Ben Carson political views

In 1987, a neurosurgeon from Detroit became the first person to separate twins conjoined at the head and have them both survive. That doctor, Ben Carson, now devotes much of his energy to politics, where he is a conservative favorite. In his new book, “One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future, ” Carson lays out his vision for eliminating the divisiveness in politics today and revitalizing America. He recently spoke with U.S. News about building a more educated, literate populace and tackling some of the country’s major challenges. Excerpts:

What is the biggest problem facing our nation today?

The reason I titled the book “One Nation” is to emphasize the fact that our strength comes from our unity. And yet we have elements today that drive a wedge into any small crack that they can find to create a war – a war on women, race wars, age wars, income wars, religious wars, any kind of war that’s possible. Our system does work. It works extremely well. But we have to stop fighting each other.

In one of your chapters, you write about how a highway cleanup crew mirrors our political landscape. What do you mean by that?

Here was a group of people who normally don’t work together, don’t really care what the other is doing, and they discovered that, by working efficiently together, they could get a great deal done. They managed to get a lot more done than any other crew, and in the process of working together, they became a very cohesive force. That’s very much the same thing that has the possibility of happening in our society.

What are some steps that individuals can follow to help achieve a stronger society?

One of the big things I encourage people to do is read. If people spent half an hour a day reading, in a year’s time they would be different people. The other thing is talk. We have a tendency to clam up because we don’t want anybody to be offended. We need to get out of that mentality. Instead of being politically correct in everything we say and trying to censor everything we say, we need to be learning how to talk without taking offense, learning to respect what other people have to say, and be able to take a stand from our position.