[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 110 (Friday, July 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H4569-H4571]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRAGEDY IN AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Loudermilk). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 6, 2015, the Chair recognizes the gentleman
from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for the remainder of the hour as the designee
of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, might I ask how much time is remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 32 minutes remaining.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much my friend, Mr. Hice,
who preceded me.
It is a very sad day around the country. So much in the way of
sympathy and prayers for the victims' families in Dallas are greatly
appreciated.
As someone who grew up looking forward to visits to the big city of
Dallas, it is deeply troubling to see what has happened there. The
Dallas police chief said that the suspect said he wanted to kill White
people, especially White police officers.
I was listening in the cloakroom to a press conference going on now
with some of our African American Members of Congress defending Black
Lives Matter and discussing the unfairness in America for African
Americans in this country.
I don't know the races of the officers that were shot. Apparently,
the suspect said he wanted to shoot and kill White officers, but I know
there are a lot of officers in Dallas of a lot of different races.
I had the opportunity, if you want to call it an opportunity, of
trying a murder case for 10 weeks in Dallas. I worked with some
incredible Dallas police officers. Because of my background, I continue
to have great respect for law enforcement officers.
There was something that we had seen since the protest days of the
sixties and seventies: calling police officers pigs and calling them
all kinds of names. People--terrorists from those days that have now
grown up and even teaching college--wanted to kill pigs, wanted to kill
police officers back then. Back then it wasn't a race issue; it was
just killing what they called pigs.
Having served 4 years in the Army after Vietnam, we weren't ever in
combat in my 4 years, but we knew what it was to be spit at, to be
ridiculed, and at times to be told not to wear your uniform off post
because people hate you so much. So I have some empathy for what
officers have gone through.
The evil and the hatred that brought about 9/11, killing thousands of
precious lives, taking so many innocent lives here, had a result that I
didn't expect: it brought America together. September 12, there on our
town square in Tyler, Texas, people of all walks, age, race, gender--it
didn't matter--came together. We sang together, we prayed together, and
even all held hands together.
{time} 1315
As I have said before, the thing I loved about that day was there was
no--there were no hyphenated Americans on September 12 of 2001. We were
Americans, without regard to race, creed, color, national origin,
gender, age. None of that mattered. We were Americans. We had been
attacked, and we were wanting to stand together.
In all our sympathy for those who died on 9/11, the day after, it
felt good to be together. For about 3 months our churches were filled
and people were asking God to bless America again, and it felt good to
be together as Americans.
Nobody from organizations like Freedom from Religion dared show their
face that day because people across America were begging God for His
protection, for His blessings, as He has through most of our Nation's
history.
There is an article that has already come out today from the
Federalist publication. It says:
``Five Takeaways From the Dallas Police Chief's Press Conference.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief David Brown held a
press conference Friday morning in the wake of the sniper shooting
during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas that killed at
least five officers and injured seven more and two civilians.''
The five takeaways, they say, are, number 1: ``Police Killed a
Suspect With a Robot Carrying a Bomb.''
Number 2: ``Gunman Said he Wanted to `Kill White People, White
Officers.' ''
Number 3: ``Brown and Rawlings Were Unclear About Number of Suspect/s
and their Descriptions.''
Number 4: ``Brown said Police Don't Feel Support Most Days, but Need
It Now.''
Number 5: ``Brown and Rawlings Asked for Prayer.''
I appreciate my fellow Members of Congress feeling the need to have a
press conference today and, again, to support the movement of Black
Lives Matter and the injustices that have happened at the hands of
police officers.
As I have said many times during my adult life, including especially
during my days as a District Judge handling felony cases where humans
are involved, there will be mistakes and wrongdoing. And no matter what
profession, there will be people who do wrong.
But I have always taken solace in the fact--what I believe is the
fact--that amongst law enforcement, those who would do wrong or who may
be prejudiced in their motivation, the numbers are so much fewer
percentagewise than in the general population.
That is why over the last 7\1/2\ years it has grieved me greatly to
see our President rebuff the opportunity to bring us together as a
nation anytime an incident involved a police officer, his knee-jerk
reactions repeatedly, whether it was saying that the police acted
stupidly or jumping onto the bandwagon against police, when it turned
out the police were in the right.
There have been instances where they were not, and there are some on
video where it clearly appears they did terribly wrong and reacted
terribly wrong. And when that happens, perpetrators, wrongdoers are to
be punished without regard to race, creed, color, gender, national
origin. That doesn't matter.
It seems, as long as we have groups like Black Lives Matter, who will
just become unnerved and inflamed when a Democratic candidate for
President says all lives matter and chastise him for saying all lives
matter, to the point that he has to withdraw his belief that all lives
matter and go back to saying,
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you're right, you're right, it's just Black lives matter.
That is nowhere near approaching the dream that Martin Luther King,
Jr., had just about 2\1/2\ miles down the Mall here in front of the
Lincoln Memorial.
So we had people, after 9/11, return to loving and appreciating and
an outpouring of support for first responders, law enforcement, because
they saw that, when push came to shove, the huge majority of law
officers put their own life at risk for the benefit of others without
regard to race, creed, color, or national origin, gender, age. They
don't care. Their job is to serve and protect, and they do an amazing
job.
I just keep going back to the statement of the police chief, that
police don't feel support most days, but they need it now. But when
elected officials contribute to stoking the flame of hatred and
animosity toward our law enforcement, then people that don't have the
reasoning ability that most of our elected officials have get stoked.
They get inflamed. And we don't need anybody coming out and blaming
guns before that person even knows what kind of guns were used.
I know we have friends that keep saying, if you are on the no-fly
list, which means if you are on the list that has a great deal of
arbitrariness to it, to the point that this administration will not
even tell Congress how they decide who goes on the no-fly list, and
even though they won't tell us how to get off the no-fly list if you
are arbitrarily and mistakenly put on it, as Ted Kennedy and so many
others have been, that is a formula for disaster for totalitarianism.
We don't need an arbitrary list that is concocted in secret with the
secret way of getting off that we are not aware of. That is not the way
you go about trying to take away people's civil rights to keep and bear
arms.
After seeing the disaster in Dallas, there are a number of things I
knew. One is that the people in Texas--most of them, except for the
agitators, so many that have come in from outside, but most of them--
will respond and show their love and support for our law officers
because we love law abiding in Texas.
I hope and pray, Mr. Speaker, that we can stop the divisiveness.
There is nothing wrong with arguing. There is nothing wrong with
debate. That is how we got our Constitution--a lot of yelling and
fussing, bickering, came together. There is nothing wrong with
disagreeing.
Until one person in this Congress or in the White House has 100
percent lock on God's truth all the time, then we need to argue, we
need to debate. I would submit we need to be prayerful in how we
approach what we should do, but it is good to debate.
I grew up in a family of four kids. We argued, fussed, bickered, but
we came together as a family, and still do. In times of hurting, we
still come together, and that is what we need to do as a nation.
I look forward to the day when there is no group that includes a race
color, a skin color, in its name. I look forward to that day when it
just doesn't matter. And it seems clear to me that as long as we keep
calling out distinctions between ourselves with matters of race, creed,
color, national origin, gender, age, that there will continue to be
bias and prejudice further engendered.
I have seen video, including those recently, where I was horrified to
see what happened. I didn't care what color the officer was. I didn't
care what color the victim's skin color was. I was horrified that a
victim would be treated as victims have been recently.
I look forward to the day when the percentage of people committing
crimes, according to race, have no need of being kept because it
doesn't matter. We care about how you act, not how you look. But as
long as those numbers keep being kept, they need to all be looked at.
We need to get to the bottom of not just why so many African
Americans are being killed in America--as we see from the numbers the
FBI puts out, the huge majority are from other--the lives are taken by
other African Americans. And I look forward to my friends getting upset
about that someday, about the numbers of deaths in cities controlled by
African Americans that have made it hard to possess guns unless you are
a criminal.
I have people that want to constantly point to our justice system and
say: See how unfair it is?
Well, in my court--I was asked just last week: Did you have any
capital murder cases? Have you ever had cases where you had to look
someone in the eye and pronounce the death sentence?
I had two. I tried three capital cases. They take a long time to try
because--particularly with the jury selection.
Someone--the same person said skeptically: And let me guess; both of
those were Black.
I look forward to the day when people don't skeptically assume that
everything is about race. As it just so happens, the two of the three
capital murder cases where I had to sentence someone to death, they
were White defendants. The one case where the defendant did not get the
death penalty, though he was convicted of murder, happened to be
African American.
I had an issue raised by a defense attorney on a death penalty case
out of another court, but in our county, and they were wanting--and I
was subpoenaed as a witness to testify about the disproportionate
number of African Americans who had not been allowed to be grand jury
foremen.
{time} 1330
When they actually got the list of my grand jury--the judge doesn't
pick the grand juries. Those are selected by grand jury commissioners
of different races, creeds, colors, and national origin. As long as
they are American citizens, they picked the grand juries, and then the
only thing the judge picks in Texas is the foreman. After they got the
list of grand juries that I have presided over and they saw that there
was disproportionately more African Americans who had been foremen of
the grand juries, they told me they didn't want me as a witness because
clearly I was not going to help their case.
But when I selected a foreman of a grand jury, I didn't care what
their color was. I knew we needed good, sound leadership. Every person
I ever selected as a foreman of a grand jury I knew was a caring,
intelligent, and upstanding leader in our community. I didn't care what
their color was.
Jesus said: ``Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.'' He certainly would know; He did exactly
that. I love that being the first thing on the plaque for Father
Damien, one of the two statues that we have in the Capitol from Hawaii.
Abraham Lincoln on September 5, 1864, said: ``In regard to this Great
Book''--and he capitalized ``Great'' and ``Book,'' talking about the
Bible--``I have but to say, I believe the Bible is the best gift God
has given to man. All the good Saviour''--and I know that term offends
so many, but this was Abraham Lincoln's own words. ``All the good
Savior gave to the world was communicated through this Book,'' the
Bible. ``But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All
things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be
found portrayed in it.''
Mr. Speaker, I want to finish with a verse and a personal incident.
Since Abraham Lincoln and most all of our Presidents have highly
commended the use of the Bible as getting this Nation on track when we
become dislodged, disoriented, and divisive, we go to Matthew 22:35:
And one of them who was a lawyer--being a lawyer, you figure, leave it
to lawyers to try to stir up trouble. One of them who was a lawyer
tested Him by asking Him: ``Teacher, which is the greatest commandment
in the law?'' Jesus said to him: ``You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.''
This is the first and greatest commandment. And a second is like it:
``You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'' On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets.
Some people wonder about it. What does He mean, on those two
commands, love God, love each other, hang all the law and the prophets?
What does He mean, all the law and the prophets hang on those two
commands?
If you were to outline the Ten Commandments that God gave us and that
most of our leaders in history have believed came from God, himself--
and that is why Moses up here, directly above me, facing me, is the
only full
[[Page H4571]]
face of the greatest lawgivers in the history of the world. It is
because, at one time, all of the Supreme Court thought those Ten
Commandments were great commandments. Now, probably at least four would
say that maybe five or six were okay. But for most of our history, they
have felt those ten were great commandments.
If you do an outline or you categorize all of those Ten Commandments,
they all fit neatly under two categories: one, love God; and number
two, love each other.
That came home very clearly to me years ago when my mother had a
brain tumor. We knew it would eventually take her. The doctors had made
that clear. They made clear that there was nothing more that could be
done. Mother had said that she wasn't interested in seeing more doctors
because they had said the same thing.
Since she was my lifelong English teacher--but especially my eighth
grade English teacher--and she loved poetry, I threw one of her poems
back at her from Dylan Thomas: ``Rage, rage against the dying of the
light . . . Do not go gentle into that good night.''
Mother wrote back. She was thrilled that I paid attention. But she
quoted from another poem called ``Thanatopsis'' that talked about
living with such faith that, at the end of life, you can lie down on
the couch wrapped in covers around you.
Well, the doctors said: We don't think she has got all that much
longer to live. They weren't quite accurate; but she had been reduced,
this incredibly brilliant woman, to a wheelchair. It took her a long
time to say things. This incredibly brilliant woman put herself through
Baylor, 2\1/2\ years. Her parents lived right there by the campus, so
she could work full-time and go to school. I didn't know until after
she passed she was a member of a big honor society there.
But anyway, she loved our kids, and she loved our spouses. One
weekend we decided, let's just have the four immediate children go back
to Mount Pleasant and spend the weekend with Mom, and we did.
That Saturday morning, we sat around the breakfast table for hours
like we did years before. We told stories, we laughed, and we made
good-natured fun of each other. We would disagree, and then we would
come back around and kid and love each other. We went on for 3 or 4
hours. Mother didn't say anything. But finally Mother said, ``This,''
and we all got quiet. We would stay there all night if it took it to
hear what Mother had to say. And she got out, ``is my favorite thing.''
That is all she had to say. When I left later that weekend to drive
back to Tyler, it became clear that, if you were a heavenly parent,
wouldn't you want your children loving you and loving each other? And
all the law hang on those two: love your parent; love each other. It
takes care of things. Then what Jesus said made perfect sense.
I look forward to the day when Martin Luther King, Jr.'s dream will
be fulfilled and nobody will care about Black lives matter and White
lives matter. Nobody will care what color people are, and we will come
together again without any hyphenation as Americans. But as long as we
have leaders who continue to pick at a scab and refuse to let it heal,
then our law officers are in danger, our country is in danger, and this
little experiment with a democratic Republic is in severe jeopardy.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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