Ben Carson Praises ISIS, Like U.S. Founding Fathers ‘Willing To Die For What They Believe’

Ben Carson, the 63-year-old former neurosurgeon who plans to run for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, startled an audience of Republican National Committee members Thursday by seeming to praise the terrorist organization ISIS, aka the so-called Islamic State, for its determination refusal to bow to “political correctness.”

Carson, who has done everything but officially declare his candidacy for president, has been known for making similarly extreme and bizarre comparisons in the past, only to laugh off criticism of his strange analogies as politically motivated attacks.

In 2013, Carson — a health care professional himself — referred to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.”

He also called the health care reform law worse than the 9/11 terrorist attacks because “9/11 was an isolated incident.”

In perhaps his most notorious use of the overheated analogy as a rhetorical device, Carson declared the United States to be “very much like Nazi Germany,” because, according to Carson, “we now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe.”

At his speech on Thursday, though Carson noted that he believes ISIS has “got the wrong philosophy,” he expressed admiration for the paramilitary terrorist group because its members, he said, are “willing to die for what they believe.”

Carson even appeared to compare ISIS to the United States’ own founding fathers, who fought America’s war of independence from Great Britain.

“A bunch of rag tag militiamen defeated the most powerful and professional military force on the planet. Why? Because they believed in what they were doing,” said Carson, in a reference to the early American colonists who rebelled against rule by the British crown.

“Fast forward to today. What do we have? You’ve got ISIS. They’ve got the wrong philosophy, but they’re willing to die for it while we are busily giving away every belief and every value for the sake of political correctness. We have to change that.”

Carson seemed to understand that his comments would generate media attention, adding that it would be “ridiculous” to accuse him of comparing ISIS to the early American patriots — though that is manifestly what he did do.

“Now I recognize that there’s press here and some of the press will say, ‘Carson said that ISIS is the same as the United States,'” Ben Carson said. “They are just so ridiculous, so ridiculous.”