News

4 Ben Carson Positions Kanye Shouldn't Agree With

by Lauren Holter

At the MTV Video Music Awards last month, Kanye West announced that he wants to run for president in 2020. And since then, he's actually gotten pretty serious about it. In an interview with Vanity Fair, West said, "I’ve got five years before I go and run for office and I’ve got a lot of research to do, I’ve got a lot of growing up to do." In the meantime, it's unclear whom he will vote for in 2016 — West and Kim Kardashian took a selfie with Hillary Clinton in August, but the rapper also looks up to Ben Carson. West told Vanity Fair, "As soon as I heard [Ben] Carson speak, I tried for three weeks to get on the phone with him. I was like this is the most brilliant guy." While the GOP candidate is doing well in polls, there are some positions Carson holds which West shouldn't agree with... and neither should anyone else.

West's support for Carson is especially baffling, since Carson and Clinton are polar opposites. Maybe he was just photobombing a Clinton/Kardashian selfie, but Clinton's Instagram caption read "new friends," implying that she met with both stars. If his attraction to Carson is an attempt to find a more moderate presidential candidate, then the retired neurosurgeon isn't the answer, as he's very, very conservative.

Here are four Carson positions West (and all humans) shouldn't agree with.

Taxes

Carson's plan for reforming the nation's tax code is to mimic Biblical tithing, having everyone pay 10 percent of their income. During the first GOP debate in August, Carson said, "I think God is a pretty fair guy ... That's why I've advocated proportional tax system. Everybody gets treated the same way." Is Carson familiar with a little thing called the separation of church and state?

Poverty

Carson believes that the way to end poverty in America is through developing personal relationships. In an interview with Fox Business Network, Carson said, "We spent over $19 trillion eradicating poverty. Has it worked? ... What we do know that works is that [when] people take an interest in other people and they invest in them and personal relationships develop — that’s what brings people out of poverty." Which is definitely a great idea on a smaller scale, but it's unclear how he expects these relationships to form, or who's even involved in them.

Black Lives Matter

The presidential candidate apparently doesn't know a single person who's racist or understand how institutionalized racism effects many people of color. Carson told Breitbart News in August: "I don’t know anybody who doesn’t think black lives matter — I mean, that’s a given." It should be a given, but unfortunately, it's not for many. He also has a problem with the Black Lives Matter movement's slogan, thinking that it should be "All Black Lives Matter" to include "the ones being exterminated by abortionists." The movement is clearly focused on police brutality against black Americans, but Carson takes any opportunity to bring up his pro-life agenda.

Fetal Tissue Research

Carson joined the Republican fight to defund Planned Parenthood after hidden-camera videos "revealed" that the company participates in legal medical research that uses fetal tissue. But whether you #StandWithPP or are appalled by fetal tissue research, Carson has the most confusing position on the issue. As a former doctor, he used fetal tissue in a 1992 study, yet he claimed in an interview that there's "nothing that can’t be done without fetal tissue." Carson told The Washington Post, "If you’re killing babies and taking the tissue, that’s a very different thing than taking a dead specimen and keeping a record of it." So he's not actually against all fetal tissue research, but he still wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

Images: Giphy (4)