America has a lot to be proud about. We’re one big badass melting pot of free speech and good teeth. Occasionally, there’s a turd in the punch bowl. This week’s embarrassment: country singer Hank Williams, Jr., and his political rant on “Fox and Friends” Monday morning.

Williams compared President Obama’s golf outing with Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker John Boehner and Ohio governor John Kasich in June at the height of the debt deal debate to “Hitler playing golf with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

The entertainer said he was not a fan of parties coming together to find compromise, calling the bi-partisan golf game “one of the biggest political mistakes ever.”

Williams also called Obama and Biden “the Three Stooges” and “the enemy.” Judging from his body language and inability to control the varying volume of his voice, the singer was most likely drunk. At least I hope he was. If not, then he’s just really stupid.

This high profile case of ignorance is yet another example of the blind fear that unfortunately still pervades our country. Despite most people being rational and reasonable politically, there are still intellectual goons among us who choose to live like it’s 1954.

Some treat minorities unequally, some use the n-word and some are even running for president. A recent Winthrop poll showed that 36 percent of South Carolina Republicans still think Obama was born outside the United States, and 30 percent still believe he’s Muslim.

Calling a public figure Hitler — a man who murdered millions of people — is nothing new. Uneducated fear mongers have compared political leaders they oppose to the Nazi dictator for years. Three years ago George W. Bush was Hitler.

Perhaps more annoying than living like it’s 1954 is living like it’s the book of Revelation. Many people throw the term “antichrist” at politicians like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. Many polarizing people throughout history have been falsely labeled the antichrist: Napoleon, every pope, Saddam Hussein, even Prince William. The current flavor of the month is now Barack Obama. (I also like Mitt Romney’s chances — that plastic face has antichrist written all over it.)

To put the Biblical term into context, the antichrist is an individual who will rise to power, unite the world against God and usher in the end of the world. While I personally do not think the president is either Satan’s agent of evil or Adolf Hitler, there are actually people who do. That is the true horror at hand.

As timid as Williams’ comparison seems, it is just the sort of idiocy that needs to stop being tolerated if we are going to continue progressing as a race. The same stupid-cowboy routine that worked for Ricky Bobby in “Talladega Nights” does not fly in the real world. If Williams knows what’s good for him, he’ll stop talking politics and stick to his almighty bread and butter — singing about football teams on Monday nights.

Contact Mike Crissman at [email protected].