[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 177 (Thursday, December 8, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H7561-H7564]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ABROGATING OUR NATURAL RIGHTS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, this is supposed to be our last day in
formal session, actual session, of the year. There may be something
coming up. I always worry about unanimous consent requests when nobody
is here.
I know the administration likes to brag that it has been a good year
for enforcing the border, but this story from Brooke Singman says:
The number of unaccompanied children crossing into the U.S. from
Mexico nearly doubled this year citing from Border Patrol figures.
Hopefully, we will get the Trump administration moving as quickly as
they indicate they intend to.
It is worth noting that this story came out from The Hill. Mark
Hensch said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11,
says that in his view, immigration into the United States is al Qaeda's
deadliest weapon against the United States. That is what he has
apparently indicated.
A witness said:
From his perspective, the long war for Islamic domination
wasn't going to be won in the streets with bombs and bullets
and bloodshed. No, it would be won in the minds of the
American people.
This is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's thinking. Thank God--literally,
thank God--that President Obama has not released the mastermind as he
has so many others who have contributed to the deaths of Americans.
But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9/11 mastermind, said:
The terror attacks were good, but the ``practical'' way to
defeat America was through immigration and by out-breeding
non-Muslims.
[[Page H7562]]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:
Jihadi-minded brothers would immigrate into the United
States, taking advantage of the welfare system to support
themselves while they spread their jihadi message.
They will wrap themselves in America's rights and laws for
protection, ratchet up acceptance of sharia law, and then,
only when they were strong enough, rise up and violently
impose sharia from within. He said the brothers would
relentlessly continue their attacks and the American people
eventually would become so tired, so frightened and so weary
of war they would just want it to end.
According to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, that is when radical Islam--
sharia law--would take over for the United States, and the Constitution
of the United States would no longer have meaning here.
It is rather interesting. When we find out exactly what the enemies
of freedom have in the way of plans to destroy our liberty and freedom,
it really should catch the attention of some of our United States
Federal Government.
We passed a bill today, and I love and respect the people that pushed
for it, but I need to make further comment about it. This was H.R.
4919. It is a bill that was supposed to be just a reauthorization.
Well, it has got a program, and people that start these kinds of
things, knowing where they will end up, start with a small amount of
money. If you start with just millions, then you can go later on from
there. When you paint it as being simply to help families who have
autistic or Alzheimer's patients, people with dementia, things that
Americans like me understand because we have had family members who,
because of organic problems, a very brilliant person can become
confused, not know where they are and become lost. But life here in
Congress would be so much easier if I simply would not read the bills.
This bill creates a Federal tracking program, and it starts with
Alzheimer's patients and autism patients, people with those
disabilities. It also includes, according to the bill, developmental
disabilities, and that is broad enough that you can start including all
kinds of things now that the law has been passed.
My understanding, it is told that in the Senate it was likewise
breezed through. Somebody went on the Senate floor when other Senators
weren't there, maybe two people or so, and said: I ask unanimous
consent that this bill be passed; hearing no objection, so ordered.
It was not much of a vote. We didn't even have a hearing in
subcommittee or committee where we bring witnesses, talk to experts,
talk to people involved, see what the problem is and see if the cure is
worse than the problem. We didn't have that. We didn't have
constitutional experts talk about the indications for our future
freedom.
Instead, we got this bill. I am grateful that proponents tried to fix
things, but as I read through it, the fixes didn't really fix things.
This program that is supposed to help people with mental health
issues--confusion, getting lost, and dying. We know these things
happen. There is nothing anywhere in the law that prevents a parent
from having something that helps that parent track or keep track of
their autistic child or child with, according to this bill,
developmental disabilities--nothing. There is nothing that keeps a
guardian from using some kind of tracking methodology to keep up with
someone who has Alzheimer's.
Yes, I know it is a serious issue; but why wasn't this left, then, to
the Department of Health and Human Services if it is really just a
mental health issue? The answer is it was left to the Attorney General
and to the Department of Justice because the truth is, if it would need
to expand, that is where they want it to expand.
We were assured that this is strictly voluntary; but once you have a
program in place, it is very easy for someone to file a petition and
ask a judge, such as I once was back in Texas: Here are the
indications. We need an order for the good of this person and the
safety of the public so that this person can be tracked.
It is not just a danger to themselves, the bill talks about, or an
injury that could be caused by the patient. We know from the Department
of Homeland Security that many in the Department of Homeland Security
think the biggest threat for hate crimes, for destruction and death in
America are from people who are veterans that may like the idea of the
Second Amendment allowing them to keep guns.
{time} 1615
They are people who believe the Constitution should be literally
followed, and the words that the Constitution actually says should be
followed. The Founders of this country would be, of course--if they
were around today--at the top of this administration's no-fly list
because they wanted liberty above all, they wanted freedom. They did
not want a government that interceded into their own personal private
decisions and lives.
Now we have this bill. The attorney general will tell us what the
rules are because the bill says he or she will, and the attorney
general will set up the best practices. I know that there is language
added that says: Oh, no, the parent or guardian, they have to
voluntarily use this program; it is not forceful.
Well, no, the grants are not for anyone except voluntary, but I can
guarantee you the program will ultimately be used to involuntarily
place tracking information on people.
Then, despite some of my friends in Congress saying, This is really
not a danger, it is nothing to worry about, I get back to the office
and my staff hands me an article regarding Japan. And, lo and behold,
it is from Yahoo News. ``Japan Tags Dementia Sufferers With Barcodes.''
And the article goes on to point out that in Japan, where, until after
World War II and the surrender in 1945, Japan had a history of
submitting to whatever the emperor, the totalitarian leader, dictated.
Well, now in Japan, they have come up with the best way of tracking
people. It is by putting barcodes on fingers. All you need is a barcode
on one finger, a barcode on one toe, and then the Japanese Government
will be able to accurately and adequately track people they are
concerned about.
So I don't think anybody needs to be worried about the government
having this Orwellian program unless, perhaps, they are Christian,
because the Commission on Civil Rights thinks that people who talk
about religious freedom, religious liberty, Christians that use words
like ``evangelical,'' that those are the biggest threat, perhaps, for
hate in America because of the ignorance in this administration. It is
nothing against them personally. It is just all of us are ignorant in
some areas.
Apparently, in this administration, there is widespread ignorance
over the fact that Christianity is the religion based on love; that God
so loved the world, he would send his son, and that his son would so
love the world, he would lay down his life for his friends, which he,
Jesus, said was the greatest love. True Christians follow the teachings
of Jesus just as most Muslims try to do; to follow the teachings of
Jesus.
Anyway, if you are a Christian, or you believe the Constitution
should be literally followed, or you believe that you should have a
right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment, or you believe
the Tenth Amendment means what it says, that any power not specifically
enumerated for the Federal Government, it is reserved to the States and
people, anybody that believes those kind of things is really a threat,
according to some in this administration and some in what has become
more of a permanent government.
Administrations come and go, but we have got liberals that are so
tolerant, they want to take away the rights of anybody with whom they
disagree. The blacklist experts. They talk about blacklists of the
fifties, and they go beyond anything that the fifties may have had in
store for those who wanted to bring down the United States Government.
Anyway, there just was not enough attention paid to this bill. It
breaks my heart--and I am not kidding, I am not being sarcastic--that
there were some that were pushing for this bill that have some of the
biggest hearts, that want to do more to help people--and I am afraid
because of the bill's passage today, and I am sure the President will
sign it into law, gee, we get to track people we are concerned about in
America, maybe we will use a barcode.
If we can have the attorney general, in his opinion, find that a
subcutaneous chip implant is noninvasive,
[[Page H7563]]
then we can do that. But maybe the barcode would be better than a chip.
Anyway, we have passed the program. Someday, I am very afraid for my
dear friends that push this bill that history will not so much remember
the wonderful things they have fought for in this legislative body, the
great moral issues they have stood for, but one day they will be
remembered as the ones who quietly pushed this bill through that
allowed a Federal Government to begin tracking for the first-time
students--not students, but young people, whether they are students or
not, people with disabilities. I am sure we will be seeing the attorney
general add definition, since it is up to her, or someday him, perhaps,
to determine what really is developmental disability.
So those things are coming. People need to be aware of them. Perhaps
someday we will have a Congress before it is too late that will back up
and say: Wait a minute, we are not going to be funding with Federal
taxpayer dollars a tracking system for American citizens.
I had some colleague say: Well, I could have voted for it if it was
only people who were known terrorists, but we don't want to track known
terrorists. This bill would be considered an abomination if we tried to
put a barcode or a chip into a known terrorist in the United States.
No, this needs to be reserved for people who get confused, and so it
goes.
In the words of Billy Joel:
So it goes, and you are the only one who knows.
So also being as how this week included the 75th anniversary of the
day of infamy when right at that level the President of the United
States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, said--actually, 75 years ago today, he
said:
Yesterday, December 7, 1941--a date which will live in
infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and
deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire
of Japan.
He went on. It is about a page-and-a-half speech, double spaced. And
he concludes by saying:
With confidence in our own forces--with the unbounded
determination of our people--we will gain the inevitable
triumph--so help us God.
It is interesting, Roosevelt so often referred to God. He is the only
American President, which I am aware, who went on national radio, or
TV, but he went on radio--that is what they had at the time--on D-day,
when thousands of American troops were landing in France on the
beaches, thousands were being killed, and he led the Nation in a
Christian prayer on national radio.
Why?
Because he was a true leader of the United States. He knew our Nation
was in great trouble. So the natural thing to do was lead the Nation in
prayer.
If we go back to the man who is called the Father of the
Constitution, as I understand it, the Federal Government mandates a
test to be taught in order for people to get a little bit of the money
that they send from their States to Washington, D.C., to the Department
of Education. The Department of Education, if you do what they tell
you, will send you a little bit back of your own money. So they don't
require that the statements of our constitutional Founders be learned.
My understanding is the biggest thing the current folks want to be
taught and learned about World War II is not that America was attacked.
There was a day of infamy and that America was fighting and losing
lives around the world, not as much for America, but for liberty, for
freedom; that there would be places in the world where people could
live and have opportunity and make their own decisions without the
forces of radical Islam, which had joined forces with the Nazis and
with the emperor in Japan.
But if you go back to James Madison, he said:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization,
not on the power of government; far from it. We have staked
the future of all of our political institutions upon the
capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of
each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves,
to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of
God.
That is rather important. That is why if you go through the writings,
the pronouncements, the proclamations, the laws of the United States
for the first 100, 150 years or so, we finally got the Constitution to
a place where people understood you can't have slavery legally exist
under a constitution that grants freedom. Thank God, they finally got
past the ridiculous decision in Dred Scott, and we got past the Civil
War.
In 1890, there was a case that the Supreme Court sat in on, 136 U.S.
1 (1890). The Supreme Court said this:
It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and the
civilization, which Christianity has produced in the western
world.
Two years later, in the case of United States v. Church of the Holy
Trinity, the Supreme Court went on for pages talking about the evidence
of Christianity in America not so that Christianity would be forced or
imposed on anyone, but as Madison understood, and as Adams understood,
and as Washington understood, you could not maintain self-government, a
democratic Republic where we will elect representatives as our
servants. You can't maintain that if it is not a religious and a moral
people. That cannot be a majority of religious and moral people who
believe that the Constitution must totally be subjugated to a
particular law, whether that be Sharia or others.
So in the Declaration of Independence--this is the Supreme Court
citing this in their 1892 decision:
The Declaration of Independence recognizes the presence of
the Divine in human affairs in these words:
``We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights . . . appealing to the Supreme
Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions . . .
And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance
on Protection of Define Providence, we mutually pledge to
each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.''
{time} 1630
When I saw a copy of the original Treaty of Paris of 1783, in which
we forced England to swear under something so important that they would
not want to break the oath, what do you come up with to get Great
Britain--the most powerful country in the world with the most powerful
navy and army--to swear under that they would not willingly be wanting
to break that oath? The big words--huge letters--starting the treaty
that recognized our independence for the first time starts out:
In the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity, that is
Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
The opinion goes on and cites so many examples of Christianity in
America. They say:
We are a Christian people, and the morality of the country
is deeply engrafted upon Christianity and not upon the
doctrines of worship of those impostors.
It goes on and reads after many more recitations:
These and many other matters which might be noticed add a
volume of unofficial declaration to the mass of organic
utterances that this is a Christian nation. We find
everywhere a clear recognition of the same truth. The
happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of
civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and
morality.
Not that we would ever force Christian beliefs on anyone, but as we
find historically--and as even a Muslim leader and a descendant of
Muhammad told General Jay Garner in Iraq when he was inquiring as to
what kind of government we should have--he said it should be based on
the teachings of Jesus because that descendant of Muhammad--that Muslim
leader--understood that it is, really, only if you have a government
that is under the teachings of Jesus where an atheist, a Buddhist,
Hindu, Islam--any religion--can prosper without fear so long as they do
not try to undo the Constitution of the United States.
Franklin Roosevelt, so endeared to liberals in this Nation, on
December 24, 1933, said:
This year marks a greater national understanding of the
significance in our modern lives of the teaching of Him whose
birth we celebrate. To more and more of us, the words ``thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself'' have taken on a meaning
that is showing itself and proving itself in our purposes and
in our daily lives. May the practice of that high ideal grow
in us all in the year to come. I give you and send you, one
and all, old and young, a Merry Christmas and a truly happy
new year. And so, for now and for always, God bless us,
everyone.
Another example is from Franklin Roosevelt on December 21, 2 short
[[Page H7564]]
weeks after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. I won't read the whole thing,
but it is deeply moving, and he finishes by saying:
Our strongest weapon in this war is that conviction of the
dignity and brotherhood of man, which Christmas Day
signifies. Against enemies who preach the principles of hate
and practice them, we set our faith in human love and in
God's care for us and all men everywhere. Our strength, as
the strength of all men everywhere, is of greater avail as
God upholds us.
In 1942, on Christmas Eve, he finished by saying:
It is significant that tomorrow, Christmas Day, our plants
and factories will be stilled. That is not true of the other
holidays we have long been accustomed to celebrate. On all
other holidays, work goes on--gladly for the winning of the
war. So Christmas becomes the only holiday in all the year. I
like to think this is so because Christmas is a holy day.
John F. Kennedy, on December 17, 1962, said these words--and I won't
read the whole thing--in the conclusion:
This has been a year of peril where the peace has been
sorely threatened, but it has been a year when peril was
faced and when reason ruled. As a result, we may talk at this
Christmas just a little bit more confidently of peace on
Earth, goodwill to men; and, as a result, the hopes of the
American people are, perhaps, a little higher. We have much
yet to do. We still have to ask that God bless everyone.
Then last for today, before we adjourn for Christmas, Ronald Reagan,
on December 19, 1988, concluded his Christmas address by saying:
Our compassion and concern this Christmas and all year long
will mean much to the hospitalized, the homeless, the
convalescent, the orphaned, and it will surely lead us on our
way to the joy and peace of Bethlehem and the Christ Child
who bids us come, for it is only in finding and living the
eternal meaning of the Nativity that we can be truly happy,
truly at peace, truly home.
I conclude, Mr. Speaker, as Ronald Reagan did: Merry Christmas, and
God bless you.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________