Ben Carson repeats dubious Stalin quote about bringing down America in CBS debate 13&14FEB16 & All statements involving Ben Carson

dr ben carson may be a great doctor. He says he is a Christian, and his faith and his consistent references to Jesus in his campaign for the 2016 republican nomination for president are admirable but inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ. He seems to be not only an unapologetic liar but a hypocritical liar because he was so angry about ted cruz lying about him (carson) ending his campaign right before the Iowa caucuses. A liar getting angry at another liar abut telling lies about him for his own political gain. Quite a witness!!! Here is another of ben carson's lies, from +PolitiFact , followed by all the ben carson statements investigated by PolitiFact. He has 0 True, 1 Mostly True, 3 Half True, 7 Mostly False, 12 False and 4 Pants On Fire statrments, all made for his own political gain......

  

Says "Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you, have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality."

— Ben Carson on Saturday, February 13th, 2016 in a GOP debate on CBS

Ben Carson repeats dubious Stalin quote about bringing down America in CBS debate

By Lauren Carroll on Sunday, February 14th, 2016 at 12:00 a.m.

Ben Carson invoked one of America’s most notorious foes in his closing statement at the Feb. 13 Republican presidential debate in South Carolina.

"I, like you, am a member of ‘we, the people,’ " Carson said, addressing the audience. "And we know that our country is heading off the cliff. Joseph Stalin said, ‘If you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality.’ We, the people, can stop that decline."

The problem is that in all likelihood, this is not a real quote from the former Soviet leader. Stalin led the communist nation from the 1920s until his death in 1953, and it is believed that millions died during his regime.

Searches for the quote do not turn up in any history books, scholarly works or primary sources. Mostly it’s just social media sharables with the quote text next to a picture of Stalin.

Our friends over at Snopes looked into a similar quote and concluded that it’s "highly unlikely that Stalin ever spoke these words." It seems dubious that Stalin would say something like this, as the quote, in a sense, compliments America for its strengths, Snopes noted.

We searched through an online Stalin Archive and an online librarycompiled by the University of Pennsylvania. Our searches came up empty.

It’s unclear where this quote originated. The earliest use of the quote Snopes found was in a 1983 letter to the editor in a Kansas newspaper.

It’s possible that Stalin said this quote in a speech or in a letter that was never translated into English or never put on the Internet. But the burden is on Carson to back up his words with evidence.

If new evidence pops up to the contrary, we’ll revisit this article.

We reached out to Carson’s campaign but haven’t heard back.

Our ruling

Carson quoted Stalin as saying, "If you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality."

All signs point to this being a fake quote that has made its way around the Internet.

We rate Carson’s claim Pants on Fire.

About this statement:

Published: Sunday, February 14th, 2016 at 12:00 a.m.

Researched by: Lauren Carroll

Edited by: Katie Sanders

Subjects: Foreign Policy

Sources:

Snopes, "Joseph Stalin described America as a healthy body with three fold resistance,"November 2011

Marxists.org, Stalin Internet Archive, accessed Feb. 13, 2016

University of Pennsylvania, Stalin online books library, accessed Feb. 13, 2016

• All statements involving Ben Carson

Where did it come from?

BEN CARSON

Says "Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you, have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality."

— PolitiFact National

Only some of those pages have rules in them

BEN CARSON

"Last year, there were an additional 81,000 pages of government regulations. If you stack that up, it would be a three-story building."

— PolitiFact National

Not on any government list

BEN CARSON

"The Family Research Council, according to some government agencies, is a terrorist group."

— PolitiFact National

An unhistorical claim

BEN CARSON

Says Thomas Jefferson helped "craft" the Constitution.

— PolitiFact Virginia

Ability exists, but not foolproof

BEN CARSON

"There is currently no ability to vet these people," referring to Syrian refugees.

— PolitiFact National

The White House, China and experts say no

BEN CARSON

"The Chinese are there" in Syria.

— PolitiFact National

Distorting a complicated situation

BEN CARSON

Says Hillary Clinton told her daughter and a government official that Benghazi "was a terrorist attack, and then tells everybody else that it was a video."  

— PolitiFact National

Sometimes it rises, sometimes it falls

BEN CARSON

"Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases."

— PolitiFact National

Phrase appears on website, but isn't accurate

BEN CARSON

"Go look on the West Point website and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point.’ So even though it is, you know, given as a grant for anybody who gets in, those words are used."  

— PolitiFact National

Claim is no more correct after editing

BEN CARSON

"Every signer of the Declaration of Independence had no federal elected office experience."

— PolitiFact National

Using his own math, there's a hole

BEN CARSON

Says his tax plan wouldn't leave the federal government with a $1.1 trillion hole.

— PolitiFact National

The only estimate, but it's not very reliable

BEN CARSON

Among manufacturers with fewer than 50 employees, "the average cost in terms of regulations is $34,000 per employee."  

— PolitiFact National

If by "no involvement" he means ringing endorsement

BEN CARSON

Says he "didn’t have an involvement with" nutritional supplement company Mannatech.

— PolitiFact National

A mix of bad history and bad math

BEN CARSON

"German citizens were disarmed by their government in the late 1930s," which allowed the Nazis to "carry out their evil intentions with relatively little resistance."    

— PolitiFact National

There was no 1968 bad guys club

BEN CARSON

"In the class of 1968 at Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, Mahmoud Abbas was one of the members of that class, and so was Ali Khamenei. And that's where they first established relationships with the young Vladimir Putin."

— PolitiFact National

Evidence doesn't support claim

BEN CARSON

Birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger "believed that people like me should be eliminated."

— PolitiFact New Hampshire

Most apprehensions are from Mexico and Central America

BEN CARSON

When ICE releases illegal immigrants, "a lot of those people are not from Honduras and Mexico. They’re from Iraq and Somalia and Russia."  

— PolitiFact Florida

Oversimplified beyond recognition

BEN CARSON

"We've had examples like in Yuma County, where we've been able to stop 97 percent of the illegal (immigration) flow, and those programs, they abolish."

— PolitiFact National

There are some exceptions

BEN CARSON

There is not "one of the Muslim nations" that doesn't have "discrimination against women, discrimination against gays, subjugation of other religious beliefs."

— PolitiFact National

Immunizations don't exist for trivial illnesses

BEN CARSON

There are a "multitude" of vaccines that do not prevent deadly and crippling diseases.

— PolitiFact Georgia

Leading medical experts agree on vaccination schedule

BEN CARSON

Pediatricians have cut down on the number and proximity of vaccines because they recognize there have been "too many in too short a period of time."  

— PolitiFact Florida

Defining border security is subjective

BEN CARSON

Says "56 percent of (the U.S.-Mexico) border is not under our control."

— PolitiFact National

Data lacking, but trend is real for younger Americans

BEN CARSON

The number of people who "believe in socialism ... is increasing."

— PolitiFact National

More like a promise not to attack

BEN CARSON

"Ukraine was a nuclear-armed state. They gave away their nuclear arms with the understanding that we would protect them."

— PolitiFact National

Not enough criminal justice figures available for 18-24 age group

BEN CARSON

"There are more young black males involved in the criminal justice system than there are in higher education."  

— PolitiFact Wisconsin

More, but not double

BEN CARSON

"We spent twice as much per capita for health care in this country as the next closest nation."

— PolitiFact New Hampshire

A researcher called the claim 'insane'

BEN CARSON

"A lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay."

— PolitiFact National

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