Civil Political Discourse -- Southern Utah Style

How marvelous! St. Georgians exercised their freedom to assemble this 4th of July by having one of many National "Tea" Parties. Unfortunately, due to my camping trip to Lake Powell, I was unable to attend. Thankfully the crack squad of reporters from the Daily Spectrum were there to cover the meaningful, civil discourse between angry conservatives and a snarky Washington County Democratic Party Chair.

Washington County Democratic Party Chairman Cyril Noble braved a hostile crowd when he stood at the microphone and said, "Repeat after me, 'Obama - a two-term president.'"

Amid a growing chorus of boos and shouts of "Traitor!" and "Go home!" Noble said, "He is doing the best he can."

Noble noted his own accent, saying, "I am an American. ... I am an immigrant, which you don't like."

Someone in the crowd called, "Sounds like he's trying to be a victim, to me."

I don't know if it is the snarky liberal, or the bitter, angry, and phobic conservatives -- but events like this are so obnoxious. The liberal used ad hominem arguments, and baiting tactics and the local conservatives were simply parroting conservative talk radio pundits. It is the same old story -- too many Americans have political myopia.

This was my favorite:

Seven-year-old Fox Barrett was one of the speakers to raise his voice against the president from the microphone.

"I'm a conservative, and I just want to say to Obama, 'Stop stealing my future,'" he said.

"He's been wanting to do this since April," said his father, Brett Barrett, while the pair waited in line.

"So he's going to exercise his First Amendment rights, then we're going to go home and exercise our Second Amendment rights," he said, indicating they were going to go shooting at the local firing range.

All right, way to push political ideology on your seven year old! What kid wouldn't want to spend his 4th of July hanging out with awnry old farts?

I am sorry if this offends any of the attendees, but the lack of civil, intelligent political discourse is one of the greatest stumbling blocks for our state and nation. We need to open our eyes, pay a little less attention to pundits, give a little more consideration to what problems need to be addressed, and figure out which elected officials are most likely to present real solutions to those problems.