I’ve been deeply troubled lately by the growing intolerance and divisiveness I see in my country. 

My own search for my roots has for years led me to a fascination to the man I consider the wisest Republican president next to Abraham Lincoln: Dwight Eisenhower. After leading the world’s greatest fighting force to victory in World War II, Eisenhower went on to become the ultimate “peace” president. He rejected two calls by military leaders to use nuclear weapons. He brought the Korean conflict to a close, and for eight years, no American died at war. During all this, we enjoyed remarkable prosperity.

But intolerance was in fashion as well.

In June 1953, five months before I was born, Ike was about to give the commencement address at Dartmouth College when he learned from a friend on the podium that books allegedly written to promote communism were being burned at the urging of Sen. Joe McCarthy. This concerned the Republican president so much that he added this to his prepared speech:

They are part of America. And even if they think ideas that are contrary to ours, their right to say them, their right to record them, and their right to have them at places where they are accessible to others is unquestioned, or it isn’t America.

This is one Republican who, more than ever, needs to be heard.

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would never hear of that party again. There is a tiny splinter group that believes you can do these things. Among them are H.L. Hunt [and] a few other Texas millionaires. But their number is negligible and they are stupid.”

Dwight Eisenhower (R)
President of the United States 1953-1961

I have only been truly afraid of the weather one time in my life: April 27, 2011. We were watching the webcam images of the massive funnel cloud bearing down on Tuscaloosa, knowing that the line of storms was headed in our direction, just 50 miles down the road.

The storms seemed so powerful I feared that even those who sought shelter might die.

Indeed, it turns out they did. The Centers for Disease Control, which has identified 255 Alabamians who died in the tornadoes on that day, set out to find out how many of those had been warned. Obviously, it’s impossible to know whether they were all warned, but they were able to determine one way or another for 120 of them. Of those 120, 70 heeded the warnings and took shelter.

Yet, all died.

Entire towns were destroyed. Hackleburg seems to have been abandoned and looks a lot like it did a week after the storms hit. The small town of Pleasant Grove had 358 homes wiped out. Only about one-third of those have been rebuilt, or have even begun construction.

It’s hard to get away from the statistics, so there’s no need to repeat them here.

But the people of Alabama have shown remarkable strength. Our churches and civic organizations have continued to plug away, sending in teams of volunteers day after day, and they show no sign of slowing down.

Whatever else you can say about Alabama, the people here are strong and determined.

I had an intriguing conversation the other day with a couple of friends who, like me, are finding it difficult to find a comfortable spot on the current political spectrum. All of us had formerly identified as Republicans but now find ourselves out of step with the party’s current positions.

That prompted me to think back to a time when I fit clearly into the Republic mainstream: 1976. It was the year I graduated from college, and the presidential race featured Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Both were good men who had my respect for different reasons. Ford had done a great deal to bring the country back together after the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon out of office. He had become president by accident, never having run on a ticket for president or vice president. His pardon of Nixon (who had not been formally charged with any crimes) helped us put Watergate behind us, but a lot of folks felt cheated. That no doubt cost him the election. To get some handle on how I ended up where I am today, I’ve done a little soul searching on two critical areas driving public policy (and my vote): Taxes/Economy and Foreign Policy.

Taxes/Economy

In 1976, a married couple making $200,000 (inflation-adjusted), filing jointly, had a marginal tax rate of 53%. The highest marginal rate kicked in at $788,000. (Again, it’s important to remember I’m using inflation adjusted numbers.) The economy was about as big a mess as it is now. Unemployment ran just under 8% (it’s 8.3% now), and inflation was much worse. In his speech accepting the nomination, Ford didn’t utter a word about cutting taxes. Today, the marginal tax rate is 35% — exactly half what it was then. And as has been widely pointed out recently, loopholes allow many wealthy individuals — including President Obama, Mitt Romney and Warren Buffett, to pay far less. In short, the tax structure was in line with historical standards. It seemed OK with Ford, and I had no complaints.

Tax-cutting has now passed out of the realm of public policy and established itself as a religion. Today, the conventional GOP wisdom is that even though the top rate is half what it was in 1976, it must be cut further. I can’t go there. In recent years, we’ve had only three years of balanced budgets — under the Democratic Clinton administration. In short, I’m about where I was in 1976 — a pragmatic fiscal conservative. I like low taxes, but not at the cost of rendering the government nonfunctional and running up massive deficits. But the ground I occupy has been deserted by the Republicans and occupied by the Democrats.

Foreign Policy

I grew up under the shadow of the Cold War. I remember well the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which we narrowly averted a nuclear holocaust. My friends went off to Vietnam to fight a war whose only clear long-term effect was to flood the United States years later with cheap nail salons. The Democrats sent us there, and while the Republicans tended to be hawks, it was eventually the Republican Nixon administration that finally ended it. I sided with the ones who ended it — the Republicans.

Just as Democrat Lyndon Johnson was obsessed with communism in Vietnam, Bush became obsessed with Islam influence in the Mideast, and we ended up bogged down in two wars at once as a result. These wars — especially the one in Iraq — made no more sense to me than the one we fought in Vietnam. The difference? Where Vietnam was started by a Democrat and ended by a Republican, the war in Iraq was started by a Republican and ended by a Democrat. Once again, I side with the ones who are ending it. Only this time they’re Democrats.

I can’t see that I’ve changed much, but the spectrum has changed quite a bit.