[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 106 (Thursday, July 9, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H5025-H5027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A MATTER OF HISTORY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Russell). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for 30 minutes.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I heard earlier discussions from my
friends--and I literally mean that, friends; I am not being sarcastic,
they are friends--talking about the shootings. It sounds like they were
certainly racist shootings in South Carolina when an evil man shot
brothers and sisters of mine as fellow Christians.
Now there is this big race to go after the Confederate flag. So, Mr.
Speaker, I saw this article by Daniel Greenfield and felt like this was
worth noting, historically, information that Mr. Greenfield has
published this month. Just touching on parts of the article--I started
to say ``he,'' but it says ``Daniel.'' Maybe it is a man, maybe it
isn't. I don't want to be biased based on a name.
But anyway, in his article he says, talking about President Obama:
``When Obama condemned Christianity for the Crusades, only a thousand
years too late, in attendance was the Foreign Minister of Sudan, a
country that practices slavery and genocide. President Obama could have
taken time out from his rigorous denunciation of the Middle Ages to
speak truth to the emissary of a Muslim Brotherhood regime whose leader
is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against
humanity, but our moral liberals spend too much time romanticizing
actual slaver cultures.
``It's a lot easier for our President to get in his million-dollar
Cadillac with 5-inch thick bulletproof windows, a ride Boss Hogg could
only envy''--Boss Hogg being a reference to the name of the show
``Dukes of Hazzard''--``and chase down a couple of good ole boys than
it is to condemn a culture that committed genocide in our own time, not
in 1099, and that keeps slaves today, not in 1815.
``Even while the Duke boys''--again, references to ``Dukes of
Hazzard''--``the Duke boys were chased through Georgia, President Obama
appeared at an Iftar dinner, an event at which Muslims emulate
Mohammed, who had more slaves than Robert E. Lee. There are no slaves
in Arlington House today, but in the heartlands of Islam, from Saudi
mansions to ISIS dungeons, there are still slaves, laboring, beaten,
bought, sold, raped, and disposed of in Mohammed's name.
``Slavery does not exist under the Confederate flag eagerly being
pulled down. It does exist under the black and green flags of Islam
rising over mosques in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and America today.
``In our incredibly tolerant culture, it has become politically
incorrect to watch the General Lee''--talking about a car--``jump a
fence or a barn, but paying tribute to the culture that sent the slaves
here and that still practices slavery is the culturally sensitive thing
to do. In 2015, slavery is no longer freedom, but it certainly is
tolerance.''
The article goes on: ``Slavery was an indigenous African and Middle
Eastern practice, not to mention an indigenous practice in America
among indigenous cultures.''
The author here is talking about, for those who don't understand
indigenous cultures, he is talking about Native Americans. There were
Native Americans that had slaves, just like in Africa and Middle
Eastern practices.
The article goes on: ``If justice demands that we pull down the
Confederate flag everywhere, even from the top of the orange car
sailing through the air in the freeze frame of an old television show,
then what possible justification is there for all the faux Aztec
knickknacks? Even the worst Southern plantation owners didn't tear out
the hearts of their slaves on top of pyramids.''
This is a reference that obviously in history we understand Aztecs
did pull out hearts of slaves that they sacrificed on top of pyramids.
Anyway, the article says: ``The romanticization of Aztec brutality
plays a crucial role in the mythology of Mexican nationalist groups
like La
[[Page H5026]]
Raza promoting the Reconquista of America today.''
I wasn't aware of that, but the article says: ``Black nationalists
romanticize the slave-holding civilization of Egypt despite the fact
that the narrative of the liberation of the Hebrew slaves from bondage
played a crucial role in the end of slavery in America. The endless
stories about the `Amazons' of the African kingdom of Dahomey neatly
fit into the leftist myth of a peaceful matriarchal Africa disrupted by
European colonialism, but Dahomey ran on slavery.
``The `Amazons' helped capture slaves for the Atlantic slave trade.
White and Black liberals are romanticizing the very culture that
captured and sold their forefathers into slavery. 'In Dahomey,' the
first major mainstream Black musical was about African Americans moving
to Dahomey. By then, the French had taken over old Dahomey and together
with the British had put an end to the slave trade.
``The French dismantled the `Amazons' and freed many of Dahomey's
slaves only for the idiot descendants of both groups to romanticize the
last noble stand of Dahomey fighting for the right to export Black
slaves to Cuba and condemn the European liberators who put a stop to
that atrocity.
``If we crack down on romanticizing Dixie, how can we possibly
justify romanticizing Dahomey or the Aztecs or Mohammed?
``If slavery and racism are wrong,'' which clearly they are, the
article says. ``If slavery and racism are wrong, then they are wrong
across the board . . . Dahomey and Mohammed had bought, sold, and
killed enough Black lives to be frowned upon.
``If we go back far enough in time, most cultures kept slaves. The
Romans and Greeks certainly did. That's why the meaningful standard is
not whether a culture ever had slaves, but whether it has slaves today.
If we are going to eradicate the symbols of every culture that ever
traded in slaves, there will be few cultural symbols that will escape
unscathed. But the academics who insist on cultural relativism in 19th
century Africa reject it in 19th century South Carolina, thereby
revealing their own racism.
``And so instead of fighting actual modern-day slavery in Africa and
the Middle East, social justice warriors are swarming to invade Hazzard
County.
``Most of the cultures of the past that we admire, respect, and even
romanticize had slaves, but when we look back at their achievements and
even try to forge some connection to them, it does not have to mean an
endorsement of their worst habits. This is a concept that liberals
understood but that leftists reject.
``The recent hysteria reminds us that the nuanced reason of the
former has been replaced by the irrational, destructive impulses of the
latter. The left is so obsessed with creating utopias of the future
that, like the Taliban or ISIS, it destroys the relics of past
societies that do not measure up to its impossible standards. And then
it replaces them with imaginary utopias of the past that never existed.
``As Ben Carson pointed out, we will not get rid of racism by banning
the Confederate flag. Even when it is used at its worst by the likes of
Dylann Storm Roof, it is a symptom, not the problem. Roof was not
radicalized by the dead Confederacy, but by the racial tensions kicked
off''--I am not sure I want to say that.
But, anyway, interesting take, but all of this talk about eliminating
any references or uses of things that remind us of the horrors, the
abomination that slavery was in the United States should be eliminated.
That is what we are hearing.
And so, Mr. Speaker, in thinking about that--and the suggestion was
made by my friend, another judge from Texas, Judge Carter, so I had to
go look it up. I think there is an entity that was so evil in
supporting slavery, in fighting against civil rights, in fighting
against the Christian brother that Martin Luther King, Jr., was,
fighting against those who wanted equality that the Constitution
guaranteed, we ought to look at those symbols, and we ought to look at
what they stood for and perhaps ban any political organization from
participating in Congress for upholding the abomination that slavery
was to this country.
So I was able to get a copy of this platform, this political platform
from 1856. This is the number one plank in the platform of this hideous
political organization, and this is what they believed and they
asserted.
{time} 2045
I am reading from the number one plank in their party platform:
``That Congress has no power under the Constitution, to interfere with
or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that
such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining
to their own affairs, not prohibited by the Constitution''--then, here
it goes--``that all efforts of the abolitionists, or others, made to
induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take
incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most
alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an
inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and
endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be
countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.''
That was the official number one plank in this hideous political
organization's platform from 1856.
They go on. Here is number three: ``That by the uniform application
of this Democratic principle to the organization of territories, and to
the admission of new States, with or without domestic slavery, as they
may elect--the equal rights, of all the States will be preserved
intact.''
They are saying they want to preserve slavery in any State that wants
to have it.
They finish up by saying: ``Resolved, That we recognize the right of
the people of all the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska,
acting through the legally and fairly expressed will of a majority of
actual residents, and whenever the number of their inhabitants
justifies it, to form a constitution, with or without domestic
slavery.''
It sounds like something the Ku Klux Klan would have done. They are
demanding that they have the right to have slavery, the worst
abomination in the history of America, that even Thomas Jefferson put
in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence that it was a
horrible grievance against the King of England for allowing slavery,
this horrible abomination, from ever starting in America.
Well, they didn't learn their lesson. This hideous political
organization's platform in 1860 said they were adopting all the things
that they had said in 1856 about the right to keep this heinous,
offensive slavery intact.
They include this, though, additionally in their platform of 1860:
``Resolved, That the enactment of the State Legislatures to defeat the
faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, are hostile in character,
subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.''
They want to make it clear that not only were they avid supporters of
slavery in America, but that it was their right to own people in
America. This disgusting political organization also found the fugitive
slave law to be, as they say, hostile in character, subversive of the
Constitution.
Again, this sounds like something from the Ku Klux Klan. Will we want
the Ku Klux Klan participating here on the floor when this is their
history? It is the worst abomination.
The horrors of slavery finally were overcome, largely by abolitionist
churches and pastors, people who believed that it had to stop, that
people couldn't be treating brothers and sisters in such a way.
It took the life work and even laying down of the life of Martin
Luther King, Jr., to push us to the level where brothers and sisters,
as he was in Christ, could treat brothers and sisters as equal people.
That is where we should have been all along. It is where he was pushing
us to be against the hideous type things from 1856 and 1860.
If we are going to eliminate everything that reminds us of a hideous
past that supported slavery and the oppression, the horrors that
slavery entailed--breaking up of families, molestations, the beatings,
just the horrors--John Quincy Adams was right. God could not continue
to bless America while we were treating brothers and sisters by putting
them in chains and bondage.
He was right. So many abolitionists were right. Daniel Webster was
right.
[[Page H5027]]
Republicans that stood up to these hideous political organizations were
right. There should be no place for slavery in America.
If we are going to have a complete cleansing of this country of
anything, any symbol, then this platform from the Democratic Party in
1856 and 1860--and it wasn't the Ku Klux Klan; it sounded like it, and
there were a lot of Democrats who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. I
don't know that you can find Republicans that were members of the Ku
Klux Klan, but there were certainly plenty of Democrats that were.
I think it is time not for the Washington Redskins to change their
name, but for the Democratic Party to change its name because all you
have to do is go online and look up the history of the Democratic
Party. It is one of oppressing African Americans. It is one of
supporting slavery and the horrors that occurred in the United States,
even up through the 20th century on into the 1860s.
I think we had a Democratic Senator who was a member of the Ku Klux
Klan. I think he has got a lot of things named after him. I hope that
my friends who will ultimately want to change the name of the
Democratic Party because of its horrible history will also want to
change the names of things that were named after somebody that was a
big supporter of the Ku Klux Klan.
The fact is the families of the victims in Charleston, South
Carolina--brothers and sisters in Christ, for those of us who are
Christians--wow, did they send a powerful message. I didn't see or hear
them demanding the Confederate flag be taken down. I heard them forgive
the one--the evil, horrible person--that committed such a vile act on
people at a prayer meeting, of all things.
They showed the kind of love Jesus showed, the kind of love that was
embodied by Father Damien, whose statue is right down at the southern
entrance of this building beneath us right now. The plaque on his
statue--God forgive anybody who would ever want to change this, because
it is so powerful--are the words of Jesus in John 15:13: ``Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.''
Jesus did that; Father Damien did that; Martin Luther King, Jr., did
that--many have so that we could have the freedoms we have today, many
of our American military forces have, not just for your freedom, but
freedom around the world.
Let's recognize the good with which we have been blessed. Let's stop
the name calling, the race baiting, the division politics. Let's fuss
and disagree over issues, but let's quit trying to tear this country
apart because of things of the past in which not one person in this
room would have taken part in.
Let's work together. Fuss, disagree, push for what we believe is best
for the country, but let's stop the race baiting because, if we are
really going to go there, we have got to end the Democratic Party. Its
history is so interwoven with starting, keeping, trying to push slavery
on beyond anything that it should have been through.
We don't need to end the Democratic Party. We just need to work
together in the present. That doesn't mean we can't disagree. We do all
the time. Let's stop the race baiting. Let's look at the example of the
victims' families in Charleston, South Carolina, and say: Wow, there
are incredible believers and followers of Jesus Christ. That is
somebody we can emulate.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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