or some jawbreakers, we would ask dartmouth if we could get them, and, of course, the answer was always the same. there was no money for that. she wanted to get it for us, but the look of pain in her eyes was so great, we just stopped asking. we didn't want to see that look in her eyes anymore. but as difficult alive as she had, and she worked two to three jobs at a time, as a domestic, cleaning other people's houses, because she didn't want to be on welfare. even though she only had a third grade education, and she was

very observant and she knows that no one should ever saw go on welfare came off of it, so she just said i don't want to go on a. i don't care how hard and how long i have to work. but as difficult as her life was, she never adopted what i call the victims mentality. she never felt sorry for herself. i think that was a good thing. problem was, she never felt sorry for us either. there was never any excuse that we could give that was adequate. she would just say, do you have a brain? and get the answer was yes, then you could have thought your way out of the. it really doesn't matter what john or mary or susan or anyone else of the and interesting thing is, when people won't accept your excuses, pretty soon you stop looking for excuses. you start looking for ways to get things done. i think that was perhaps the most important thing that my mother did for both my brother, curtis, and i.

and i think also, you know, the poverty, the hardship that we faced was not such a bad thing, because we have each other, we were happy, even though we were very poor. i really don't think money brings happiness. ..

>> they have never had any need for anything. i am not sure that that is healthy. my wife and i tried to create artificial hardship for them in order to harden them up and make them ready for the world. i think it actually worked out pretty well. one of them is an engineer. one of them is a vice president of the wealth management firm. one of them is accountant. nobody wanted to go into medicine. it was okay as long as they became productive members of society, and that was really our goal for them. at any rate, you know, as a fifth grader, i was not doing particularly well in school. do we have any fifth-graders here today?

you guys look intelligent and you've we've done very well. i was terrible. my nickname was dumbing period he never had to worry about getting the lowest grade on a test as long as i was there. we were once having in argument about who is the dumbest kid in the school. then, someone tried to extend the argument that who was the dumbest person in the world? i said, wait a minute. there are billions of people in the world. they study up, and you're the dumbest one. to add insult to injury, you had to pass your paper to the person behind you and they would director paper. you had reporters or out loud. not a problem if you got 100 or 95. a major problem if you got a

serial. it was a major problem if you got a zero. i started skimming. when she called my name, the teacher, i mumbled. the teacher thought that i said one thing, and the girl behind me thought that i said something else. when she called my name, i said nine. she thought i said 90. she said that is wonderful, and if he can do it, anybody can -- she kept ranting and raving. the girl behind me said, he got none. if i could have disappeared into thin air, never to be heard from again in the history of the world, i would gladly have done so. but i could not. so i sat there and acted like it did not bother me.

but it did bother me a lot. not enough to make me study, but it did bother me a lot. [laughter] unfortunately, there are a lot of those kids still abounds. even today. i had a program at the hospital. i bring in 800 students at a time. i show slides of what goes on in a major teaching and research hospital. we talked about human potential. at the end i let them ask me questions, but sometimes i ask the questions. i remember asking, i said how many of you can name for me five nba players? virtually all the hands went up. i said, what about five nfl players? all the hands went up. baseball, rap singers, movie

stars -- all the hands went up. i asked who could name five nobel prize winners. out of 800 hands, all the hands went down. what does that tell you? this is the information age. the age of technology. and tell me what a microprocessor was? only one young man raised his hand. i called on him. he said a microprocessor is a tiny processor. that was it. that was the extent of his knowledge. extremely superficial. that is really quite troubling. what are the implications? the implications of that kind of ignorance. there was a survey that some of you might be familiar with in the '90s, looking at the ability of a eighth grade

students. our nation came in 21 out of 22 nations. we barely beat out the 22nd. in the information age, we only put out 70,000 engineers in this country, china puts out for more. this is serious stuff. we are talking about the future. we are talking about her role in the future. we need to begin to make adjustments. we need to make them quite soon. we can't sit around just being enamored by sports and entertainment. i probably shouldn't say that at the university of alabama, but i think that you get it. i think we all get it. we are the pinnacle nation in

the world right now. but we are not the first pinnacle nation. there have been other pinnacle nations before us. ancient egypt, greece, great britain, france, spain -- pinnacle nation's number one, they're not going to be there forever. what happened to each and every one of them? basically the same thing. they became enamored with sports and entertainment, lifestyles of the rich and famous, turned a blind eye to corruption. an honest assessment would demonstrate that this is already in the process of happening. the real question is can we be the first pinnacle nation to actually learn from those preceded us and take corrective action, or must we still go down

the same destructive path? that is really the question. i personally believe that we can, and that was the reason my wife and i wrote our latest book, "america the beautiful." we can make a difference. we are different. this nation is the child of every other nation. therefore, we should have the interest of every other nation at heart. we are the perfect ones to remain in a pinnacle position. for that and a number of other reasons. a source or education is concerned, we should note this

is not the way it has always been here. in 18311 [inaudible name] came here to study america, europeans were just fascinated with america. here is a nation barely 50 years old, which is are you competing with us on virtually every level. that is impossible. how could a fledgling nation be doing that? he wanted to come over here and dissect and see what was going on. while he was at it, he said let me look at the school system. he was blown away to see that virtually anybody finessing the second grade was completely literate. he could find a mountain man that there -- that could read the newspaper. he had never seen anything like that before. go to some of the museums and look at some of the letters written by people on the frontier in the wild west.

you would think a college professor had written those letters. you look at the vocabulary and grammar -- there was a lot more emphasis in times past. if you really want to be blown away, get a hold of the sixth-grade and -- exit exam from 1831. see if you could pass that test. it is in our corporate i doubt that most college graduates could pass that test. we have dumbed things down to that level. why is it so important? because the founding fathers made it very clear that for our type of government to succeed, it required a very well-informed and educated populace.

if we go without that, what will happen is that you will have every expanding government that will eventually take over the lives and the functions of the people. that is why it is so important. it is not too late. it is not too late for people to educate themselves, to actually know what is going on. so that you cannot be easily led by some pundits on television who tells you what you are supposed to think, who you are supposed to like, who you are not supposed to like. we have reached the stage where a lot of people will go into the voting booth and the only thing they're looking for is a name that looks familiar to them. they don't know anything about them. oh, yeah, i know that name. that is irresponsible. that is not what the intention was.

the intention was for the people to be very involved and very informed. when you look at how things have changed radically, the founding fathers were smart people. but they did not anticipate everything. for instance, they looked at a system of government with executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch. that comes from the book of isaiah, by the way. it allows things in our government, a judeo-christian government as the basis of establishment for our government. but it worked very well the way it was established. what they did not anticipate was a fourth branch of government. which we now how, which has grown very big and popular which is the special interests. why did that occur? well, the way it was initially set up, it was the sacrifice.

therefore, it was not anticipated that people would want to stay there for the rest of their lives. they would serve and go back to their community and someone else would come. it has changed. now, people want to stay for their entire lives, and they need money to do that and they have to establish relationships with powerful financial entities, and that cannot be done without quid pro quo, hence you have the establishment of another branch of government, which is very powerful and distorts the will of the people. i would go so far to say that virtually anything that makes no sense, it is because of the special interest groups behind it. those are things that we the people are going to have to find ways to change. at any rate, i will tell you i

did not remain the dummy in the class because my mother, with her third-grade education, was determined that i would succeed and my brother would succeed. she prayed. she asked god to give her wisdom. god gave her the wisdom. at least, in her opinion. my brother and i didn't think it was all that wise. turning off the tv -- what kind of weird thing was that? but she said we could watch only two or three programs during the week, and with all that spare time, we had to read two books a piece from the detroit public library and submit bug reports to her. she would check them. i was not very happy about this, as you might imagine, in the beginning. but you know, after a few weeks,

i actually began to enjoy reading those books. we were desperately poor. between reading those books, i could go anywhere, i could be anybody, i could conduct experiments and know things that nobody else knew. when in the space of a year and a half, i went from the bottom of the class to the top of the class. i would help other students with their problems. i was, perhaps, a little obnoxious, but it was good. the key thing was i had a very different impression at that time of who i was. and i had an insatiable appetite for knowledge. you never saw me about a book. i went from being called down to being called a book worm. even my mother would say,

benjamin, put the book down. eat your food. i was always reading it. what determined this difference it made. it is one of the reasons that my wife and i started the carson scholars fund. it has two aspects. go to the website carsonscholars.org, and check it out. what about the academic superstar? where they get? may be a national honor society pin. a pat on the head. nobody really cared about them. they never really got much attention. we try to put them on the same kind of pedestal. the other thing we did was we

put in reading rooms all across the country. there are a lot of students who come from homes where there are no books. then they go to a school where there is no library. what are the chances of that individual loving to read? and we know that there is a strong correlation between those who are able to read well and success in our society. we have to make every effort that we can to change that. we can't just let it gradually change because we are under the gun right now. i may have mentioned that in the survey. their other nations advancing much more quickly than we are. we have to be incredibly serious and engaged.

so i ask you tonight, go to carsonscholars.org. get involved. we have to change this if we are going to survive as a pentacle nation. the other aspect of our scholarship fund, in order to be considered, a child has to have a 2.7 grade point average on a four-point oh scale. most of them have a four-point oh. very smart kids. they also have to demonstrate humanitarian qualities. that they care about other people. they can't win unless they demonstrate that before the application. it has to be sustained humanitarian activity. why is that so important? well, this nation is a humanitarian mission. think about it. anytime there is a disaster, who is first in line to give money, to give supplies.

we are. it has always been that way. you can go back to the very early part of our nation. europeans were looking at us, and they were saying that those americans are just crazy. look at the fords and kellogg's and vanderbilts and carnegies and melons and rockefellers. those people have enormous amounts of money, and nobody else has any money. you can't have a system like that. that doesn't work. you need to have an over arching government that collects the money and redistribute the wealth in the way that it sees fit. in other words, the united states of america was responsible for socialism. we were the ones who inspire them to do that.

but they made one miscalculation. they assumed that those names that i just mentioned, the rich people, they pass the wealth down from generation to generation. all of those names that i just mentioned, they poured enormous amount untrimmed amounts of wealth back into the infrastructure. they created an environment that been spurred on the most prolific middle class the world had ever seen. they also created foundations, charitable organizations, schools, hospitals, that has been the nature of wealth in america. in 2940 of the wealthiest families in america pledge to give away half of their wealth.

if you ask the 40 wealthiest families in europe to do so, they would shake their heads. this is an american quality. it is very important that we do not extinguish it with class warfare. that is very detrimental, dividing people up in any way, no matter who does it and for what purpose. that is not what allows strings together. wise man once said a house divided cannot stand. when we start talking about fairness, what we need to do is all get together and ask ourselves what is fair? in my opinion, god is fair. and what did god say?

he didn't say if your crops fail that you don't owe me anything. there must be something very fair about proportionality. you make $10 billion, you give a billion. you make $10, you get one. why is that complex? some people say the, well, it doesn't hurt the guy who has all the money. that kind of thinking created 600 some banks in the cayman islands. that's crazy. what we do need to do is make it a fair system where you don't have a bunch of loopholes and ways for people to get out of it. it is time for us as a nation to sit down together and figure out how to get this done in a truly fair way, not picking one group and say we will do this for you,

and then picking another group and saying we will do this for you. that is not really fair or the american way when we try to pit one group against the another -- it is not american. these are the things we're talking about when we read about the founding fathers of our nation. it is not rewritten history. this is what actually happened. they established a nation that is so special. why do i think america is special? for hundreds and thousands of years before america came on the scene, teeple did things the same way. in this nation, men walked on the moon. it completely changed the course

of this nation. the freedom, the entrepreneurship, the caring that establish this nation. we cannot allow that to disappear from us. you thought that i do i'd do great in high school, but i didn't. it's called peers. i went from a student to a b. student to a c. student. i went a full year before my mother, again, was able to tell me that it wasn't what you are on the outside, it was what you

had appeared that made you different. i got back on track. they were calling me nerd and poindexter and uncle tom. i would always shut them up. let's see what you're doing in 20 years. they must have believed me. they voted me most likely to succeed. that means that they knew what was necessary to succeed, but they were too lazy to do it themselves. that is what peer pressure is. unfortunately, it is not constructed to just high school. you will find that there is your pressure in all aspects of your life. people trying to control your life. people trying to control your behavior. you have to learn to think for yourselves and move forward in a logical way. not in a political way. it will make all the difference in the world. when i did get back on track, there was one thing, one

overriding thing that i wanted to do. i wanted to be a contestant on my favorite program. gd college ball. that was my favorite program that came on sunday. they would ask questions about science, history, math, geography -- i was really good about stuff. they would also ask questions about classical art and music. there is no way you're going to learn about those two things at my high school in southwestern detroit. they had no idea what you're talking about. i made the executive decision that i would get on the bus, go downtown, go to the institute of art day after day. i studied every picture. who they were, what they did, when they died, when they painted -- a black kid in

motown? i try to demand some but nobody was buying it. i had enough money to apply to one college. i applied to the college. the grand champion -- bryn championship that year was between harvard and yell, and yale just demolished harvard. i applied to heal. unfortunately, they accepted me with a scholarship -- fortunately they accepted me with a scholarship. it was okay. years later, i decided that i wanted to be a narrow surgeon. i wanted to go to the place best known for her surgery, which was johns hopkins. the problem is they only took two people out of a hundred and 25, how was i going to get to be one of them? when i went for my interview,

the fellow who was in charge of the residency program, george abramoff, was also in charge of cultural affairs at the hospital. we talked about medicine. the conversation turned to classical music. we talked about different styles, composers, classical styles -- some people used to criticize me when i was learning the classical art and classical music. they said this european history is not culturally relevant to you. but really, what does that term mean? cultural relevancy? to a citizen of the united states of america. go through that museum. look at the pictures on the

wall, the people who came to this nation from every part of the world. many with only the things they could carry. people who worked not only eight hours a day, 10 or 12 hours a day. no such thing as a minimum wage. so that their sons and daughters and granddaughters and grand rounds could have an opportunity. hundreds of years before that, immigrants came here and they were hired for even less. they, too, had a dream, that one day they are great grandchildren might pursue freedom and prosperity in this nation. of all the nations in the world, this one, the united states of america, the only one big enough and great enough to allow all those people from all those backgrounds to achieve their dreams. that is why every single one of

us is culturally relevant to every single one of us. that is why we are called united states of america. we would do well to recognize that our diversity is not a weakness. it is determined as blessing and a terminus strength. i was asked once by a reporter -- he said i notice you don't speak much about race. why is that? i said it's because i'm a narrow surgeon. he looked at me quizzically. he could not understand the correlation. i said when i work worked in the operating room and cut open the scalp, i am operating on the thing that makes them who they are. the cover doesn't make them who they are, it is the brain that makes them who they are. when you begin to think on that kind of a level about things and not just have knee-jerk

reactions to superficial things, that's when you become a different person. that is why we have the kind of brain power that we have today. i begin to realize all those things, when i began to realize all those things -- i had a very rapid career. a number one career at the number one hospital in the nation. all kinds of things begin to happen. tumors, conjoined twins, and my job was extremely rapidly. but i am very grateful that i was born in this nation we can make choices, and where you have the ability to do hard work and control your destiny. you don't have to be a victim and lets you choose to be victim. that is what i mean when i say "think big."

t. is for talent. that is not just the ability to sing and dance and carry a ball, we need to elevate academic achievement to the at the appropriate level. we have to do it quickly. i think we have one generation, nor more than that, to fix this problem. we have to be serious. the h. is for honesty. lead a clean life. if you always tell the truth, it's easy to remember. the i. is for insight. it comes from listening to people. learn from their times and mistake. the n. is for nice. be nice to people. once they get over their suspicion of why you are being nice, they will be nice to you. and if you are a democrat, a way to make sure that you are nice to all republicans for a week.

if you are a republican, i want you to make sure that you are nice to all democrats for a week. and i want you to get used to doing that. because we have to learn how to work together. we have much more in common than we have apart. we need to understand what our principles are. what are the values. what do we stand for? in this nation. we need not allow ourselves to be divided up by pundits who derive their power and their income by stirring up trouble among the people. we are smarter than that. we can do better than that. the k. is for knowledge. it makes you into a more evil person. it makes you a more knowledgeable person. what matters is what is up here. that is what solomon, the wisest

man who ever lived said, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding -- with those, you get all the gold and rubies and silver that you want. more importantly, those things amount to a hill of beans. the important thing is to become valuable to the people around you. the b. is for books. the second i. is for indicative knowledge and understanding. the last letter, g. is for god. we live in a country that is trying to throw got out. that is a terminus mistake. many people who have written our

history have been deists. that means a god who put things in motion and walked away. but if you read their writings, many of which are in my book, the founding fathers -- you will see that they were not deists. i want to think about this. our founding document, the declaration of independence, talks about inalienable rights given to us by our creator, god. the pledge of allegiance, it says that we are one nation under god. there are many courtrooms that say in god we trust. every coin and bill in your wallet says in god we trust. it's in all those places, but we are not supposed to talk about it, what in the world is that? in medicine we call it schizophrenia. doesn't that explain a lot of what is going on today?

we need to make it clear that it is okay to live by godly principles of loving your fellow man, caring about your neighbor, developing a god given talent and your talents so that we can be valuable and valued principles that govern our lives. if we do that, we will truly have one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. we have an opportunity for a few questions. there are some roaming microphones, and we would like for you to use those so that everybody can hear the

questions. i see a hand right here. >> my name is jessica cooper burke. i'm from seattle, washington. your work in 2004 for the bioethics committee, you spoke earlier about how the u.s. inspired socialism. i was wondering if you could take a second to talk about the ethical implications of universal health care, and what your opinions are on that? >> okay. there is no question that we need health care performed in this country. we spend more than twice as much, per capital, for health care in this country is the next closest nation, and yet we have terminus access problems. there is an enormous amount of

waste and inefficiency in our system. that is not going to be corrected by throwing more money at it. it is going to be corrected by doing intelligent things. for instance, if you get an appendectomy in birmingham, alabama, versus newark city versus los angeles, versus detroit, different costs and different ways of submitting bills, different ways of collecting, all of which justifies the mounds of paper it involved and the people who are paid out of the health care dollar. that is absolutely crazy. when every single diagnosis has been icd-9 code and cpt code, it can all be done electronically, instantly, without all those papers and people to push them around. now, special interest groups would not like that. because there are some groups that would benefit from all of that crap. you know, we have to be able to

get through that and do things in an intelligent fashion. what i would do, because what special interest groups say is that the doctors are unscrupulous, keep the money, get paid twice -- those of us know that very few positions would do such a thing. there are a few. instead of building a gigantic, expensive bureaucracy, just employed the saudia arabia idea. why do people not steal in saudi arabia? you cut off their loans, you cut off their fingers. i wouldn't necessarily do that, but there would be some real penalties to doing it. you would use -- lose your license for life. go to jail for 10 years. lose your personal assets. i don't think anybody would think about doing that. as proof of that, look at the

drunk driving problem -- about 10 years ago, they enacted the will most severe drunk driving policies in the world, and now there is no drunk driving in sweden. you have to be consistent in that kind of behavior, which dries out very quickly. there are a lot of other solutions that i mentioned in the book "america the beautiful." really, i think they solve these problems effectively, get the cost down effectively and provide better access than we have now. it can be done. i think we should do it. i think we can do it. we can do it for even less if we do it in an intelligent and rational way.

>> yes? >> she is coming with a microphone. >> we talked earlier about music, i never had the opportunity to ask you what your favorite classical piece is? >> that is a tough one. i love so many classical pieces of music. my wife is a classical musician. when we were at home on friday nights, about this time, i would be laying on the couch and she would be playing the p&o. it is just very soothing. i primarily like baroque music. i love [inaudible name]. i could listen to him all day everyday. you know what was interesting, some years ago, when we were separating the vendor twins in south africa, these were twins

joined at the top of the heads facing in opposite directions. there have been attempts to separate twins like that before, none of which have been successful. we had embarked upon this operation. it was extraordinarily different, and we reached a point where the blood vessels were so gorged an intense, we stop the operation decided to go into conference. i suggested that we covered the area was skin and come back, and maybe in a few months they would have developed enough collateral that we could cut through. the doctors in south africa said that we don't have the ability to keep them alive, they will die. i really felt the weight of the world on my shoulders. and i just said, lord, it is up to you. i went in there with my scalpel in my equipment, and i started cutting between the vessels that were so thick that you could cvn acetic bubbles.

making a long story short, when i made the final cut -- everybody had goosebumps. we finished that operation after 28 hours. one of the twins popped his eyes open. the other one did the same thing. by the time we got to the icu. within two days, they were eating within two weeks and today they are surviving in the eighth grade and doing very well. another question? yes? >> dr. carson, based upon some of the things you discussed with politics and government, it sounds like he would be in favor of implementing term limits and some other changes in washington. can you discuss that?

>> yes, i would very much be in favor of term limits. fully recognizing the argument that, you know, if people only have a couple of years to serve, they never really get to know the system and they are limited. i understand that and i appreciate it. what i would do to solve that problem is give people longer terms. i think the term -- i would make the turn six, 10, even eight years. but that is not always realistic. you could give the people a possibility of recalling them every two years. but you can't be reelected. that would be a severe blow to the fourth branch of government. i really think that is the only way we're going to get it done. now, how is that going to happen when the people in congress are the ones who get to vote on that?

well, i'm going to say something very radical right now. it's going to require a constitutional convention. just like we used to have back in the early days read that is what it is going to take. things have gotten so far out of whack that it needs to be retested. it has to be retested before it is too late. anyone else? yes, young lady? and by the way, for those who don't know, we have some people here from restoration academy. they take people from disadvantaged backgrounds and really try to prepare them for the world. if you talk to some of these young people, they are doing a terminus job. >> where does your brother, curtis, live? >> my brother lives in the atlanta area. he is in aeronautical and

mechanical engineer who works for parker aviation. i became the brain surgeon, he became the rocket scientist. [laughter] >> i see a couple of hands over here. >> you spoke a little bit about the victims mentality. what kinds of actions should be taken as a society to try to change that culture? >> okay. good question. how can we eradicate the victims mentality? first of all, i think that we have to continue to manifest the compassion that has always been a part of who we are. sometimes, you know, we have to go above and beyond what we want to do. in medicine, for instance, some of you who are older remember that you never used to hear very much about indigent people not

getting medical care. is it because there were no indigent people? no. it was because many years ago, insurance companies didn't have the ability to run roughshod over everybody. they had to pay a decent amount when you saw a patient who was insured, so that physicians had somewhat of a cushion and virtually all of them, included eight substantial number of indigent people in their practice. what he said anything about it, it was just something you did and was expected. now they don't have the ability to do that because they run on such margins. people have to find ways to do that anyway. to give these people -- to get them taken care of. victims mentality is something that is stoked by many in the political arena in order to

increase their own power. they want people to be dependent. they want people to be victims so that they can look to them as their great savior. and so that they can vote for them and keep them in power. that is exactly the wrong course of action to take. we need to hold up in front of people. a good example. there is a society that select 10 to 12 people each year, and these are people who came from horrible, horrible backgrounds. they have achieved, at the highest levels in our society. those stories need to be out there. that is what this famous american writer is to write about. rags to riches stories. we need to understand that the person who has the most control

over what happens to you is you. it is no one else. that is where you become the victim. when you start thinking that somebody else is in control of your destiny. that simply is not the case when you live in a free country. we have to make sure that it remains a free country because it is going getting more and more regulated. that is because the people are shrinking back. when the people shrink back, something has to fill the void, and it becomes government. people have to become more vocal. no question about it. >> you talk about politics in the library. most public levers are funded by city and public governments.

most public libraries are funded by the city and public government. can you talk about the funding of public libraries? >> i can tell you that tuesday night of this week we were at the main branch of the baltimore library. it was actually a thank you for it myself and some others in the baltimore area who had done a lot for the library system. the reason i bring that up, is because libraries are so important. we should not depend on government. we should take care of our own libraries and their own communities. people should get involved, and something that can have such a profound effect on the young people.

we have two stop depending on the government to do it everything. we can do this ourselves. if you would go back to early america, where we have a large number of libraries established, they were maintained by communities. we need to get that going again. that is where we will have very successful libraries. while i'm on that topic, churches. why are churches tax-exempt? because they are supposed to be giving back to the communities. they are not supposed to be social clubs. now we have a situation where the government, where the government is competing with the churches and is still giving the churches tax exempt exemption. let the churches do their job. if we get more people involved in communities like they used to be and caring about each other,

a lot of these problems will get taken care of, and we can leave the government to do what the government is supposed to do. i see a hand over here. how many more questions can we take? >> to more. >> to more okay. >> universities and engineering colleges, they are working on technologies to help with surgeries. how do you feel about the impact of technology in the medical field? >> i have seen neurosurgery changed terminus we on the basis of technology in the decades i have been in the field. it is about to take another giant leap. now we have tremendous imaging. very soon we will have robots. there are already robots working in some areas of surgery. they are not quite refined

enough to do nerve surgery yet, but that is just a matter of time. when they are, the kinds of things that we will be able to do will be absolutely astonishing. i will be too old, but i will still be watching with great anticipation and making a few suggestions. it is very exciting. one last question? i will let the people at the microphone make the choice so i won't be the bad guy. >> after teaching across the street in atlanta for three years, i happened across one of your book untrimmed books, and i really enjoyed it. i haven't read the most recent one, but i'm curious about politics and where you're going from here? >> there have been a lot of people trying to convince me that i should go into politics.

until the hand of god grabs me and puts me in that arena, i will not do it. i think there has to be some voices -- a cry in the wilderness, to help wake people up. we are devoting, candy and i., a lot of her energy to education. we recognize that ultimately, if our nation is to succeed, then we must be at the top and not at the bottom of the academic pile. i think that is every bit as important as anything i could possibly do in the political arena. >> may i have the last question? >> okay. >> what was your hardest surgery? >> oh, boy. i spent a lot of time training.

i looked like i was operating. [laughter] [laughter] >> the one that comes to mind is actually as an adult. the patient's wife was on pediatric services so i could not escape her. he had a genetic disorder that involves tumors that develop in different parts of the central nervous system. it turns out that he developed one of these tumors in the middle of his brain stem. no one on the adult side could come up with a solution. his wife -- she had been working with me for years. she said, you can do all these amazing things, you can operate on my husband. i said that he was not a kid. but she said he was a kid at

heart. i talked to him, and i said, you know, there is a 5050 chance that you will die. on the table. if we try to take that tumor out. and he said something relatively profound. he said, there is a hundred% chance i will die if you don't take it out. i will go with the 50% chance. during that operation, which was very, very difchance. during that operation, which was very, very difficult, it evoked potentials. the waves for the brain and heart went flat. the anesthesiologist who is not in favor of the operation in the first place said, you see that? you killed him. i wasn't happy, but we did get the tumor out. and we close him up and we were rather somber. and the next morning, he was awake and cracking jokes.

he was perfectly fine. i don't necessarily believe that some of those pieces are all me. i always pray and ask god to help me and give me wisdom, and he has never let me down. that is one of the reasons that my faith is so strong. >> all right. thank you all very much. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> for more information about ben carson, visit carsonscholars.org. >> welcome aboard, everybody. i live in yukon, oklahoma. >> this week, we explored the

literary and culture of oklahoma. >> the most important part of the book was on motion. when this book was published in 1632, the pope was angry that galileo had broken his promise. galileo's enemies join together and the results were his trial. this also is a copy that contains his own handwriting. this is like being able to look over his shoulders in the month leading up to his trial. >> all next weekend, the local content people on c-span twos booktv and on american history's tv on c-span 3. here is a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals. the 15th annual alabama writers symposium will be in monroeville, alabama, on the campus of alabama southern community college from

april 26 to 28. on the 27th and 28, the harlem book fair in newark new jersey will take place. the south carolina book festival will be in columbia, south carolina, from may 18 to 20. the festival will feature over 70 authors, writing classes, book signings and panel discussions. also that weekend, gaithersburg, maryland, will host their book festival. authors are scheduled to appear at the festival. for a complete list of upcoming book fairs and festivals, visit booktv.org and click on the book fairs have at the top of the page. also, please let us know about book fairs and festivals in your area, and we will add them to our list. e-mail us at "book tv" at c-span.org.