[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 17, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H3346-H3347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FREE SPEECH FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Alexander Hamilton was 21 years of 
age; Aaron Burr, 20 years of age; James Monroe, 18; James Madison, 25 
years old. These young Founding Fathers, some of America's most notable 
names, were college age when they stood against an opposing British 
monarch and demanded life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  In fact, the right to freedom of speech was considered so important 
that James Madison, the author of the

[[Page H3347]]

Constitution, made it the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. 
However, it seems today that some of America's youngest minds of this 
generation have forgotten just what it is this great Nation stands for 
and what ideals it was built on.

                              {time}  1015

  A disturbing trend has begun cropping up on some college campuses 
around the country. The ideals that our Founding Fathers so 
painstakingly penned into life are at risk of disappearing from the 
sacred parchment of liberty. Freedom of speech is under attack. The 
left has perpetrated the idea that freedom of speech only applies to 
them but not to opposing views: free speech for me but not for thee.
  Conservative thinkers are often banned from some universities. If 
they are invited, students are allowed the disrupt the events.
  Mr. Speaker, since when does a war of words include physical violence 
against anyone who disagrees? Some universities and students claim that 
if speech is offensive, it must be banned; and who are we going to let 
decide what is offensive or hurtful? The listener? The elite academia? 
The government?
  This is a very dangerous philosophy that some of our universities are 
promoting and students are accepting. The British censored speech 
critical of the King. That is one reason the free flow of diverse ideas 
is protected in our country. The Bolsheviks and Lenin enforced 
censorship of ideas they opposed.
  Lenin said, to paraphrase: We don't let our enemies have guns. Why 
should we let them have ideas that are calculated to criticize the 
government?
  Speech control by universities, professors, students, or government 
is a violation of the 1776 movement. It seems as if our very founding 
document is at risk of fading into the abyss of history.
  Have we forgotten the meaning of the First Amendment? The First 
Amendment protects all forms of speech, even those we don't personally 
agree with. Even those words that offend us personally are protected.
  If our American public square or university becomes a place where 
only ideas that the speech police allow, then we have lost our way and 
have become nothing more than an echo chamber.
  How can political ideas be challenged if people cannot be allowed the 
freedom to speak different opinions? In Terminiello v. Chicago, Supreme 
Court Justice Douglas stated: ``A function of free speech under our 
system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its 
high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates 
dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to 
anger.''
  I guess Justice Douglas would not be allowed on some of our 
university campuses today to have dialogue with students because he 
ruled controversial views are constitutionally protected.
  Freedom of speech is one of the things that made this country 
different from the rest of the world.
  We must remember that fact and reject the tendency to bruise the 
First Amendment by stamping out speech that is controversial.
  In the famous words of Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who wrote under a 
pseudonym in the 1900s: ``I disapprove of what you say, but I will 
defend to the death your right to say it.''
  I don't see any university professors teaching this dedication to 
free speech. What is most disturbing is that often it is the public 
universities that are responsible for silencing speech that they don't 
agree with. This is clearly a violation of the philosophy of the First 
Amendment.
  George Washington said it best: ``If the freedom of speech is taken 
away, then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.''
  America must always remain a free and open public space where the 
marketplace of ideas, even those we may detest or disagree with, are 
always freely expressed.
  Mr. Speaker, I leave you with the words of James Madison: ``The 
advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true 
liberty.''
  Our college youth of today should heed the words of American youth of 
1776. But the elite academia of our university speech police may not 
allow controversial words--those words of Madison and Jefferson--to be 
taught on campus because it just might offend them.
  And that is just the way it is.

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