[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 195 (Wednesday, December 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H16929-H16932]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   A NEW DEBATE REGARDING LIBERTY, SOVEREIGNTY AND PROSPERITY OF THE 
                            AMERICAN PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 18, 2007, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Madam Speaker, I know that it is getting close to 
closing time, and I am in the unenviable position of being between so 
many good people and the door, so I will try to make sure that I give a 
truncated version of my simple desultory philippic to my constituents.
  We in Congress are charged with the sacred duty of heeding and 
serving our constituents' aspirations and addressing their 
tribulations. We also have the responsibility of offering them a 
national vision and purpose and, most importantly, of putting them 
first in policymaking, which is why I have risen today to again lay 
before my constituents what I believe to be the four great generational 
challenges facing the United States of America.
  Like the Greatest Generation, we face four challenges. The Greatest 
Generation, due to the rise of industrialization, faced social, 
economic and political turmoil. They faced a world war for freedom 
against an abjectly evil enemy. They faced the rise of the Soviet 
superstate as a rival model of governance and strategic threat, and 
they faced the moral question of whether the constitutional rights of 
all Americans applied equally regardless of race.
  This generation of Americans in the age of globalization faces 
social, political and economic turmoil. We face a

[[Page H16930]]

world war for freedom against an intrinsically evil enemy. We face the 
rise of the Communist Chinese superstate as a rival model of governance 
and strategic threat, and we face the question of whether moral 
relativism will erode the foundations of a Nation built upon self-
evident truths.
  The Greatest Generation faced their challenges consecutively. This 
generation of Americans faces their challenges simultaneously. In the 
past year, this Congress, sometimes together, sometimes not, have 
striven to address some of these challenges, and I would like to 
quickly go through a couple of them.
  In the area of globalization's economic, social and political 
upheavals, we have seen a continued emphasis on the role of the 
centralized Federal Government. This is done through taxation, 
increases in taxation and increases in spending. It is my belief that 
if we continue to build the monument to Big Government on the backs of 
the American taxpayer, we will exacerbate the economic and social 
turmoil, and, yes, political turmoil that they are experiencing. I 
believe what we need to do is go back to the fundamental concept and 
change the debate.
  The debate about people's money staying in their pockets and about 
the government spending people's money, which was taken from their 
pockets, should be this: We must stop discussing how quickly government 
spending grows and start getting back to talking about how quickly 
government spending is reduced, because this directly affects the 
liberty, sovereignty and prosperity of the American people.

                              {time}  1830

  And, at least in my District, they feel they are in short supply of 
their own money and don't believe the Federal Government needs to take 
more from them.
  In the war for freedom, we have seen a change of course in Iraq. It 
has been contentious and it has been difficult on the political level 
here in Washington. But, fortunately, progress in Iraq and with our 
troops is occurring. There is a long way to go, as we know from the 
fact that so many of our friends and family members that are serving in 
the military are not home with us for this holiday Christmas season.
  But what we have seen, and I want to explain it again, is a 
fundamental change of course in this sense. The past mistakes of the 
reconstruction effort were based upon the imposition of a system, a 
system of governance and a system that was perceived to lead to 
prosperity. What is now being done, which is much more important and is 
a lesson for future generations of American policymakers, is that 
democracy cannot be imposed, liberty can be unleashed. When liberty is 
unleashed, when a people finally breathe free, as General Petraeus' 
plan recognizes, we must help them fashion their representative 
institutions in their own way.
  In Iraq, this is being seen through local reconciliation, where 
you're beginning to see people who are finally out from underneath the 
oppressive Saddam Hussein regime and starting to come out from the 
oppressive reign of terror of al Qaeda and other murderers in the 
country who would take it back to a time when the government ruled 
through the bullet rather than through the ballot.
  What we are seeing is them working with tribal leaders, religious 
leaders, pillars of order in their community, to begin to reconcile 
themselves to each other, to begin to recognize the future that they 
may have if they remain free and resolute in the face of evil. And you 
are beginning to see this national reconciliation lead to the reduction 
of violence in Iraq, and you will continue to see it if we remain 
courageous and remain prudent in our policies. You will continue to see 
this grow and evolve into a national reconciliation process. Again, 
this will not happen overnight, but at least this has occurred.
  Unfortunately, in my mind, on the third great generational challenge 
we face, which is Communist China's rise as a strategic threat and 
rival model of governance, the administration and this Congress have 
largely continued their policy of unconditional engagement. I think the 
American people are much further ahead of policymakers in this 
instance.
  As we have recently seen from the U.S.-China Economic Security Review 
Commission's report, people who are worried about dangerous imported 
products from Communist China should be. According to the Economic 
Security Review Commission's report, because of the closed system of 
the communist government in China, it is impossible or extremely 
difficult with any certainty to determine what products are defective 
or not before they arrive, and it is going to be increasingly difficult 
as time goes on as the regime consolidates its hold, which means that 
there is no simple resolution to the issue. We are trying to allow 
imports from Communist China to come in by spending more American 
taxpayer moneys on customs or inspections to allow these products to 
come in, because we will never know with certainty whether they are 
defective or not because, again, the closed nature of the Communist 
Chinese regime.
  We have also seen in the area of national security repeated attacks 
by the People's Liberation Army through attacks on America's existing 
computer networks, both in industry and financial services, and in the 
United States Government itself. For example, what the Communist 
Chinese Government likes to do is set up front companies for people who 
are former members of the People's Liberation Army, and in this 
instance, we use the name Huawei, that is what it is called, which is 
trying to purchase a major U.S. supplier of cyberdefense technologies.
  Now, this is still, at my last understanding, pending in front of the 
Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, despite the fact 
that our own Office for National Intelligence has told us this is a 
strategic threat to the United States. Now, how is this occurring? This 
is occurring because people wish to refuse to believe that the 
Communist Chinese Government is engaged in massive espionage against 
the United States of America, both in terms of our private sector and 
in terms of our public sector, i.e., our Pentagon as being one prime 
example.
  The reason that Americans or their policymakers are so loath to 
recognize this fact is because there is not a whole lot of support to 
be anticommunist anywhere, except from the American people. Well, I 
prefer to have that support than any kind of political or economic 
elite's momentary approbation. In fact, it was the Economic Security 
Commission's report that actually steeled my convictions and helped me 
with this, because we were now able to tell people that according to 
the Economic Security Review Commission, Communist China's espionage 
against the United States firms and our governmental entities is likely 
the number one strategic threat that we are facing at the present time.
  So we will continue to work and push on this, not only because this 
is a strategic threat to us, but also, more importantly, the second 
part of the equation. Communist China is presenting itself to the world 
as a rival model of governance to Western democracies. The fundamental 
tenet of the Communist Chinese approach is this: That liberty is a 
danger to their people's prosperity and security. I am going to repeat 
this. The Communist Chinese Government believes that its own people's 
liberty are a danger, a danger to their stability and prosperity.
  This is a direct contradiction to what we believe here in America and 
in the free world is that people's liberty leads to a nation's 
stability and prosperity. The reason this is dangerous is we need not 
look any further than Time Magazine's current Man of the Year to see 
that this school of thought, this neo-communism has advocates amongst 
people who were former communists, such as the former President of 
Russia, Lieutenant Colonel Retired Vladimir Putin.
  As we watch Russia slide from the first steps in democracy back 
towards autocracy, it is Putin who is telling his people that their 
liberty stopped their prosperity and stability under the Yeltsin years, 
and if they just cede more liberty, they will again have stability and 
they will finally have prosperity.
  Other tyrants throughout the world are watching this, from Chavez in 
Venezuela to Castro in Cuba, who is still clinging to power, and they 
are watching to see in the coming years, in the coming decades, what 
will be the preferred model of governance in the world.

[[Page H16931]]

  Now, we know what the dictators would like. We know what all those 
who would subjugate their fellow human beings beneath their ideological 
bents would prefer to see. They would prefer to see liberty considered 
a danger, a threat, to humanity's stability and prosperity.
  We will find them continuing to echo the siren song that we hear from 
people in Beijing and Moscow and elsewhere that echoes the words that 
we heard from Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor, ``Give them miracle, 
mystery and authority, but above all, give them bread.''
  It is a materialist philosophy, it is a cynical philosophy, it is a 
neocommunist philosophy which we in the United States and the free 
world must reject. We must again reassert the primacy of liberty to all 
human beings as their divine right endowed to them by their creator and 
that the view of our free people that the future belongs to free 
nations, remains intact, not only for ourselves, but for all those who 
are oppressed and yearning to breathe free.
  In the fourth area, the question of moral relativism eroding our 
foundational truth, we see this every day. We see this every day in the 
areas of faith, family, community and country. This Congress needs to 
do more to help reaffirm the historic role and the critical role that 
it currently plays, that faith currently plays in the lives of the 
American people and in the life and perpetuation of the American 
Republic.
  Fortunately, Congressman Randy Forbes, I believe, is going to be 
introducing a resolution to do just this, and to remind people that the 
constitutional right under the first amendment is to the free exercise 
of free religion. It is not for the freedom from religion. It is not 
for the excoriation of religion and faith from the public square.
  In the area of family, we continue to see erosions by the State upon 
the parents' sovereign and I believe inviolable powers to impart their 
moral teachings to their children. We have seen this in Maine, where 
the situation was presented to parents where if you did not want your 
child to get birth control under the school medical program, then your 
child would get no health care at all.
  This is a diabolical dilemma presented to parents, and there are some 
that are occurring throughout the country in various locales that are 
unreported, and this must stop. A parent's right to raise their child 
and impart their moral teachings to them, the inviability of the 
parental family structure, of the parent-child relationship, must be 
respected by this government, must be respected by all governments, and 
we must take appropriate steps to see that that continues.
  In the area of community, we must do more to ensure that the 
voluntary mediating institutions, nongovernmental institutions, remain 
intact as a buffer between the sovereign American people and their 
subservient government.
  What de Tocqueville saw when he went through the United States of 
America and what he expressed to us must always be remembered, that the 
true strength of America lies in its voluntary associations and its 
individual senses of community, which then grow upward into the grand 
Republic which we now have inherited.
  If the government goes out of its way to continue to make it 
difficult for people to join volunteer associations or begins to let it 
be known or to subtly or directly try to coerce volunteer associations 
as the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, or such as Rotaries, Kiwanises and 
Chambers of Commerce, or, yes, labor unions, if these voluntary 
associations are infringed or encroached or eclipsed by the Federal 
Government, we are going to continue to see an atomization of 
individuals from their sense of community and we will continue to see a 
devolution of the true public purpose that is expressed by citizens in 
our Republic even today.
  Finally, in the area of country, certainly we must do more to remind 
Americans not only of their civic rights and duties as citizens of the 
United States, but also the history of the United States. How can any 
individual citizen who is unaware of their rights, who is unaware of 
their duties, who is unaware of how a bill becomes law, how a 
constitutional amendment is adopted, how Congress spends money or who 
has the power of the purse, if they do not understand this, if they do 
not understand the history of their country, where we have been, where 
we are going, where we hope to, then they will be like lambs led before 
the shepherd of big government, because they will not know how to think 
for themselves in relation to government nor how to defend themselves 
from government actions and policies when necessary. This fourth area 
we must not overlook, because in many ways it is one of the most 
critical.
  That is why when in facing these challenges, I believe it is 
important that we remember our shared American philosophical heritage, 
which is this: Men and women are transcendent children of God, equally 
endowed by their creator with inalienable rights.
  Secondly, government was instituted to defend citizens' inalienable 
rights and to facilitate citizens' pursuit of good and true happiness.
  Third, over the generations, divine providence has established and 
revealed through tradition, prescriptive rights and custom within 
communities, how order, justice and freedom, each essential, coequal 
and mutually reinforcing, are best arranged and nurtured for humanity 
to pursue the good and true happiness.
  Finally, human happiness is endangered by every political ideology, 
for each is premised upon abstract ideas. Each claims a superior 
insight into human nature not revealed through historical experience, 
each proffers a secular utopia unattainable by an imperfect humanity, 
and each demands an omnipotent centralized government to forcefully 
impose its vision upon an unenlightened and unwilling population.
  This is a shared heritage that transcends simply Republicanism or 
Democratism, for this is what was in the seminal documents of our 
Nation and this is what our Founders set out to do. It is from this 
shared philosophical tradition that we have been able to see in the 
United States the creation and perpetuation, even up to our generation, 
of American excellence.
  Now, American excellence has a foundation and four cornerstones. Each 
of these is mutually reinforcing. Americans understand that our 
excellence is built upon a foundation of liberty, and the four 
cornerstones are sovereignty, security, prosperity and truth.

                              {time}  1845

  If we think about them individually, it becomes much more clear. Your 
liberty comes from God, not the government. Your sovereignty is in your 
soul, not in the soil. Your security comes not from the thin hopes of 
appeasement, your security comes from our collective love of liberty 
and from the courage of our fellow citizen soldiers who defend us in 
hours of maximum danger. Our prosperity comes from the innovation and 
perspiration of free people engaged in free enterprise, not from the 
growth of a government or from centralized planning or from higher 
taxes or from increased government spending. And, finally, our truths 
are communal. They have preserved over time. They have been perpetuated 
by families and institutions of faith and voluntary associations, and 
we revere them every day by voluntarily celebrating a culture of life.
  This is what American exceptionalism is supported by. If we turn our 
back on that concept, then America is no longer an excellent Nation. If 
we go back and try to determine that somehow America exists to emulate 
other nations rather than America existing to inspire the world, we 
will be cheating our future generations of Americans of the legacy 
which we ourselves have inherited and which we ourselves so enjoy.
  It seems to me that in this period of time that is very difficult, we 
must also make sure that we remember to have two goals as elected 
officials in this Congress. I think that the first goal we should have 
is to prevent the centralized Federal Government from growing ever 
larger and unaccountable by taking citizens' liberty and prosperity. 
And that is what happens through taxing and spending powers. And we 
must also reduce and decentralize the Federal Government and empower 
Americans to exercise their inherited and inalienable rights within

[[Page H16932]]

a culture of faith, family, community, and country.
  To obtain these goals, I believe that we must take the following 
critical steps: One, we must empower the sovereign American people to 
protect and promote their God-given and constitutionally recognized and 
protected rights. All policies that we pursue should promote the 
decentralization of Federal governmental powers to the American people 
or to their most appropriate and closest unit of government. I believe 
we must also defend Americans' enduring moral order of faith, family, 
community, and country from all enemies. We must foster a dynamic 
market of entrepreneurial opportunity for all Americans. And we must 
honor and nurture humanity of scale and Americans' relations and 
endeavors.
  This last point I would like to emphasize a little more directly. In 
the age of globalization, much like the age of industrialization, 
average Americans often felt that so many things were occurring to them 
outside of their control that they felt almost impotent in the face of 
the major changes that were occurring to them and radically altering 
their traditional way of life and their livelihoods. Fortunately, in 
the age of industrialization, Presidents with vision from Theodore 
Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt were able to help Americans through 
that transformational time.
  We too must have such sagacity, because we too must recognize that in 
the age of globalization Americans oftentimes feel powerless against 
many of the forces that are shaping and radically altering their lives. 
And they look to the Federal Government, their duly elected servants, 
to try to help make sense of it, to try to help alleviate their sense 
of danger. And we must do this. We must do this with empathy, we must 
do this with creativity, we must do it with integrity. For to simply 
deny it does not exist or to simply say that somehow there are these 
mechanical determinative forces out there that no one can control such 
as globalization is not to do the American people justice, it is not to 
do ourselves any honor, or to provide to ourselves any honor in their 
service.
  We can impact decisions that are the result of human decisions. 
Globalization is not a deterministic, mechanistic force, much as Engels 
and Marx said communism was and much as many of the globalists today 
say free trade is or any other economic determinative. This is not 
outside of people's control. People can still think their way through 
it. They can make sound policies within your Federal Government, with 
your help. And we can try to get through this difficult time with as 
little social, economic and political turmoil as we can. Or, instead, 
we can turn a blind eye to it, and we can watch as people continue to 
suffer many of the effects of globalization which could be ameliorated 
and which must be ameliorated.
  Madam Speaker, I know the hour is late so I will not dawdle much 
longer. But I just want to say that while we have come to find 
ourselves in a global age, it is a perilous global age, but it is not a 
global age without hope. We are not the first generation of Americans; 
we are not the first people on this earth to face momentous challenges. 
And I believe that, like our fellow Americans before us and so many 
Americans, we will meet these challenges and we will transcend them. I 
believe we will preserve American excellence. I believe we will promote 
and defend the institutions of faith, family, community, and country 
against all enemies. And I believe that one day future generations of 
Americans will look back and say, well, they argued a lot; but they had 
a lot to argue about, but in the end they managed to get it right and 
we remain a free people. And I believe that the United States of 
America then, to the rest of the world, will be an inspiration to them 
for all the oppressed, for all those who yearn to breathe free, and 
that they will never lose hope that some day they, too, will enjoy in 
their own homes what we enjoy in ours.
  Again, it will not be easy, it will not be immediate, but it will be 
done. We will preserve our shared heritage of freedom, and we will 
ensure that the permanent things amidst our ephemeral existence are 
preserved for future generations to come, because it is imperative that 
we make sure that things such as love, truth, beauty, justice, and 
honor remain because they surpasseth all politics and they give meaning 
to our somewhat troubled and yet ultimately majestic existence.
  Madam Speaker, I would like to conclude my remarks by expressing my 
personal and my constituents' sincere appreciation and heartfelt 
prayers for the men and women who are serving the cause of freedom 
overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the world, as 
well as extending them to their families. May God continue to bless 
them and all of the majestic American people.

                          ____________________