Congressional Record, Volume 156 Issue 105 (Thursday, July 15, 2010)

[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 105 (Thursday, July 15, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H5668-H5672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

{time} 1630
THE GOVERNMENT IS BUYING TOO MUCH LAND

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kissell). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, again it's certainly a privilege to get to
speak in this hallowed hall, where so many courageous decisions have
been made, and also so many ill-begotten decisions have been made.
Speaking of which, today in our Natural Resources Committee we voted
a bill out of committee to deal with the disaster in the Gulf of
Mexico, disastrous oil spill that hopefully, maybe, prayerfully, maybe,
they have gotten the cap on things and are going to be able to stop the
oil from destroying lives and livelihoods.
But our bill did some amazing things. For example, the bill we passed
in committee--should be coming to the floor now for a vote for the
whole Congress--provided $900 million a year for the next 30 years,
through 2040, to buy more land for the Federal Government to sit on.
Now, it was pointed out that actually we already own so much land, we
have so many Federal parks, national parks that we can't take care of
them, and we are not taking care of them.
There is a report that indicated that just in maintenance alone we
are $3.7 billion behind on just doing necessary maintenance to keep the
Federal parks from falling apart. And we are not taking care of that.
And here we voted $27 billion to buy more land for the Federal
Government to sit on. And it's important to understand when the Federal
Government buys any land at all, that land is immediately taken off of
the tax rolls. And the schools, the local governments, the State
governments are prohibited from taxing that land. So that land that has
brought so much revenue in taxes to those schools, hired teachers, all
that kind of thing, hired local servants, it goes away.
And there for a while when this started 100 years-plus ago, old
people were assured locally, well, don't worry, though, like if we take
timberland, we will sell timber, and we will give you a cut of the
proceeds. Well, that's gone away. So the Federal Government takes land
and the local folks get nothing.
Some say, oh, no, but it creates green jobs. Right. And just like
Spain has found this year, as the report of the country that this
administration and this majority has said repeatedly we want to emulate
because they have moved toward a green economy, Spain has found that
for every one green job that's been created they lost two jobs. And I
am tired of looking into the faces of people who have lost their jobs
due to no fault of their own, but due to terrible decisions by the
public servants that were elected to come here to Washington and not
meddle, not take over the country, but just to make sure there was a
level playing field, people had an opportunity, not happiness, but the
opportunity to pursue happiness. And what we find repeatedly is when
this government, when any government weighs in and steps in and buys or
takes over land, money, property, it doesn't really leave anybody
happy.
So, I got a little chart here we put together yesterday that shows
where we have been on money that was appropriated in the budget, been
appropriated to buy land. You've got over $100 million here, not quite
$150 million in 2008, and that was with this majority. This majority
took over in 2007, 2008, and they had already gone many times from
where we were in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. By 2008, the majority started
just going many times over. That's how we got over $100 million to buy
land in 2008. And then the same majority in 2009 kicked it up quite a
bit more over the $150 million mark. 2010, this year, we are
approaching nearly $300 million to buy more land for the Federal
Government to sit on. And in this bill that passed committee today,
there is this provision for $900 million. Why don't we just call it a
billion? You know, you are that close. Doesn't seem like $100 million
means that much to this administration. But it's $900 million a year
for the next 30 years to buy more land.

I had such great hopes. We were hearing responsible economists
telling us, you know, there is a way out of this runaway deficit. Now,
$1.5 trillion in 1 year, you know, it took the Bush administration a
number of years to do that. And here, boom, 1 year we got it done here
with this majority and this administration.
But economists have said, you know, get responsible. Quit frittering
away money like it was no issue, like it's growing on trees, because
it's growing off of China, and they're saying they about got enough.
And we are printing it. Got printing presses running like crazy
printing it. We will eventually pay for that with inflation. So the
vote today was as if we got all the money in the world. Why not just
buy more land?
And what we heard from people who live in the Western half of the
country was, you've already taken so much of our State, why do you have
to keep taking more and more? One Congressman from Utah, Rob Bishop,
had offered a verbal proposal: How about, if

[[Page H5669]]

you're so inclined to spend that much money, how about if we just say,
okay, we will only buy land from now on from States in which the
Federal Government owns less than 20 percent of the State? Because when
you look at the Western United States, the red represents land owned by
the Federal Government, you begin to understand why people in the West
are saying haven't you taken enough of our land?
This country didn't start out owning all the land. And as we've seen
over and over, we're not taking care of what we've got. And we've got
people who have lost their jobs, and yet last summer we passed a bill
for $700 million to buy wild horses more habitat because there had been
a bill before that that this majority passed that said you can't do
anything about the overgrowing population of wild horses on Federal
land. You can't use birth control, you can't sell them off in auctions.
So they have proliferated.
And at a time when Americans are being thrown out of their homes in
record numbers this year, foreclosures are up higher than ever before,
bankruptcies continue to be filed, the folks in charge decide, you know
what, let's take care of the wild horses. They matter more to us than
all these people getting thrown out of their homes and losing their
livelihoods. That's more important.
We have lost our priorities. And I understand it didn't just start in
the last year-and-a-half. The President I admire greatly, who is
smarter than most people give him credit for, a good man, he listened
to maybe the worst Secretary of the Treasury we've ever had, Hank
Paulson, as he ran around like Chicken Little saying the financial sky
was falling, but give me $700 billion and I can go make my friends
rich, and I can fix everything. So Goldman Sachs didn't suffer, AIG
didn't suffer. And the American people are suffering.

{time} 1640

And I know I've heard people on the other side of the aisle,
including this week, talking about, you know, all the rich, fat-cat
Republicans, yet if you look at the truth--which is a good thing to
look at time to time--you look at the truth and you find out that Wall
Street families give to Democrats four times as much as they give to
Republicans. You look at BP and you wonder why it took the Federal
Government to intervene and call their hand? And they really haven't
completely yet. And then you find out they gave much more to this
administration than they did to the McCain campaign. They got heavy on
Democratic lobbyists from administrations that were Democratic. They'd
signed on to the crap-and-trade bill. We're pushing that to be passed.
So this administration, this majority didn't want to buck their good
friend that was going to help them push through some things that were
not going to help America even though they were going to help BP get
richer. So they hated to call their hand, and that's why it took so
long. And we're fixing it by buying more land for the Federal
Government. How in the world that makes sense.
Now, we also had the committee vote against my amendment that was
very important, protecting our homeland. My amendment to the bill was
very simple, and it arose out of finding out during hearings that there
was only one entity within the Mines and Minerals Management Service
that was allowed to be unionized, and that was the offshore inspectors.
Unionized. Well, union contracts usually have restrictions on travel,
restrictions on how much that can be worked, things like that. And it
reminded me a great deal of the job of sentry. And in mock war games
when I was in the Army, I sat sentry. I wasn't about to go to sleep, be
court-martialed for that, at least an article 15 punishment because
you're it. You're the protection for the rest of the people there.
You're supposed to be standing guard. That's what our offshore
inspectors are. And they're unionized.
And we were told by the Director of MMS that the real check of how we
can be so sure that they're doing their job, we send them out in pairs.
And we found out the last pair of offshore inspectors that went to the
Deepwater Horizon rig before it blew was a father-and-son team. Yeah.
So much for checks and balances. But that's what we got.
So my amendment just said for people who are offshore, deepwater rig
inspectors, you can't strike and you can't threaten to strike. Just
like if you're in the military, you can't go on strike. You're
protecting the country. Our offshore inspectors are what stand between
our homeland and environmental disaster and the loss of lives as we had
on the Deepwater Horizon rig. And all but one Democrat voted against my
amendment, so our offshore inspectors can strike, can get out there on
a rig and say, ``You know what? I'm what stands between our homeland
and disaster, and either you give me what I want or I'm going on strike
and you'll have no protection. And who knows, you may have another
Deepwater Horizon happen because I'm not checking anything.''
If you've got a problem with your contract, then get your Congress,
get others to help if you're working for the Federal Government. But if
you're not working for the Federal Government as a government employee
and yet at the same time you are the protection for a country, you
shouldn't be able to strike. And in this case, even though MMS had
become basically, we're told, a stagnant pond that stunk it up because
of the cozy relationship between the people that worked there and Big
Oil, it had to be divided into three parts.
Well, we haven't found out how it's going to work out. I tried to
find out what else was going to be unionized once it was split into
three parts, was told they didn't know, didn't know how exactly it was
going to come out. But from east Texas, we often find if you want to
fix a stagnant, stinking pond, it doesn't help if you just divide it up
into three parts. You've got to do something to fix it, and we haven't
seen that happen.
And, in fact, when we found out that a person involved in the leases
that may have critical testimony as to why the price adjustment
language was pulled out of the 1998-1999 leases that have now cost the
Federal Treasury billions of dollars--1998-1999, under the Clinton
administration. You want to know why they pulled that language out? It
made billions extra for the oil companies, but it cost our treasury
billions, because that language is normally in there.
Why did they dictate that it be pulled out? And I was told at a
hearing by the Inspector General, well, I wasn't able to talk to people
that were critical into finding out why they pulled that language out
because they've left government service. When the Clinton
administration left, they left. And then after hearing President Obama
talk about the cozy relationship between the people in the government
managing minerals and Big Oil, I had a hunch and checked. And sure
enough, that person, one of the people I was told had been involved and
had direct knowledge about the language being pulled that cost us so
many billions of dollars, made it for companies like BP, found out
she'd gone to work for British Petroleum when she left the Clinton
administration. And in June of last year, she came back to work for the
same people that managed the affairs of British Petroleum offshore.
Yep, the President knew what he was talking about. He has helped
create a cozy relationship between those who were supposed to keep Big
Oil honest and Big Oil.
And we find out BP had 800 or so safety violations. And this
administration dealt with those in a strong way--by giving them a
safety award for a wonderful safety record. And yet they were
apparently the only company that had that horrible safety record when
compared with Exxon and others that had one or zero violations.
You wonder why was BP entitled to a safety award, and then you find
out who they gave most of their contributions to in the election. You
find out they were going to support bills that the administration
wanted pushed through when other big oil companies would not. So you
begin to understand. They felt bullet proof. They felt like they had
such good friends in the administration and in the majority that
certainly nobody would ever throw them under the bus. Well, guess what?
When the public heat got hot enough, they got thrown under the bus.
And how did we deal with it today? We passed a bill through committee
to

[[Page H5670]]

appropriate $900 million a year for the next 30 years to buy more
Federal land. I haven't figured out how that solves the problem in the
gulf. And, in fact, it creates a worse problem because, as we've
already seen from this administration, they do not like to lease land
for drilling.
And, in fact, in the prior administration, 7 years before this
administration took office, a leasing process was begun to lease land
in the Utah, Wyoming, Colorado area. And it took 7 years to get to the
point that companies would be in a position to make a knowing bid, and
the bid could be chosen, the high bid, for the lease. Those leases,
after that 7 years, were let at the end of 2008. Immediately, Secretary
Salazar came in and ordered that the checks not be cashed and then
ordered that they be returned, that he was not going to allow the
leases that took 7 years to come into being to exist because they were
done at, in his words, the midnight hour.

{time} 1650

For 7 years, he calls it the midnight hour, as the Bush
administration left. So there went one source of oil that was going to
help eliminate the need for deepwater drilling, and we've seen that
happening over and over.
Last year, as I understand, the second most rich deposit of uranium
was declared off limits. It came through our committee. That was a bill
we voted out to put our second best source of uranium off limits, and
that all at a time when we're trying to figure out ways how to get off
carbon-based fuels, and nuclear should be one of those ways that we
utilize, especially when you find out, as we have in our committee,
that 90 percent of our uranium we're using in our nuclear plants right
now is imported, and yet we have uranium that could be used for that.
God has so richly blessed this country with resources, when you take
them all into consideration, like no nation in the world. When you look
at all the natural resources that would produce energy, nobody comes
close to this little country where we've had until more recently an
experiment, as the Founders called it, in a democratic Republic, in an
elected representative government.
We appropriated $900 million a year for the next 30 years to buy land
to put more of it off limits. You know, we heard when gasoline went to
$4 a gallon that actually there is land about 500 square miles in this
country where within a 500-square-mile area, from the thicker tar
sands, if oil is $80 a barrel, they can do it and be able to make
money, produce maybe 1 trillion barrels of oil. We've also heard in the
entire Middle East there may only be 1 to 3 trillion barrels of oil;
and yet, since then, we've heard there may be 3 to 5 trillion barrels
of oil in that same area, as long as oil is $80 a barrel or higher.
When you start realizing that, you go Why are we not like 90 percent
effective in providing all our own energy? Why do we continue to fund
people that hate us like Chavez and countries in the Middle East who
are harboring terrorists and in which terrorists are farm fed and farm
grown.
I mentioned yesterday here on the floor about Yemen. I just wonder
how many New Englanders, how many people who live in Boston know that
this year for the first time they've gotten rid of their contract for
liquid natural gas, liquefied natural gas from areas that are very
friendly to us, some in the Caribbean. That's been done away with, and
now the contract for the next 20 years is with Yemen. Now, I know
they're nice folks. I've met some nice folks from Yemen, but they also
happen to harbor terrorists; and when people from Guantanamo were
released to Yemen, they ended up getting away and those terrorists are
at large, maybe back here in the United States now.
Another thing, of course, that occurred today, in addition to this
massive appropriation that came out of committee, we find out the
Senate has voted to send the so-called financial reform bill to the
President for signature to come into law. Breaks my heart. Now, there's
some things in there that are good reform rules and changes that needed
to be done, but there are also poison pills in that bill.
For example, the systemic risk council in which we have some Federal,
unelected, unconfirmed by anybody in Congress bureaucrats who are going
to decide what businesses they deem to be a systemic risk and,
therefore, businesses that the Federal Government will never let fail.
What happened to America? We used to be the land of the free. When
the government gets to pick and choose, we're going to let your
business be the one that lives because nobody can compete effectively
with a business that can run in the red because they know the
government will not let them fail because other businesses can't run in
the red. They have to declare bankruptcy. So what used to be the land
of the free has become the land of the government's hand-picked winners
and hand-picked losers. We're not going to allow the opportunity to
sink or swim as God as given us, as we've been endowed with by our
Creator, because our government has now come to the point where it's
decided we're not going to let you decide who wins by how hard you work
and how smart you work; we are going to pick winners and losers with
our systemic risk council.
There are things in there, once again, they're going to cripple
community banks who have suffered enough because of the greed, in some
cases avarice, displayed in some of the investment banks. It nearly
brought the finances to a standstill. Community banks have just been
lumped in with them, and they've been hurt by the regulators and it is
tragic.
So much for the financial deform bill because it deforms the market
that used to exist, and this government has gotten so busy picking
winners and losers and meddling and telling car makers what kind of
cars to make and exactly what they've got to do to make them, how to
make them, what they can do to make them, and how they got to be when
they're finished. We've gotten so busy into the minutia of things that
we shouldn't be involved in that the government--we haven't done our
jobs, because if we had there would never have been somebody that was
able to bilk people out of $50 billion of their life savings so they
could squander it on himself. There were plenty of red flags that went
up, but we were too busy as a government meddling to actually do the
job to make sure everyone has a level playing field, everybody has an
opportunity and people are playing fair, and when they're not playing
fairly we punish them.
That's what government is supposed to do; and if as the Founders you
look at Romans 13:1-4, you see that as the Founders believed,
government's ordained by God. And if you believe as philosophers have
pointed out that a democracy ensures that a people are governed no
better than they deserve, then you see that we get what we deserve.
So for generations they have been deserving of more opportunity than
the last generation before them, and now we come to a place where 70
percent of adults in America when polled say they don't believe their
children will have as good a life, as good opportunities as they've
had. That has never been the case in American history that a majority
of Americans would say that. We've lost our way.
But if you're concerned about the detainees in Guantanamo, there's
good news. We've been releasing detainees. And this is a report from
this year: it's believed that roughly 20 percent of the 560 detainees
released from Guantanamo are back on the terror front lines.

{time} 1700

Interesting, huh?
But I really like this story about Abdullah Massoud. He came to
Guantanamo, as the House panel was told previously, he came to us
without one leg from about the knee down, and we fitted him with a
prosthetic leg before he left while he was in U.S. custody. So the leg,
this report indicates, the artificial limb cost American taxpayers
between $50,000 and $75,000. But it was nowhere to be found after
Massoud had directed a homicide attack that killed 31 people, and then
two months later blew himself up to avoid capture. Now, that was in
2005 that he had been released and did that, so you would think that a
smart administration would come in and learn from mistakes of prior
administrations.
We heard friends across the aisle over here say over and over, you
got to stop deficit spending, and our friends across the aisle won the
majority in 2006 for

[[Page H5671]]

that very reason. Republicans were deficit spending. Now by a margin of
about 8 to 1 or 10 to 1 that has been increased in deficit spending for
one year. Extraordinary.
Well, then we get back to the issue of morality, because this is what
it all comes back to. As Chuck Colson said previously, when you demand
the morals of Woodstock, you are going to have to expect some
Columbines.
Think about it. When the morality that is demanded by those in charge
is one that says if it feels good, do it, then somewhere you are going
to have some nut that thinks it might be interesting to find out how it
feels to kill people. It might feel good, so let's do it. You can't
demand the morality of Woodstock and not expect some terrible tragedies
to be wrought from that.
That can also be pointed in the direction of the loss of life of the
unborn. We used to talk in terms of over 40 million abortions. Now we
are talking about over 50 million abortions.
So we have got to get back to a morality that recognizes there is
something more important than ourselves, and it is not the government.
It is that we have been endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable
rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, and unless we are willing to fight for our endowment, to
fight for our inheritance, then, as so many generations, so many
countries before us, we lose that for which so many paid the ultimate
price. We have an obligation as a government to protect those who have
entrusted us with this responsibility.
When I was a judge, one of the jobs was to qualify people for jury
duty for anything from significant civil cases to capital murder cases.
There were some disqualifications listed in statute, and many times,
thank goodness, not that often, but over my 10 years I would have
people come in and say, I won't be able to be qualified to be on a jury
because I am a Christian, and I am not supposed to judge lest I be
judged, and I am supposed to turn the other cheek.
What they didn't understand is, and I never sought to use my position
to force my beliefs on someone else, but if they would read their
scripture more carefully, they would find out as individuals, we are to
forgive and turn the other cheek, but the government is given the
responsibility that no individual has.
As Romans talks about, God has given the sword, and the government is
his minister to punish evil. And if you do evil, be afraid, because
that sword is not given in vain.
You have to understand our history, and that is where maybe we begin
to fall down, when people didn't learn our history, and they didn't
find out that the Founders were so excited, 1775, 1776, especially
around the time of the Declaration, July 4, 1776, because they said we
have within our grasp something that philosophers have only dreamed
about. We have the chance to govern ourselves.
In England they had a parliament, but the king could throw them out
at any time, and did. This was going to be a nation for the first time
not like Rome, where there was a Caesar, but where people would govern
themselves. And that sword would be given not to a Caesar, not to a
king, not to a duke, but to the people, we the people.
So a method of government was set up such that the people as the
government would hire servants to come in and do what they hired them
to do, and if they didn't do what they were hired to do and said they
would do, were told to do, then they could be fired and replaced by
other servants, public servants, to do what the government, the people,
we the people, said must be done.
So when citizens of this country, these United States, are called for
jury duty and they refuse to serve and they try to do so on the basis
of saying, well, I am a Christian, then they have rejected Romans, they
have rejected teaching in both the Old and New Testament, they have
rejected the sword, the power that was ordained and put in their hand,
and said I am not going to do my job. I reject the power that God has
placed at my disposal to protect my country.
And when people don't go out and vote, it is the same thing. They are
rejecting the power that was put in their hand to govern this country.
And when they don't support good candidates, they are rejecting the
power that was put in their hands to hire their own servants to carry
out their will. And when they don't run for office when they feel that
calling to do so, the same thing. They can't say they are an obedient
Christian, the way I read scripture and the way so many before us in
the founding of this country read it, if they are willing to walk away
from that power that is put in their hand to govern this country by
hiring servants and firing servants when they don't do their jobs.
Now, I have been told by my staff, you have to be careful talking
about those things, because you have an election every 2 years.
Somebody could come in and say, okay, I am using your words against
you. The people have the right to hire and fire, and so I am saying it
is time to fire you.
Well, I am not afraid of that, because I believe I am doing what my
district hired me to do. I serve at their pleasure and at their will,
and if they say I am not doing the proper job because I believe in this
little experiment in elected representative government, this incredible
gift that this Nation was given so long ago and has fought to keep ever
since, I believe in it to the point where, yes, it will hurt to be
defeated, it will hurt your pride. But I can also say thank the Lord, I
know there is something else for me to do.
The people, for good, for bad, in a democracy, get the government
they deserve. And I think it is too important that people understand
that to worry about somebody using my own words against me. Come on and
use them, and I will run on my record.

{time} 1710

Speaking of the record, we were talking about Guantanamo and people--
detainees--that have been released. This article was incredibly good
news. The headline in the New York Times said, ``Five Charged in 9/11
Attacks Seek to Plead Guilty.'' Hallelujah. What great news that is.
From Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ``The five Guantanamo detainees charged
with coordinating the September 11th attacks told a military judge on
Monday that they wanted to confess in full, a move that seemed to
challenge the government to put them to death. That is such great news.
Such great news.
Unfortunately, that was on December 9, 2008. December 9, 2008, the
five people alive still most responsible for the killing--the wanton,
lustful, murderous killing--of over 3,000 people in New York City and
in the Pentagon were ready to plead guilty, and this administration
came in and snatched defeat for justice from the jaws of victory. It
just seems like somebody owes an apology to the victims' families from
9/11 for taking a victory and justice being done and throwing it away,
costing millions--some project hundreds of millions, maybe billions--to
try these terrorists who, 2 years ago, were ready to plead guilty, and
now, with the encouragement of this administration, are ready to play
games. Very tragic.
As the last minutes come to an end for this session of Congress, for
today, which will be the last for this week, I want to close as I try
to normally do by pointing to some history so that, Mr. Speaker, people
will understand where we came from. There is no way to really chart a
good path of where you're going in the future unless you honestly know
where you've been without it being a deception.
There are those who continue to say that George Washington was not a
religious man, that he was a deist, didn't really believe in religion,
didn't practice religion; and those are great lies. Anyone can go read
the huge book George Washington's Sacred Fire written by the same guy
that wrote this, Peter Lillback, over in Philadelphia.
Here is a letter, text written by the moderator of the Presbyterian
General Assembly, Rev. John Rodgers, in his correspondence with
Washington during the war about giving away Bibles to the American
troops. The Presbyterians as a group wrote:
``We adore Almighty God, the author of every perfect gift, who hath
endued you''--talking about George Washington--``with such a rare and
happy assemblage of talents as hath rendered you equally necessary to
your country in war and in peace; the influence of your personal
character moderates the divisions of political parties.''

[[Page H5672]]

He had such integrity and character that it moderated through all the
squabbles between the parties. They say on further:
``A steady, uniform, avowed friend of the Christian religion, who has
commenced his administration in rational and exalted sentiments of
piety, and who in his private conduct adorns the doctrines of the
Gospel of Christ.'' That's not a deist.
But, anyway, the letter says Washington ``adorns the doctrines of the
Gospel of Christ, and on the most public and solemn occasions devoutly
acknowledges the government of divine Providence.'' That's where we
came from. They recognized his character. I read yesterday where
Washington's own order said that there could be no higher compliment to
the soldiers than that they put on Christian qualities, the qualities
of a Christian.
In June of 1985 in a decision, Wallace v. Jaffree, unfortunately it
was in dissent, but William Rehnquist pointed out the deception that
was being talked about by Lillback in the Wall of Misconception, and
these are Rehnquist's words:
``The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based
on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to
judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.''
And in the Supreme Court decision, Lynch v. Donnelly, the decision
itself actually said:
``The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and
state. It affirmatively mandates accommodation, not mere tolerance, of
all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.'' And yet we find
today as we dealt with hate crime issues, the only group which it is
becoming lawful and unfortunate to show prejudice against are
Christians. The same people our Founders kept talking about.
Patrick Henry correctly warned future Americans the following:
``Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible that a nation
of infidels or idolators should be a nation of free men. It is when a
people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.''
John Adams wrote, August 28, 1811:
``Religion and virtue are the only foundations, not only of
republicanism''--and that doesn't mean our Republican Party at all; it
means the system where we have elected Representatives--``they are the
foundations not only of republicanism and of all free government, but
of social felicity under all governments and in all the combinations of
human society.'' This is just so important that people understand these
things.
Harry Truman stated this:
``The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on
the Mount.'' And isn't it ironic, when this Hall of Representatives was
built and decorated, above every door up in the gallery is a profile of
all of those that our predecessors believed were the greatest lawgivers
of all time. The greatest.
Hammurabi. Some say, why is Napoleon up there? The Napoleonic Code.
The Justinian Code, of course. But in the middle is the only face
that's not a side profile and that is because he was considered to be
the greatest lawgiver of all time. As it says under his face, Moses.
That's the Moses Truman was talking about.
Truman goes on:
``The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the
teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.
I don't think we emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a
proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a
totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody
except the State.''
John F. Kennedy said, ``The rights of man come not from the
generosity of the state but from the hand of God.''
Supreme Court Justice Douglas remarked, ``We are a religious people
whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.''
James Madison said in November of 1825:
``The belief in a God all powerful, wise and good is so essential to
the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that
arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor
adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and
capacities to be impressed with it.''

{time} 1720

Our history is so full of such incredible quotes. But those words
that are carved into the Jefferson Memorial, so powerful, are these:
``God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a
Nation be thought secure when we have removed from their only firm
basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are
of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His
wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is
just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.''
That's why we begin every session every day in this Congress with
prayer led by a minister from that podium, going back to the unanimous
motion by Benjamin Franklin, that unless the Lord build a house, they
labor in vain that build it. If we have the morals of Woodstock, we can
expect more tragedies. We can expect more greed and more avarice, more
lawlessness, and more rights to be usurped by the servants that were
elected and selected and hired. And we owe the future generations so
much better than that.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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