ST. GEORGE — Former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary and retired neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson spoke to hundreds of people at the Dixie Convention Center in St. George Saturday evening as a part of the annual Lincoln Day Dinner event.

Carson was the keynote speaker at the event hosted by the Washington County Republican Party and is the latest in a growing list of high-profile conservatives brought in for an event known for reaffirming and celebrating conservative principles.

Previous speakers have included conservative radio host Dennis Prager and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. Candace Owens was also featured at an event hosted by the county Republican Party last summer.

Prior to Carson’s addressing the packed ballroom of the Dixie Center, attendees heard from local, state and federal level officials.

A common theme among them was a desire to see the United States return to being an oil producer and exporter as it was under the former President Donald Trump. They also spoke what they described as the ever-increasing divide between conservative and liberal camps.

“We need energy independence”

Sen. Mike Lee was the first to address the crowd, and said an energy independent America would help frustrate Russia’s war against Ukraine as a part of the Russian economy is built on that county’s own oil exports.

“None of this would have ever happened if we were exporting substantial quantities of oil and natural gas; if we continue continued our energy independence started under the previous administration,” Lee said. “Tonight I call upon the president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden, to open up the Keystone XL Pipeline and end the ban on oil and gas exploration.”

Biden ended the Keystone XL Pipeline project in one of many executive orders he signed his first day as president. He has also canceled oil and natural gas leases across the country. The lack of oil production in the country has also been one of the factors conservatives blame for the current state of inflation.

Gov. Spencer Cox agreed with Lee, adding that Utah had over 700 oil and natural gas leases under the Trump administration that were then stopped when Biden took office. No new leases have been approved while ones that had already been in the works were recently canceled.

“That is why we’re seeing so much inflation and that is why (Vladimir) Putin holds so much control over Europe. It’s allowed a madman to do his bidding,” Cox said. “We can change that. We can change it overnight… We need energy independence.”

Rep. Chris Stewart addressed dinner through a video due to being unable attend the event in person. He held a town hall earlier in the week where he addressed the Ukraine issue and other matters.

Washington County Commission Gil Almquist, state Rep. Walt Brooks and state Sen. Even Vickers also spoke at the event.

The difference has never been clearer

Both Lee and Cox also spoke to the growing divide between the right and the left.

“They ask us to say yes to things that are horrible,” Lee said, noting a call by some Democrats to increase the size of the Supreme Court. “In that circumstance, we must say, ‘no’ emphatically, resoundingly and without hesitation.”

Cox said he believes there will be a “red wave” in November because people are becoming fed up with Democrat policies, particularly those related to COVID-19.

“The difference between red states and blue states have never been clearer,” the governor said.

Cox went on to tout Utah’s rating high in job creation despite the pandemic and not shutting down as other states had. He also mentioned how Utah kept its children in schools, which drew applause.

Dr. Ben Carson

Carson grew up in a single-parent household in Detroit. Challenged by his late mother, he developed a life-long love of learning, and excelled in high school. He went on to attend Yale University and the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

After graduation, he moved his young family to Baltimore to complete his residency training at John Hopkins University Medical Center – where he would go on to direct pediatric neurosurgery for 29 years.

In 2008, Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, the highest civilian honor in the country. He is the author of numerous best-selling books, ran for president in 2016, and served as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He is married to Candy Carson, and together they have five children and five grandchildren.

Carson spoke to many issues Saturday evening. Among them were repeated references to his faith in God and the need for conservatives to stand up and counteract forces seeking to tear down America from within.

Trump and faith in God

“President Trump and I are friends,” Carson said when asked about his relationship with the former president. He said Trump is a very personable man when he wasn’t being attacked by others.

“God can use anyone and knows when and where to use them,” Carson said of Trump while also referencing his own faith in God, which he did repeatedly throughout his speech.

Carson gave credit to the Almighty for helping him overcome a violent temper so he could progress down the path to becoming a doctor. He also said he believe God directed him to run for president.

“God doesn’t not give you something and not expect you to do something with it in return,” he said. This concept tied into an overall theme Carson shared about conservatives needing to stand up and be more proactive about defending their own ideals and countering leftist ideologies that would teach people to react to situations more like animals than rational human beings.

People can’t stand in a corner

“This (nation) is the beacon of freedom and liberty throughout the world,” Carson said. “That is in jeopardy right night now.”

Part of the threat to liberty and freedom, as Carson described it, is elements in public education that would push critical race theory on children. It teaches white children that they are evil oppressors and Black child that they are victims, he said. It is one piece of an over all effort to tear down the current system through spreading hatred and division so it can be replaced with something else, Carson said.

“Our nation is far too strong” for places like Russia or China to take us down, he said, “but we can be taken down from within.”

Carson then cited President Abraham Lincoln’s saying “a house divided cannot stand.”

“People can’t stand in the county and keep their heads down, afraid someone will call them a nasty name,” he said. “Sometimes you just have to do what is right… You cannot be a land of the free if you are not the home of the brave.”

This sentiment was echoed in Carson’s answer to a question about how Republicans could appeal more to minorities and people of color. He said they need to be more aggressive when pushed by the propaganda that Democrats and the mainstream media spew about the Republican Party.

After all, Carson said, it was the Republican Party that was an anti-slavery party at time of the Civil War, and it was the Republican Party that helped push through civil rights.

Growing up in Detroit and attending various schools where being liberal was the norm, Carson said he was a Democrat for a long time. Circumstances involving some of his patient began to change his mind and he eventually began listening to a certain Republican share his conservative ideals.

“This man isn’t racist,” he said, “He sounds like my mother.”

It turned out that man was Ronald Reagan, which drew a loud round of applause from the crowd.

“If all the good people fear to act then who is left to act?” Carson asked. “We have to speak out against these things.”

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