Joycelyn Elders Quotes
My biggest challenge is to educate the American people, to make access to health care available for all, and to make sure that prevention plays a big part in health care. In the case of guns, prevention means we prevent homicides and devastating, expensive gun injuries by preventing those who shouldn't have guns from getting their hands on guns.
Elders, Joycelyn, and David Chanoff. Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper's Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America. William Morrow, 1996.
That particular Libertarian platform called for the abolition / repeal of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Federal election Commission and campaign finance laws. Extreme radical ideas such as this are not typical of Libertarian Party positions before or afterwards. The quotation illustrates that there are people in America who would end public education if they could. The quotation also illustrates how a small cadre of people can capture control of a political party and create a platform that is their own personal views which may be different from most of the party members or the historical position that the party has taken. In 1980 the Libertarian Party Vice Presidential Candidate was David Koch, one half of the billionaire conservative Koch brothers. Their money financed the Libertarian Party in that year and David Koch’s views then prevailed in the party platform. Historically, the Koch brothers moved from a minor third party to the Republican party at the beginning of the 21st century when their money was able to help drive the party very far to the right from the traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
Minnie Joycelyn Elders is an American pediatrician and public health administrator who served as Surgeon General of the United States from 1993 to 1994. A vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, she was the second woman, second person of color, and first African American to serve as Surgeon General. Elders is best known for her frank discussion of her views on controversial issues such as drug legalization, masturbation, and distributing contraception in schools. She was forced to resign in December 1994 amidst controversy as a result of her views. She is currently a professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
