The enemy?

It is hard not to love the music of Hank Williams, Jr. I think I always have. Growing up in South Carolina in the 1980’s it seemed there was always something that related his lyrics to the lives we were living. And, it was fun that he went mainstream American with his, “Are you ready for some football?” each week before a big game.

It is also hard to believe that, with his prolifically checkered past, Hank would be taken seriously as a spokesperson for any political insight. And, I don’t think that his recent rant about President Obama and Hitler should be taken seriously. It should fall away quietly as a tree falling in the forest.

However, there is one thing that sticks with me from his comments, and I just can’t get around it. In his tirade, Ole’ Hank said that the President is “the enemy.” The enemy. That single statement equated the President of the United States to King George, Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, Ho Chi Mihn, and Sadaam Hussein. He said that our elected leader didn’t just have a different view on governing, he said our President was trying to do us harm.

Don’t try to act naïve at this point because we know that it is not just his sentiment, it is what we hear from too many people in America these days. And, this isn’t just a recent phenomenon. Those sentiments were prevalent from the right when Bill Clinton was president and from the left when George W. Bush was president.

Such thoughts aren’t only unseemly, they are what our political system preys upon to drive us farther apart in what should be our only bond ... we are all Americans. We must come together today as we’ve had to in our glorious past to meet our great challenges, but we’re told that anyone who doesn’t agree with us is “the enemy.” Those kinds of thoughts are un-American.

I don’t blame Ole’ Hank for his tirade, but I do blame the media-political culture that has let that kind of thought flourish. The other party is not the enemy, they represent a different point-of-view.

Now is the time for the people in the middle to stake out that ground and say that we won’t stand for the vilification or hatred anymore. It’s time that we say we are proud Americans: no matter who’s in charge.