"Democracy is messy." — Donald Rumsfeld

It's hard to determine who are the most na?e — the people who readily accept as gospel truth any anti-health-care reform argument they read on the Internet, or President Barack Obama's health-reform supporters who wring their hands and complain about how obnoxious and boorish people are at town hall meetings.

But the White House and Democratic leaders would have us believe there was some time in U.S. history when politically charged people met in public to debate a contentious issue calmly and rationally, politely considering all sides before calmly walking home to choose sides in the quiet of their studies.

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about U.S. history, and I can't think of such a time. Beginning with the Whiskey Rebellion and continuing through issues such as slavery, the draft (during the Civil War and through Vietnam), the gold standard, numerous tax increases and President George W. Bush's decision to attack Iraq, public debate has consisted of protests, shouts and vented anger; sometimes — unfortunately — even violence.

So when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refers to the people who have been loudly disrupting town hall meetings as "simply un-American," I wonder in which America she has been living.

It couldn't be the America I saw in 2006, when Rocky Anderson, as mayor of Salt Lake, staged loud protests around City Hall against Bush, who happened to be visiting the city that day.

This newspaper's editorial page had plenty to say about that, including that Anderson was embarrassing the city and diminishing his office. But the paper never once called him un-American. In fact, it acknowledged he had every right, as an American, to do what he did.

As do the people who have raised ruckuses at recent town hall meetings. Are these people boorish, loud, obnoxious and, in many cases, ill-informed? Yes. Are many of them uninterested in hearing what members of Congress really have to say in defense of health-care reform? Yes.

But consider another manifestation of this democratic spirit — the one that took place in Utah's Jordan School District last week. Were some of the people who showed up at a hearing to protest a proposed tax increase boorish, loud, obnoxious and, in many ways, ill-informed? Yes. Were many of them uninterested in hearing what school board members really had to say in defense of the tax hike? Yes.