Most people celebrate veteran's day by displaying gratitude toward servicemen and women. Applebees celebrates veteran's day by offering free meals to veterans. President Obama celebrated veteran's day by visiting the sailors aboard the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier where they were gathered for a basketball game on the deck.
Mitt Romney celebrated veteran's day by calling for the privatization of veteran's healthcare, while Tennessee state rep. Rick Womick celebrated by advocating that we purge all Muslims from the U.S. military before they have a chance to assassinate him.
FANG: What about the thousands of Muslims that are still in the military that are veterans, that are translators, that are active personnel. Is there some sort of policy solution that you’re advocating? […]
WOMICK: Personally, I don’t trust one Muslim in our military because they’re commanded to lie to us through the term called Taqiyya. And if they truly are a devout Muslim, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me.
CLIFTON: You believe they should be forced out?
WOMICK: Absolutely, yeah.
Here you have an elected state rep. essentially conveying that he is afraid. That what keeps him up at night is the idea that Muslims in the military have been commanded to kill him, and if given a chance, they would.
It must be exhausting to be so afraid all the time.
Rick Womick is not speaking rationally. He's speaking out of fear. He is not alone though, as the entire Republican party speaks out of fear, and nearly all of their policy positions are rooted in it. Fear of the gay, the communist, the socialist, the immigrant, the Muslim, the liberal. Fear of "the other." Fear of diminished social status.
All of that fear eventually turns into resentment, and the result is today's Republican party whose policy agenda is centered around going on the offensive against all those who they see as a threat to their own way of life. A cycle that is exemplified by men like State Representative Rick Womick (R-TN) who wishes to see Muslims banned from serving their country before they can take a shot at him, as if he's that important.