America at Risk / Part 3: A Divided People?

By: kris bishop | Date: February 2, 2009

EXCERPTS from America at Risk, a new collection of writings by eminent thinkers and writers asked to address the question that must be addressed by the Obama Presidency: What are some of the greatest dangers facing America today and what might be done to meet them?

Political Voice in an Age of Inequality / p. 140
by Kay Lehman Schlozman and Traci Burch

"Political inequality has not followed a parallel path. The evidence is much more
complicated and ambiguous when it comes to changing inequalities of political voice. What is clear is not so much that the level playing field of politics has tilted even further in an era of increasing economic inequality, but that the playing field was slanted at the start."

The Real Immigration Crisis / p. 174
by Peter Skerry

"Anxieties about immigration are not easily dismissed as irrational or racist. In a period of dramatic and profound economic change, there is enormous uncertainty. The fact that some relatively narrow segment of the populace is directly harmed by these changes signals to others that they too are vulnerable. So Americans turn to their government to do something to protect them--at their jobs, in their neighborhoods, and at schools, hospitals, and other public institutions. Prudent leaders will avoid nitpicking, listen carefully, and craft responsible policies."

Religion and Polarization / p. 193
by James Q. Wilson

"The split between the religious and the secular is large and has grown. In 2004, white voters who attended religious services at least weekly were three times as likely as those who seldom or never went to church to oppose abortion and twice as likely to object to gay marriage and to describe themselves as conservative...today, religious identification is more closely associated with the presidential vote of white voters than is age, sex, income, or education."

The Future of the Liberal Family / p. 117
by Susan Shell

"Recent evidence of a "baby bust" across most advanced liberal societies raises warning sighs of a potential crisis. A new "specter" is haunting Europe (and not it alone): a precipitous decline in birthrates. Even as liberal societies succeed beyond all previous economic measure, many of them, it seems, are failing to sustain
themselves at the most basic level: maintenance of a constant, liberally acculturated population from one generation to another."

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