[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 123 (Wednesday, September 16, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H7812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            AMERICA NEEDS A NATIONAL MISSILE DEFENSE SYSTEM

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, there are few issues which separate 
liberals and conservatives in dramatic fashion. Taxes, of course, is 
one; and crime is another. But defense and national security issues 
also illustrate two sharply different visions, different world views, 
which distinguished conservatives from liberals.
  Liberals just love arms control agreements. They put almost boundless 
faith in a piece of paper between America and countries which are 
hostile to everything we hold dear, and they take great comfort in the 
ability that these agreements are going to keep America safe.
  Conservatives, on the other hand, look at all of human history and 
are skeptical of such agreements, instead placing stronger and greater 
faith in a strong and secure defense.
  Given these two world views it is time to reexamine our current 
vulnerability to ballistic missile attack. There is a piece of paper 
that exists to assure us that America is safe from a ballistic missile 
attack, but this is deliberate policy of vulnerability to ballistic 
missile attack and it is both foolish and dangerous.
  It is time that conservatives act with prudence and demand that 
Americans be protected by building a strong national missile defense 
system.

                          ____________________