Nobody can say the man doesn't stick by his principles:
Dr. Ben Carson has taken flak for saying former NFL player Ray Rice shouldn't be demonized, but he stood by the comments in an appearance on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" on Thursday.
Carson made the original comments to Newsmax TV's "Steve Malzberg Show" on Monday.
Bill O'Reilly noted that Carson is a doctor and rightfully wants to heal whatever is wrong with Rice for punching his then-fiancee and leaving her unconscious. But, he added, "Shouldn't we demonize him and others like him to send a message that his can't happen in America, this kind of violence?"
"I'm not sure that demonizing people is ever the right thing to do," Carson responded. "That doesn't mean I don't think that appropriate punishment shouldn’t be given. … There are consequences for bad behavior, but you also need to recognize that these are human beings."
In a nutshell, O'Reilly is talking deterrent justice, and Dr. Carson is talking compassionate justice. Personally, I'm not sure which is preferable, or that they're necessarily mutually exclusive. But if I had to pick one or the other, I'd have to side with Dr. Carson, for practical reasons.
I get what O'Reilly is saying about "sending a message," but I have to wonder whether that message would be received by making an example of Rice. Remember that there are at least two mitigating and/or complicating factors at play in his case: (1) He's a famous pro athlete. If he had been "Ray Rice, grade school janitor," or "Ray Rice, gang-banger," nobody would have ever heard of Ray Rice, known what he did to his then-fiancée, or frankly cared all that much. It would have been an invisible statistic, not a national story. That class difference matters; it's difficult to see actual peons and nobodies being deterred from "this kind of violence" by drilling a guy who could buy a hundred of them just from his pocket change. Why? (2) The race angle. "Demonize" Ray Rice and how do you avoid the usual tiresome charge that it's being done because he's black? Certainly that seems to be the direction in which the Rices's argument is moving. And once they "go there," to the "rescue" will come galloping the Black Klan (Al Sharpton, Double-J, the CBC, etc.) and Eric "The Red" Holder and Barack Obama to claim another figurative "son he never had". Don't think so? Why not? Mrs. Rice is backing her husband, and even an "Uncle Tom" like Dr. Carson is urging leniency. And with all that waters-muddying, how would that send Bill O'Reilly's "message"?
Domestic violence shouldn't happen, but it does, and it does because of a lot of reasons the Left doesn't want to hear: their war against the family, their war against marriage, the welfare state. Men are rendered useless dunsels, not raised and taught to be gentlemen and providers and protectors and to have self-control, the roles into which natural male aggression and drive and ambition are supposed to be channeled. Is every marriage idyllic? Hell, no. Every couple clashes, argues, fights from time to time. I have no idea about what the Rices were arguing that night seven months ago, but whatever it was, and whatever Mrs. Rice was saying on that elevator, it did not and could not justify Ray Rice socking her unconscious. Period.
Or, as the Apostle Paul put it:
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
But husbands must be taught this as boys - or, to quote King Solomon, "Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it." Perfectly? No. But he won't be using his spouse for a punching bag, either.
Exit thought: Why did Ray Rice not hold an "apology presser" right after this happened in February? Like when Kobe Bryant called a press conference to admit his infidelity after that Eagle, Colorado, hotel worker accused him of rape in 2003, or when Tiger Woods called one after Skankgate broke? Public apologies and contrition from wayward celebrities go a long way in this post-Christian culture in covering their multitude of sins, no matter how phony they are. And Bryant's and Woods's careers continued on, more or less unabated, didn't they? Might be late in the game for such a gambit, but what does the ex-Ravens running back have to lose? He'd have said he was sorry - what more would "lynchers" like Bill O'Reilly want?
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