Has anyone else noticed that Sarah Palin has the unique ability to take a complex, difficult issue and boil it down to an emotional, meaningless, rabble-rousing discussion about nothing in particular?

Instead of  having a reasonable discussion about how best to improve, change, or not change the current health care system Palin makes a speech about how Obama wants “death panels” to decide that her son should be killed. This is not helpful, all this acomplishes is make people angry.  Obama doesn’t want death panels anymore than he wants to outlaw guns.  Obama makes a speech about the possibility of banning assault weapons and rednecks dash to the local gun/ pawn shop to purchase more weapons and ammo than they could ever possibly use. Conservatives have seem to have decided that it is  best to cater to the lowest common denominator in America and scare people so that they run to the Republicans for shelter from the tyrannical Democrats. Who wants to go to all the trouble of raising the intellectual level of the common political discourse to anything above the angry chanting of a mob? The saddest part of this whole scenario is that conservatism doesn’t need to sink to this level. The thinking that leads to conclusions like ” the government isn’t the solution, its the problem ” are sound and reasonable. They are supported by common sense, history, and the reality of living in the modern era.

Why are conservatives running and hiding? Conservative principals haven’t failed, they have just failed to be marketed successfully to the American people for the last decade or so. Mostly because we had a Republican president that held to almost no conservative principals while doing a poor job of communicating the reasoning behind the few conservative policies he did adhere to.

So how does conservatism get back on track?

1. Ignore that anti-intellectual ravings of political opportunists like Sarah Palin.

2. Focus on issues, not labels.

3. Don’t just shoot down Democratic ideas, present alternatives.

I know that having a mature, reasonable discussion about issues that are important to the American people is a novel idea, but I’m really hoping it catches on soon. I know it will be tough, a few 24 hr news networks may need to go out of business. Lots of Americans who aren’t used to thinking for themselves are going to have to stop getting angry about random headlines. The real tragety in all this is that if we start having intelligent discussions about issues Sarah Palin, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton are all going to have to get jobs. But trust me, it will all be worth it.