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Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis by Jimmy Carter
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Jimmy Carter Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published) Published: 2006-09-26 ISBN: 0743285018 Number of pages: 224 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Product features:
Book Reviews of Our Endangered Values: America's Moral CrisisBook Review: Our Endangered Values Summary: 5 StarsI agree with those reviewers who think all Americans should read this book. Since leaving the White House with a rather dismal accomplishment record, Jimmy Carter has established himself as the sage of Plains and a much sought after public figure. His work with Habitat for Humanity and the establishment of the Carter Center have brought much good to the world.
This book is a testimony to a man whose views speak of common sense and offers alarming insight into many problems facing modern day America. Many of these problems America has either created or helped bring upon itself. We are a people willing to allow our leaders to misguide us and who are often unaware that soe of the problems even exist. Both Democrats and Republicans share the blame, but recent White House leadership shoulders much of the responsibility for America's loss of status as a true leader in the world.
Our nation cannot "lead" just because we have bigger and more guns than anyone else. Iraqi insurgents are proving this to be true. We cannot lead if we fail to recognize the world is heading in one direction and we another. We cannot lead if our people do not realize fewer and fewer nations look up to us as champions of our own beliefs. We are not leaders if we fail to recognize "all men are created equal" or that there is only one God of all, not a separate God for America and another for everyone else.
Carter tries to show how his Christianity is in part responsible for our deplorable image in the developing world. The SOuthern Baptist Convention has hijacked American policy and ethics and corruted our image from campaigns if misinformation and the joining of church and state. Carter seeks a new course for his religion and the country in general. Unfortunately, he misses one point in his belief that if America just change its ways we may once again be the true leader of the world. He fails to understand that many countries do not want us to be their leader and will do anything to prevent it.
But still this is a well written and well thought out book. I found myself in either full or partial agreement with Carter on many of his points. He truely is an idol many should and could look up to if they only would take the time to read this and other works by Carter. He's the perfect example of how an ex-president should conduct himself. The is just simply a very, very good book.
Summary of Our Endangered Values: America's Moral CrisisPresident Jimmy Carter offers a passionate defense of separation of church and state. He warns that fundamentalists are deliberately blurring the lines between politics and religion.As a believing Christian, Carter takes on issues that are under fierce debate -- women's rights, terrorism, homosexuality, civil liberties, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation, nuclear arsenals, preemptive war, and America's global image. Even at his most irate, Jimmy Carter projects cool, communicating with a poise that commands attention while gently signaling to opponents that they better do their homework before mounting any sort of debate. Perhaps that's why the former president, Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and bestselling author ranks as one of the planet's most respected voices in the areas of human rights, diplomacy, and good government. And when a clearly agitated Carter suggests America is on a slippery slope, globally speaking, as he does throughout Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, it's wise to pay heed even if the book's overriding Christian perspective may trip cautionary bells in secular readers. More a set of loosely connected essays than a single, precise argument, Our Endangered Values outlines Carter's worldview while pondering what he posits are key problems looming in the 21st century. Thematic touchstones such as the war, environmental negligence, civil liberties, the rich-poor divide, and the separation of church and state form the book's backbone, with Carter filtering each through the prism of his own vast experience. He doesn't much like what he sees. Though much of the data Carter presents to support his arguments is familiar, it's worth repeating that "the rate of firearm homicides in the United States is nineteen times higher than that of 35 other high-income countries combined." That "In addition to imprisonment, the United States of America stands almost alone in the world in our fascination with the death penalty, and our few remaining companions are regimes with a lack of respect for basic human rights." That when it comes to sharing the wealth with poor nations "Americans are the stingiest of all industrialized nations. We allow about one-thirtieth as much as is commonly believed [or] sixteen cents out of each $100 of the gross national income." America: land of the free, home of the brave? Try global bully with a bad attitude and reckless sense of entitlement. Carter spends significant time contextualizing his own spirituality, as if to underscore the urgency of his message that fundamentalism in any form is bad, especially when it encroaches on government. Indeed, Carter persuasively links fundamentalism to harmful policy, the subjugation of women, general xenophobia, and a host of other ills occurring all around him. And while George W. Bush in particular and the current administration in general take fewer clips on the chin than might be expected, Carter's arguments for common-sense change are deeply resonant nonetheless. --Kim Hughes
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