Free Republic

GALESBURG, Ill. — In a week when he tried to focus attention on the struggles of the middle class, President Obama said in an interview that he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the lingering effects of the financial crisis had frayed the country’s social fabric and undermined Americans’ belief in opportunity. Upward mobility, Mr. Obama said in a 40-minute interview with The New York Times, “was part and parcel of who we were as Americans.” “And that’s what’s been eroding over the last 20, 30 years, well before the financial crisis,” he added. “If we don’t...

PRINCETON, NJ -- In a year filled with partisan bickering, it may come as some solace that Republicans and Democrats agree on at least one thing: the state of moral values in the country. Unfortunately, the consensus is not good. Roughly four in five Republicans and Democrats alike rate moral values in the United States as "only fair" or "poor." Just one in five in either group thinks morals are "excellent" or "good."

Joseph LoconteRenewing the Social FabricPhiladelphia Society,April 14, 2002           In a way no one anticipated, George W. Bush has shifted the national conversation about renewing America’s social fabric. Not since Dwight D. Eisenhower has a president used the bully pulpit as aggressively to tout the importance of faith to republican government. “Without God, there could be no American form of government,” Ike bluntly put it, “nor an American way of life.”[1] President Bush seems no less persuaded that religion is required to keep the democratic machine up and running. His faith-based initiative assumes that religion’s ability to spark personal and...