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There is a lot to address here.......

First, I’ll reply that to end much of the disgust and misery ad naseum the Free Republic thought should encompass the concept of the GOPc. That is a concept to relieve the hatred for the GOPe. The GOPc, the conservative wing of the Republican party, is the onlv conduit for achieving the conservative political agenda.

Then there is Dr Carson.....

First, there is a TV movie “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story “ It is a fantastic movie and Even if you read the book it is worth finding and watching.

I looked for my old post but couldn’t find it. My mind is not a clear on the subject as it was the day after I attended a Ben Carson speech.

It was held at the employee center auditorium of Eastman Chemical here in Kingsport. That is almost earth shaking. Eastman doesn’t make overt political action. The news paper played up Dr Carson’s visit to the middle school having the most black students for Black History month. I was prepared to hear a black history speech from the man I had been following on Cavuto and liked what I saw.

I was very surprised when he came out swinging........ pure Carson politics. The stage was set with a podium in the center. Dr Carson took the mike from the stand and walked to the front of the stage. His method was to walk slowly across the stage from one side to the other continuously delivering his points in an extremely articulate manner. All the while he maintained eye contact with his audience. He never stuttered, he never said uh or you know or such. He spoke very deliberately and quietly. No oratorical crescendos, just pure reason, deliberately and strongly driving home his points. Mostly and very pointedly, no teleprompter.

At times he would go to the podium, the front of the podium and lean against it, casually, no formal airs. He was just talking to us. No pretension.

This was from a brilliant brain surgeon that is clearly superior intellectually to almost everybody. The obvious unspoken message was the comparison to the Black Messiah.

I have posted several times that the man is supremely smooth. His words are a lethal stiletto. He reaches back into his youth or his college days to paint a picture of adverse circumstance or treatment. He stabs the opponent with the stiletto that is so sharp the victim doesn’t even feel it go in.... then he brilliantly twists the blade in a mortal political statement. It is a wonderfully acceptable technique.

He told about life in the projects of Detroit. He had to be careful when eating raisin bran to be sure the brown things were raisins, not roaches. Then he told us that his colleagues on the board of Kellogg might not like him telling that story. He did not boast his high corporate position on the Kellogg board of directors., he juxtaposed it with his life.

People came from miles away. We knew that to get a good seat we should go early. We went an hour and a half early. The auditorium was already 3/4 full. It was beyond standing room only. Eastman uses the building fortraining. They opened all the class rooms and piped in the event to the overflow.

This was for our city a singular event. Eastman just doesn’t do things political. A VP knew Dr Carson personally and was instrumental in bringing him. To me, it means there are some corporations sick and tired of Obama and see Dr Carson as a man with solid conservative values that has the knowledge and prestige and contacts to undo and then rebuild our health care system. He has served in various capacities in high positions and has inside knowledge and experience that Barack can only dream about. He has corporate backing and that means money.

Here on Free Republic he has already been declared to be lacking the Christ Like conservative purity many demand. That is supreme foolishness.

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to be president, but if one volunteers......We should take him up on it.

He spoke very deliberately and quietly. No oratorical crescendos, just pure reason, deliberately and strongly driving home his points. Mostly and very pointedly, no teleprompter.

Indeed, no teleprompter — or prepared notes, I understand: He speaks entirely extemporaneously.

You wrote, "Here on Free Republic he [Carson] has already been declared to be lacking the Christ Like conservative purity many demand. That is supreme foolishness."

Oh, I so agree. But then there are people who frequent this site who feel that no one can possibly rise to their level of discriminating judgment when it comes to judging souls with whom they do not entirely agree on every point — which is the very thing the Lord warns us against doing: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I gather such folks are their own exacting standard or model of what is deemed "righteousness" in their own minds.

I spent the day reading Carson's wonderfully thought-provoking book, America the Beautiful (2012). I'd like to share the culminating passages, under the concluding section head, "Building on our solid foundation":

I feel blessed to have lived here in America for sixty years, with hopefully many more to come. In all those years, I have never met a perfect person — and since nations are simply collections of imperfect people, I have never seen a perfect nation. In looking back through the history of the world, however, I feel very comfortable in saying that there has never been another nation like the United States of America. Yes, we have made mistakes, but we continue to learn from them, and as long as we remain capable of embracing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as our goal, and we are willing to guarantee those things to our citizens, I believe we will continue to grow in greatness.

When our forefathers knelt and prayed for wisdom at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, then stood up and together assembled a seventeen-page document known as the Constitution of the United States of America, they were clearly guided by the hand of God. Today the forces of political correctness would expel God from every public sphere in American life, and the hearts and minds of every man, woman, and child in America are up for grabs in this cataclysmic battle between the lovers of men and the lovers of God. Some would rather never choose between the two, but life is full of choices, and our individual and collective choices determine the quality of our existence.
I believe it is time for us [Christians] to stand up and be counted. We can no longer be passive because the Judeo-Christian way of life in America is at stake. We need not be ashamed of our faith, and we certainly should not allow those who believe differently to change who we are in order to be politically correct. Yes, we should accept them with brotherly love as we have been taught, but we should never compromise our belief system. We do believe in God, and we do believe in the right of everyone to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We do believe in orderly government that facilitates these goals rather than impedes them. It is time to set aside political correctness and replace it with the bold values and principles that founded our nation and caused it to race to the pinnacle of the world faster than any other nation in history. It is time to stop apologizing and to start leading, because the world is desperately in need of fair and ethical leadership. If that leader is not America, then who will it be, and where will they lead?
If we apply logic to solving our problems and add the godly principles of loving our fellow man, caring about our neighbors, and developing our God-given talents to the utmost so we become valuable to those around us — allowing these values and principles to govern our lives — then not only will we remain a pinnacle nation, we will truly be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
It is my prayer, America, that God will continue to shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. I pray that with his blessings our past will be but a stepping stone to a bight future and that our best days will truly lie ahead of us — a beautiful new beginning!

To Carson, America is beautiful — because America is godly.

Carson is unaffiliated with any political party. Nor am I, since 2010, when I left the Republican Party in total disgust. In the course of this work, Carson points out that, all too often nowadays, our supposed "representatives" in all branches of government have become "representatives," not of their actual constituents back home, but of their party organizations. The Republican party, being no longer "conservative" in any real sense, has already destroyed itself at its very base. Outside of partisan politics, of winning elections, of gaining and consolidating power (to what purpose???), it thinks of nothing at all.

Anyhoot, it seems we are in a state of flux. Christians need to step up their game. On this point, as on most, I totally agree with Dr. Carson.

Thank you so very much, bert, for your excellent observations!