# Stupid Republican idea of the day **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 26, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897 "2009-03-26T18:48:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1642
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32822 "2017-03-06T21:12:29Z")
John **“SHIT FOR BRAINS”** Merrill, Secretary of State of Alabama, [pisses off crowd](http://www.ajc.com/news/voter-talk-angers-crowd-selma-observance/xCsJPtFLfppAX9qB3ZocSO/) at Selma observance. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32823 "2017-03-06T21:37:51Z")
Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32824 "2017-03-06T21:45:36Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). How **THE FUCK** did this moron become a neurosurgeon? Oh wait, he only operated on Republicans. Never mind… ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32825 "2017-03-06T21:51:21Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). From the link. > [@](#): > > "Ben Carson says slaves were “immigrants” who “had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great grandsons, great granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.” In a twisted sense, he was right. Only if “pursue prosperity and happiness in this land” means hoping that someday slavery is abolished. ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32826 "2017-03-06T21:54:23Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). He also said in that talk: > [@Ben Carson](#): > > [The brain] remembers everything you’ve ever seen, everything you’ve ever heard. I could take the oldest person here, make a little hole right here on the side of the head, and put some depth electrodes into their hippocampus and stimulate and they would be able to recite back to you verbatim a book they read sixty years ago. It’s all there, it doesn’t go away, just have to learn how to recall it. He’s a brain surgeon, and I am not. But… I find that claim somewhat incredible. The brain being a mushy organic thing, I wouldn’t expect it to do much of anything perfectly and permanently. Can decades-old memories actually be pulled from the brain with some kind of electrical stimulation? Is there some basis for this claim? ETA: He made a similar claim in _Gifted Hands for Kids_. Hopefully this link to Google Books will work. [Gifted Hands, Kids Edition: The Ben Carson Story - Gregg Lewis, Deborah Shaw Lewis - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=O27I5VSdtRsC&pg=PT56&lpg=PT56&dq=depth+electrodes+carson&source=bl&ots=dfXHFONyGZ&sig=3ZuyO3-peyyNOxhXrw6CxfW9fE4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHtqn37sLSAhUH64MKHbD3A3YQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=depth%20electrodes%20carson&f=false) ---
**Author:** ![Defensive\_Indifference](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/defensive_indifference/32/6502_2.png) [@Defensive\_Indifference](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Defensive_Indifference)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32827 "2017-03-06T22:00:39Z")
Missed the edit window, but it looks like he’s made similar claims in several of his books. Still no idea if it’s true at all, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32828 "2017-03-06T22:01:17Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > In a twisted sense, he was right. Only if “pursue prosperity and happiness in this land” means hoping that someday slavery is abolished. More realistically, that they could someday get their hands on something sharp and murder all them slaving sonsabitches in their beds. See : Haïti. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32829 "2017-03-06T23:04:57Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). It’s hardly news that Ben Carson’s grain doesn’t go all the way to the top of the pyramid. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32830 "2017-03-06T23:09:38Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > It’s hardly news that Ben Carson’s grain doesn’t go all the way to the top of the pyramid. We have to ask ourselves…Did he _really_ not know how a comment like this was gonna play? Is he intentionally stirring up shit? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32831 "2017-03-06T23:28:04Z")
Senator John Cornyn retweeted this article without apparently reading anything other than the headline: [http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/322403-former-bush-ag-trump-right-that-there-was-surveillance](http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/322403-former-bush-ag-trump-right-that-there-was-surveillance) So he didn’t read the parts that read things like > [@](#): > > Mukasey said if there were a wiretap on Trump Tower, it would mean that there was suspicion someone had been acting as Russian agent. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32832 "2017-03-06T23:31:01Z")
> [@Bayard](#): > > Missed the edit window, but it looks like he’s made similar claims in several of his books. Still no idea if it’s true at all, though. I don’t see how it could be true unless one thinks the brain is magical which I do not. The brain is vast (10[sup]11[/sup] neurons with 10[sup]14[/sup] synaptic connections) but it’s still finite. I’m sure that many memories can be recovered but everything a person’s experienced over the course of a lifetime just seems too much. I realize that’s essentially an argument from incredulity but I also think that Carson is viewing the brain as some kind of magical, metaphysical organ. > [@](#): > > From [Scientific American, Feb 2016](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-estimate-boosts-the-human-brain-s-memory-capacity-10-fold/) > The human brain’s memory-storage capacity is an order of magnitude greater than previously thought, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies reported last week. The [findings](http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e10778), recently detailed in _eLife,_ are significant not only for what they say about storage space but more importantly because they nudge us toward a better understanding of how, exactly, information is encoded in our brains. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2017, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32833 "2017-03-06T23:43:33Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > We have to ask ourselves…Did he _really_ not know how a comment like this was gonna play? Is he intentionally stirring up shit? Honestly? I would not be surprised if he thinks that the “harsh conditions” that African slaves had to endure were something like having the inside cabins on the ship, with no balconies… And the buffet closed down at 11:00 pm. ---
**Author:** ![Mighty\_Girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7bcc69/32.png) [@Mighty\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Girl)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32834 "2017-03-07T00:26:38Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Honestly? I would not be surprised if he thinks that the “harsh conditions” that African slaves had to endure were something like having the inside cabins on the ship, with no balconies… And the buffet closed down at 11:00 pm. Such indignities! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32835 "2017-03-07T01:43:32Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > From the link. > In a twisted sense, he was right. Only if “pursue prosperity and happiness in this land” means hoping that someday slavery is abolished. I tried to respond, but found what he said so profoundly stupid I just couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32836 "2017-03-07T02:20:35Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Ben Carson: [Slaves came to America with dreams of future happiness](http://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/6/14835034/ben-carson-slaves-immigrants). [Randy Newman’s take.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5hFQFPFcHo) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32837 "2017-03-07T02:38:25Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > We have to ask ourselves…Did he _really_ not know how a comment like this was gonna play? Is he intentionally stirring up shit? At lunch, someone in the staff asked, “_How can we take attention away from the big guy’s latest tweetstorm_?” And Dr. Ben replied, “_Hold my beer …_” (cribbed from elsewhere) ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32838 "2017-03-07T04:08:47Z")
Ben Carson running for President? That’s as batshit insane as the man’s positions. Whew, that’s over with; never hear from him again. Wouldn’t it be crazy if if someone insane actually proposed him for a high ranking government position? Never happen. Cabinet secretary? Holy crap. Well, he’ll just recede into the woodwork - just another no-nothing absorbed by the bureaucracy. He said what??? ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32839 "2017-03-07T10:17:12Z")
It’s a sad state of affairs when a noted neurosurgeon’s description of how the brain works is less plausible than the plot of _Inside Out_. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32840 "2017-03-07T14:56:41Z")
[QUOTE=Ben Carson] [The brain] remembers everything you’ve ever seen, everything you’ve ever heard. I could take the oldest person here, make a little hole right here on the side of the head, and put some depth electrodes into their hippocampus and stimulate and they would be able to recite back to you verbatim a book they read sixty years ago. [/QUOTE] Maybe he should try that on Trump and his people when they can’t remember their meetings with their Kremlin handlers. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2017, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897/32841 "2017-03-07T17:11:22Z")
_ **"Why, if Ben Carson wants to operate on Donald Trump to stick electrodes in his brain, I say we let him!"** _ 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=1641) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupid-republican-idea-of-the-day/490897.md?page=1643)