Sources used in this document:

Jimmy, Carter, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, (New York: Simon & (Schuster, 2006) states that America is in crisis, not simply in an immediate political crisis regarding the Iraq War. In his most recent prose offering, Carter takes on what he sees are the most serious issues of the present day, including the war, violence at home, and global warming. He criticizes the growing gap between rich and poor and the lack of charity at home and abroad. America also seems out of touch in viewing itself as a global policeman that does not need the United Nations, and America is one of the few remaining democratic world powers to still allow citizens to own handguns, and to allow the death penalty. Most interesting is the book's critique of the current Christian evangelical movement Carter used to identify with as a Southern Baptist, which Carter sees as ignoring the true call for moral leadership for social equality justice and instead passing judgment against 'others' such as homosexuals.

Primary Sources: The 'Crisis of Confidence' Speech," Jimmy Carter: The American

Experience. PBS, 15 Jul 1976, 6 Feb 2007, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html. offers the complete text of one of Carter's most infamously honest speeches to the American public. The speech, many think, later contributed to Carter's loss of the White House to President Reagan. It demanded sacrifice rather than promised an uncomplicated 'morning in America' that Americans at the time wished to dream of, and one of its most characteristic lines reads: "Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation's strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives." Carter's ethics and moral values shine through, as this speech is read through the sadder, wiser eyes of the present.