[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 130 (Thursday, July 23, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H3830-H3835]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
AMERICA IS A GREAT NATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous materials on the topic of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, we are here as lovers of liberty, as
patriots, as people concerned about the future of our country, just
citizen legislators, people who have children and grandchildren and who
want our posterity to inherit the blessings of liberty and all of the
opportunities this great Nation has afforded not only myself and my
colleagues, but all Americans.
America is a great nation, and God has truly blessed America. America
has been a blessing to the world, and as President Trump has said, we
must keep America great.
It is not just what that statement means to our citizens and to our
children and the next generation of Americans; it is what America means
and what this great experiment at liberty and democracy means for the
entire world.
Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about the substance of that
greatness, the true substance of it.
I would suggest that what makes America great is the American people
and the values, the beliefs--what defines us--our culture, what we
esteem.
That is what we must remember as we legislate, as we lead and
represent our citizens throughout this great land, that what makes
America great and what will keep America great are America's values. We
must defend them. We must promote them.
{time} 1945
We must fight for a future that has those values of faith, In God We
Trust, one Nation under the sovereignty of God, with a firm belief, as
John Adams says, that the Constitution is only good for a moral and
religious people, for example.
He understood that, at the foundation of this great country, that we
would only be able to persist, and we have only persisted as the
longest democracy in the history of the world because we bow the knee
to our sovereign God, who, as Ben Franklin said, if a sparrow cannot
fall to the ground apart from His will, then a Nation cannot rise apart
from it. And I would submit that this great Nation cannot persist
without that.
We recognize that you can pass all the laws you want and, certainly,
laws have their place in civil order, and the enforcement of those laws
are critical for the domestic tranquility of our country. But you are
not going to change anyone's heart through passing laws.
And John Adams and our Founders understood that if this republic
would continue for generations it would be because we always remembered
that above and beyond passing good laws and making good policy is that
we would recognize that we have a higher accountability, and that
accountability is Almighty God, that same God whose providential hand
was with this Nation from the very beginning and, I pray, will continue
with all of us, on both sides of the aisle.
Every person that swears an oath and has the good fortune and
privilege of serving, I pray God's gracious and providential hand will
continue to guide us in the challenges that we face today.
We have our 21st century challenges, just like every generation has
and, I would submit, we must return to what made this country great.
Tonight, we are going to reflect on America's values, America's
culture, and America's heritage, and why it matters to fight and defend
those values.
I have dear friends who are much more articulate, Mr. Speaker, than I
am on this, and they speak from the heart. They speak with personal
conviction. They ran for office to serve, and to strive for a more
perfect union, and to hand this country better than we found it to
their children and grandchildren.
One of those individuals is Ralph Norman, from the great State of
South Carolina, a businessman who decided that he would make tremendous
sacrifice. He has got a beautiful and big family, and he said this is
the best way he can love his grandchildren is to love his country
through service and through making it better by passing the right laws
and upholding the right values.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr.
Norman).
Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for having
this Special Order. It couldn't come at a more unique time. The
history, defining America's values, our culture, and our heritage, now
more than ever, need to be spotlighted.
The gentleman summed it up well. It boils down to three things,
faith, family, and country; faith, family, and country.
America finds herself in an hour of peril. In the recent weeks and
months,
[[Page H3831]]
we have seen the unhinging of civil order and the near collapse of the
rule of law in certain cities.
This Chamber should serve as the shining example for the rest of our
great country. Sadly, we are failing to live up to that expectation.
Instead of open and honest debate, we are allowing the ``cancel
culture'' to creep inside these hallowed Halls that have stood for
centuries.
We hear calls for a ``national conversion,'' a ``wider debate,'' or a
``public reckoning,'' and every day, we are denied it. A new regime of
liberal gatekeepers is intent on enforcing this new dogma, even in
institutions previously sworn to uphold the importance of the free
exchange of ideas.
Instead of opportunities for many in America to grow and evolve
through discourse, Americans are now losing their livelihood and loved
ones over newly invented apostasies. I invite my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle to join me in denouncing this uncivil and, to
be honest with you, un-American way of disagreeing. We must remind the
American people of our beautiful land what it looks like to agreeably
disagree.
From the exchange of ideas, we can achieve the negotiations and
compromises that make up the foundation and the fabric of this great
Nation and are the stepping-stones to a more perfect Union.
The Federal Government has an obligation to make sure that any
institution it supports upholds the Bill of Rights, including the right
of freedom of speech.
It does not give you, however, the right to tear down this great
Nation. It does not give you the right to tear down people's dreams,
money that was put in, dollars that were put in to building a lifelong
business, to destroy.
You do not build America up by tearing down America. We cannot do
this in the current state of cancelation.
Until we can once again welcome disagreement, debate, and a healthy
exchange of ideas, I fear for our future; I fear for our children; and
I fear for our grandchildren.
In the words of Winston Churchill, who had the fantastic quote when
Great Britain was under siege by Germany, he said:
There will be a time when doing your best is not good
enough. We must do what is required.
And I will call on all Americans and, really, on both sides of the
aisle, to do what is required to keep America great; to make it even
greater; and to go for what made this country great, to uphold our
Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our God-given freedoms that can
only come from God.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Arrington for having this Special
Order.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I consider him
a great friend. As he spoke, I was thinking about the statement that
Alexis de Tocqueville made that, I think, truly hits at the heart of
this experiment that has persisted as the greatest beacon of liberty in
all the land and, I mean, in all the globe, and that is America is
great because America is good. And part of our goodness is civil
discourse and debate.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to introduce another classmate and colleague
of ours, Jim Banks; and he was part of our class that came in and
said from the outset we need civil discourse. We have strong
convictions. We have deeply held beliefs, and we will fight for the
traditional American values that we believe have made America great.
But we can do that right here, without tearing a single person down,
and contributing to the swampiness of this place and being a great
example to generations of Americans.
The gentleman represents that. He is a great statesman, a great
American. I thank him for his time.
The next colleague of mine, from the Hoosier State, who is, no doubt,
a freedom fighter, and who I am terribly honored to serve with, and to
know his beautiful family, his wife, Amanda, and his three children. I
thank Representative Banks for joining us and taking part in this
discussion about defending America's values.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Banks).
Mr. BANKS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague from the
great State of Texas for organizing this important conversation that we
are having here this evening. There is so much, as the gentleman has
already said, that makes America great, our history, our culture, our
values, our people.
But, Mr. Speaker, 300 years ago, colonists left their homes to come
to these shores and become free. They didn't want to be bullied for
their beliefs anymore.
Our Founding Fathers thought this freedom was so important they
enshrined it in the First Amendment. But it is under attack more than
ever today in the form of what has become known as the ``cancel
culture.''
If you hold the wrong beliefs; if you support the wrong candidate; if
you affiliate yourself with the wrong party; if you watch the wrong
news network, you can get canceled; which means that they can take your
job, they can take your privacy and your reputation away from you in a
flash.
You can even get canceled for not doing something. If you refuse to
utter or endorse the so-called politically correct movements or
phrases, they will come to destroy you.
This is an affront to the very idea of what America is and who we
are, as Americans, and I vow to fight it with every fiber of my being.
I appreciate my colleague from Texas organizing this Special Order to
talk about these important issues, but from the bottom of my heart,
this is what is on my mind and my heart as we serve in this body today.
We have got to do everything we can to change it.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my beloved brother in Christ and
dear friend for not only his service as a Member of Congress, but for
his service in wearing the uniform.
I think, at its core, this mission that we have to steward and to
protect, as the Federal Government's limited--emphasis on limited--role
in the affairs of our great citizenry, is to keep us safe and keep us
free.
I thank the gentleman for doing that for his whole career. And God
bless him for his service, both in the military and here in the United
States Congress. I am honored to serve with him.
Now, another liberty loving Texan who has been in public service, who
has been a prosecutor, and has been a leader for our Lone Star State;
and, now, he too, has been willing to leave a lot of good things
behind, including a loving family, to come up here to this city and to
fight for our freedom, to change the culture of this place so that it
serves the people who hold the sovereignty and the future in their
hands. He is a dear friend, and I am honored to have him, Chip Roy, of
the great State of Texas.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).
Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, my father is a proud west Texan, also a proud
graduate of Texas Tech University, as the gentleman well knows. And I
just appreciate the gentleman's passion for this country and what he is
doing by giving us this time to talk in defense of the greatness of our
Nation.
Now, I wouldn't think I would be standing on the floor of the House
of Representatives having to defend the greatness of the United States
of America. We were sitting in this very Chamber, in the State of the
Union address, when the President of the United States was touting the
greatness of this country, and only about half of this body stood up to
clap its hands to agree about the greatness of this country.
I just want to say, you know, as a Member of this body, of one-435th,
and one-half of one-third of the Federal Government, I believe this
country is great.
{time} 2000
I am proud of this country. I am unapologetically proud to be an
American. Flaws we have because we are flawed men and flawed women. We
know that. It is certainly a tenet of my faith, and that is faith in
the Almighty and faith in the Lord and my Savior Jesus Christ. But for
Him, I would be condemned because we are flawed. But we have to
remember that this country has stood for something greater.
Just a few weeks ago, I went up to Independence Hall in Philadelphia
on the 244th anniversary of our separation from the crown. I went into
Independence Hall on that day on July 2, the actual day that we
separated from the
[[Page H3832]]
crown. It was an honor to be there. I went up there to record a video.
I never thought I would have to record a video saying why this
building, Independence Hall, and why these monuments are important.
It is not the bricks; it is not the mortar; it is not the marble; and
it is not the iron. It is the ideals they represent. It is the ideals
that this country was founded upon, and it is those ideals that carry
forward.
We will never measure up to those ideals because we are flawed human
beings, but we will always be striving to achieve the greatness that
our Founders laid out for us and that our forefathers and our current
brothers and sisters have died and bled for.
When we go down to the World War II Memorial and see 4,000--and I
can't remember the exact number--4,100 almost stars on that monument,
that is one for every 100 Americans who gave their life thousands of
miles away in Europe and in the Pacific, fighting for something far
greater than they.
It wasn't for conquest. It was to stop tyranny. It was to stop
fascism. It was to stop the spread of that around the globe. That is
what our country represents.
We had the great clash in our Civil War a mere 80 years after our
founding. Few republics in the history of mankind would have survived
that. But it was because it was for the fulfillment of the Declaration.
It was a fight for the fulfillment of those ideals and the greatness of
this country.
That greatness is exemplified by our heritage. My grandmother was a
single mom in west Texas, in Sweetwater, Texas, because my grandfather
died of cancer when my dad was 7 years old. Now, imagine her finding
out my father had polio--a pandemic--in September 1949 while my
grandfather was dying of cancer. Then he passes away in November, and
my dad coming home from the hospital for a few days each week to be
able to see his dad, whom he had only seen for 2 years because his dad
was in the Pacific.
Then my grandmother, a single mom in west Texas, runs and becomes the
first woman elected county clerk in Nolan County, Texas. She raises my
dad and gets him through therapy. My dad is still alive and walking
today because of her hard work, taking on double jobs.
He goes on to be the first to go to college, Texas Tech. I go on to
be the first to go to graduate school, and now here I am in Congress.
This story is not unique. Each and every one of us has one of those
stories. That is the greatness of this country. Her dad, my
grandmother's dad, had lost the farm in the Depression.
How many stories do you know like that?
He went on to be the janitor in a church in Sweetwater, Texas, for
the rest of his life after he lost the farm. It was noble. It was noble
because he was raising my grandmother and raising my dad, who was newly
without a father.
That was what we do. That is what we do as Americans. That is our
greatness. I am just, frankly, not going to apologize for it. I am not.
I love this country.
As we sit here in the face of a pandemic, why is our leadership
telling our country to cower in fear? That is not the American way.
That polio that struck my father? We beat it.
Mr. Speaker, 30,000 kids died and 300,000 got injured. Mitch
McConnell is one of them. My dad is one of them. He walks with a hobble
today. But we beat it with the Salk vaccine.
We beat the Germans. We beat the Japanese. We have been fighting and
standing up against the evils of totalitarianism. We took down the
Soviet Union when Mr. Reagan said ``tear down that wall'' to Mr.
Gorbachev. That is who we are as a country. I am just not going to
apologize for it.
Here is the thing: Why aren't we talking as a group together on a
bipartisan basis instead of tearing each other down? Why aren't we
talking about the great things that we have been achieving?
Fifty million tests. Think about that. Fifty million tests--more than
Russia, India, and the U.K. combined. That is an extraordinary
achievement.
How many ventilators? How many PPE, et cetera?
I have all sorts of numbers, but we have an extraordinary production:
19 billion gloves, 775 million surgical masks, 187 million N95
respirators, 32 million face shields, and we keep pumping them out.
Doctors have been working through the night, trying to figure out how
to keep people alive and work through this pandemic and fight through
it. Our fatality rate is going down, and it has been going down for 12
consecutive weeks.
We should be applauding that and championing that. We shouldn't be
backbiting about what the President says or what somebody in this body
says. We should be championing the greatness of this country to
overcome this pandemic because that is what we are doing.
We should be making the American people confident to be able to get
their kids back to school. Why? Because this virus--God, thank You--
this virus doesn't attack our kids, at least the data currently shows
that. We can adapt if that changes. But that is the clear truth.
Let's listen to the epidemiologists from Stanford like Dr. Ioannidis
and Dr. Scott Atlas. Let's listen to the reports from Oxford and Yale,
hardly some institutions of far-rightwing extremism. These are doctors
who are telling us that our kids can go back to school, that we can go
back to work, and that we can keep our country open.
Why does that matter? Because being closed is harming our kids and
harming our society. Forty-five percent of Black-owned businesses have
been crippled, crushed, and closed during this. A study by Harvard said
that 110,000 American small businesses would likely close their doors
permanently. We have seen the jobless claims, almost 50 million jobless
claims. I think we are hovering around 20 million still. These are real
people, real people's lives.
Next week is the 9-year anniversary since I was diagnosed with
Hodgkin's lymphoma. I walked into the doctor's office, and I asked the
doctor: Well, what are my chances, doc?
I have stage 3.
He said: Well, I am not going to tell you that number because, for
you, it is zero percent or 100 percent. What are you going to choose?
I chose 100 percent because I wanted to live. I wanted to see my
then-4-month-old daughter grow up. I wanted to see my then-2-year-old
son grow up. That is what we need for this country.
Choose 100 percent. Choose the way for us to succeed as a country and
march forward.
When I saw that great doctor, a great man from Syria, he told me that
story, and he gave me his plan for me for my treatment. It is now the
treatment--it was a trial drug that is now the standard of care for
Hodgkin's lymphoma patients. But I went and got a second opinion, a
third opinion, and a fourth opinion. Why? Because that is what you do,
and that is what we should be doing right now, listening to all the
experts.
This body should have hearing after hearing, calling in people for
the experts. But we are not having these hearings. Why not? Why have we
only met something like, ballpark, 13 of the last 90-something days?
Someone explain that to me.
Someone explain to me how the Founding Fathers in 1793, when 5,000
out of 50,000 Philadelphians died from yellow fever, they found a way
to meet and have this body meet. Instead, what do we get? Proxy voting.
Do you know what that means, American people? We have people on
boats, calling in to hearings to register their votes. Think about
that. That is not what the Constitution means.
I am proud to be in court tomorrow, litigating that against the
Speaker of the House. We will be right here in court because it is
unconstitutional.
But more important than that, it means we are not here leading. We
are not here on the floor of the House of Representatives doing our job
and projecting confidence to the American people that we can all meet
and do what we are supposed to do.
We should have hearing after hearing after hearing, calling
epidemiology experts about what we can do to ensure that the American
people go back to work confidently, go to school, go to work, create
wealth, create opportunity, and get back on our feet.
I am not going to use up much more of the gentleman's time, but I do
want to say this: This stuff is all related. If
[[Page H3833]]
you think the lawlessness on the streets of Portland and the dead
babies--Black, White, and otherwise in Chicago, New York, and Atlanta;
the 8-year-old girl who got killed with her mom; the gentleman walking
across the street holding his 8-year-old daughter's hand; a Black man
and a Black girl, he got gunned down in the streets of New York; a 1-
year-old infant in New York; a 3-year-old Black baby boy in Chicago; a
19-year-old Black young man in a so-called autonomous zone in Seattle--
they are dead and they are gone because of lawlessness, because we are
refusing to do our job to stand up for the very rule of law that sets
this country apart from the rest of the world and always has. That is
all related.
When you shut your country down, Mr. Speaker, the mental impact of
that is real. And that is not just me. There are smart doctors who
believe that.
John Ioannidis, whom I said was from Stanford University, asserted
that extended lockdowns might not be the best approach. One of the
bottom lines is that we don't know how long social distancing measures
and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the
economy, society, and mental health.
Ioannidis wrote: ``Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including
financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the
social fabric.''
I feel extremely sad that my predictions were verified.
The leaders of this body, all 435 of us, have an obligation to be
here to do our job, to hold hearings, to speak the truth, to seek the
truth, and to speak the truth to the American people.
I don't take it cavalierly. My 77-year-old father, I didn't see him
between Christmas and July Fourth to protect him. My kids are going
back to school on August 20 in Austin, Texas.
Do I worry about my family? Of course I do. But we are going to get
back in the saddle, and we are going to get back to do our jobs and get
this country moving forward.
To my friend from Texas, I am sorry I took up too much time. I thank
my friend for doing this. I love this country. I will never apologize
for loving this country, and we are going to work together to get this
country back in the saddle.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, as we say in west Texas, amen and amen. I
could listen to Representative Roy all night because he speaks from his
heart and from a passion for his country and for his fellow countrymen.
He is a truth seeker and a fighter for all that is good about this
country.
We are glad the gentleman is here as part of the great delegation of
Texas. We are all better in this body because of his presence and his
service as a Member of Congress.
May God bless the gentleman. I thank him for his words tonight.
Now, I want to invite another colleague who is a lover of freedom and
a great patriot, who is unabashed and beaming in his pride for the
United States of America.
Mr. Allen is another gentleman who could be doing a lot of things. He
is an accomplished businessman who could be doing a lot of things and
spending a lot of quality time with his children and grandchildren,
but, once again, he believes that the best way he can love his family
and love those grandchildren is to hand them a better, stronger, safer,
and freer United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from the 12th District of
Georgia (Mr. Allen), who is my dear friend.
Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Texas for
holding this special order.
This is a topic that we need to have a family discussion on. This
Congress needs to sit down together and have a family discussion on
where we are as a nation because I am deeply troubled by the state of
our Nation, and most of my constituents who talk with me on a daily
basis ask me what in the world is going on.
I go back to my childhood. I grew up on a farm, and I learned the
value of hard work. I tell people that outside of this President, my
daddy was the hardest worker that I have ever known. I am not sure he
could outwork this President.
Mr. Speaker, my dad was one of five people in my county that you
would go to see if you were going to run for public office. That is how
much he cared about his community; that is how much he cared about that
county; and that is how much he cared about his State.
I will be honest with you. My mother, my brother, my sister, and I
would get upset with him because he spent time doing things outside of
the home, trying to make our county and our State a better place to
live. So, one day, I asked him about it.
I said: Dad, why are you so involved in public service?
He said: Son, I grew up in the Great Depression, and I fought in
World War II. And in both times, I really thought there was a
possibility we were going to lose this country.
I think he made a covenant with God that he would do everything he
could to sustain the great Nation that he had the opportunity to grow
up in and farm and to be involved in education and all the amazing work
that my father did for that community. But he left me with this--and my
dear friend, Ralph Norman, talked about this tonight.
My dad said: Son, you have to understand one thing. Apathy is the
enemy of freedom.
{time} 2015
You look at voter turnout, and you look at folks who say, ``I really
don't want to get involved,'' or, ``I don't want to get out and knock
on doors or make phone calls.''
Folks, I am going to sound the alarm. I am going to sound the alarm
for a lot of different people groups.
Take the small business community. The small business community
generates about 50 percent of the jobs in this country. Seventy percent
of all the new jobs created in this amazing economy we had before
COVID-19 were generated by the small business community.
The first reason I ran for Congress was because of the war on past
administrations on small business.
Let me tell you, small business, you need to get involved in this
process, because if we aren't careful, there will be another war on
small business.
I came down here today to talk about two amendments, and a lot of
those amendments dealt with the regulatory environment that, prior to
President Trump, was destroying the small business community.
You know, one of the greatest privileges that I have had in my life--
and I think this is maybe the greatest gift I have ever received from
God--is the privilege to give people the opportunity to have a good
job, to have the dignity and respect they deserve, to empower them to
be what God created them to be, and to allow them to provide for their
family, their country, and their church.
There is no greater satisfaction that I have found in this country--I
have not found one person who is unhappy, that is not filled with joy
when they are serving others. And we still have a tremendous amount of
that going on in this country.
But over the past few months, we have seen radical progressive
attacks on our Nation. What started as legitimate and peaceful protests
has since been hijacked by violent lawbreakers.
Now, let's be clear, the mob wants total anarchy. And we are seeing
it play out before our eyes, and it started long before we got here.
Now we are experiencing attacks on law enforcement. I saw that in my
generation on the military.
The destruction of Presidential memorials, the establishment of so-
called autonomous zones. If you ask these folks who are destroying
these things, they don't even know who they are, but all that does is
that represents authority.
Well, I was fortunate almost 20 years ago to become--well, I had a
spiritual awakening, and I began to have this thirst for the Bible. And
so I began to research the Bible and to try to run my business and to
exhibit leadership skills and to deal with the issues of our culture
based on Biblical history and what is going on in the Bible.
Well, Romans 13 is very clear about authority. God ordains all
authority. And I encourage you to read Romans 13, because it will tell
you and describe to you the issues involved with authority and what
happens to a nation when those who rebel against authority, what can
happen.
In fact, I also am involved in many Bible studies here in Congress,
and it has been quite an education for me to
[[Page H3834]]
understand what is the relationship between God and government in our
culture.
Obviously, we heard tonight that this Nation was founded based on
people who came here seeking religious freedom. And so if you look at
exactly why God ordained government 4,000 years ago, it was one thing,
and that is to restrain evil. That is to deal with anarchy. That is to
deal with exactly what we are faced with right now.
Mr. Speaker, Members of this body are turning away from God. We
should be one voice here condemning this anarchy and evil we are seeing
across this country.
Well, I believe the best way forward is for our State and local
governments to step up. The Federal Government also has a unique role
to play.
Like I said, Speaker Pelosi and Democratic leaders have shown time
and time again that they would rather pass partisan, political
messaging bills than work with Republicans on bipartisan legislation--
like meaningful police reform.
My dear friend Senator Tim Scott has worked tirelessly to provide
police reform that I believe will work for America. The police force
needs it. They need our support. And I will tell you, they have my
support. Yes, there are going to be bad outcomes. It is the human
condition. We talked about that as well.
But there should be, at this time in the history of our country,
under this pandemic, unprecedented bipartisanship. But, clearly, over
the last few weeks, it shows that we would rather appease those on what
we term the radical left than work toward a more perfect Union.
Please, my friends, please, America, wake up.
Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues across the aisle realize sooner
than later that appeasing the mob will never stop. It will never be
enough. It is just like government funding. I have seen that in reality
with this pandemic. It is a feeding frenzy, and we are seeing it play
out right before our eyes here.
And let me tell you something: We need to look and try to look into
the future. Say, for example, if we were born today, when we look back
and understand why we are leaving our children and grandchildren--and I
don't know how many generations--400, 500 years--the obligation of this
debt. I don't know of any nation in history that has done something
like that. I mean, that in itself is a crisis.
Yet we are continuing to explode the debt. When I saw the
appropriations package, I could not believe it. We are trying to fight
the pandemic. Yes, we have created a lot of debt to deal with that,
and, yes, you are going to have to deal with emergencies. But just to
go and spend money that you don't have?
People say, well, this is taxpayer money. This is not taxpayer money,
folks. This is maybe 400 to 500 years down the road. Now, how are you
going to explain that to your children and grandchildren?
Mr. Speaker, there are seven influences in our culture: There is the
church. There is family. There is education. There is arts and
entertainment. There is the media. There is the government. And there
is the business.
And where do those influences stand today?
The church has been mitigated. Our Founders--yes, they didn't do it
perfect, but let me tell you, the church was a tremendous influence in
the founding of this country. When they couldn't agree, they brought in
the great ministers. And the ministers would reveal the Scriptures and
tell those Founders: This is how you come together.
We don't have that here. I have never heard somebody stand up and
say: This is what the Scripture says and this is why we need to come
together, and this is how we need to move forward.
I did say on this House floor in a Special Order on Bible Week that I
believe that the Bible has an answer to every problem we have got, if
we just researched it and we had someone to come down and tell us how
we should go. There are profits everywhere. We listen to them on Sunday
mornings.
Come on, folks, we need wise counsel.
Then there is the family. The family has been devastated. Fifty
percent of the children in this country are born in single-parent
homes. I don't blame children for being angry. And single moms, I tell
you, my heart goes out to them.
Education, you know, we took the values that God gave us out of the
education system, and we are seeing the fruits of that right now.
Arts and entertainment are supporting everything out there that,
frankly, is very difficult for us to understand. The media, the media
is so biased today.
The government, the government is trying to fix everything. Let me
tell you, the more problems we have in this society, the more this
government has got to spend. Folks, there is not enough money in the
world to fix a culture in anarchy. It won't work.
The business community, the business community is under siege. Like I
said, the reason I ran for Congress is there was a war on small
business.
Big business, I will tell you, I am disappointed in some of these
large companies that are buying in to some of these things that we see
today--the anarchy, the other things.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is time in America that we stand up and
defend the Nation we love. And those who wish to harm it--yes, people
ask me: Do you think we are under God's judgment?
I say: No, I think that would be a lot more difficult than what we
are seeing right now.
When you are under the judgment of God, you have got to look back at
what Israel went through. But I can tell you this. God could have
stopped this pandemic like that. God can stop this anarchy like that.
But God has removed his protection, in my opinion, from this Nation.
And until we repent from our evil ways and confess our sin, then God
will heal our land, and that is the only hope that we have.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, my colleague and brother in Christ speaks
the truth. And as I said, we can pass all the laws we want,
Representative Allen, but we cannot pass laws that change the human
heart.
We must return to those core values, to that relationship with God to
remember that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your
heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor. And it is
hard to find a lot of love in this world today.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on my Special
Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas has 13 minutes
remaining.
Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, the rise of socialism in this country is
real. Probably in times past it was used hyperbolically against Big
Government, liberals, but it is real, and it is hard to believe that
such a destructive system of government and deceptive ideology has
become mainstream in these United States. This beacon of freedom, this
great experiment--not accident, but experiment--and liberty and
democracy.
How do I know? Because people don't put their name to legislation on
behalf of the 800,000 to a million American citizens they represent if
they don't mean it.
{time} 2030
H.R. 1 through H.R. 10 are just more government control, less freedom
to we, the people, government takeover of elections, the Federal
Government takeover of healthcare, taking over agriculture and energy
and government seeping into every facet of our lives.
One of our central values, as we think about the defense of American
values, is the value of freedom. And the central purpose of government
is to protect our freedom. The central tenet of our democratic republic
is that sovereignty resides, not in the State, but in we, the people.
There has been no other nation in the world, in the history of the
world, that has done more because of that powerful force of freedom
that elevates and unleashes the human spirit like nothing in the world,
save and except the love of God, and no other country that holds
freedom in such high regard and puts such a premium on freedom, on
liberty, has done more to lift people out of poverty, to protect human
rights and fundamental God-given freedoms.
No other nation has raised the standard of living or contributed to
the quality of life, not only in this Nation, but in nations around the
world, like the United States of America.
[[Page H3835]]
And I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that in large part, outside--save
and except the providential hand and favor of Almighty God, that God
that my colleague, Representative Rick Allen, implored us to return to,
to repent and return and cry out for mercy--save and except for that,
it has been freedom.
And this freedom is a remarkable thing. It is an attribute, it is a
privilege, it is a responsibility, and people are literally risking
their lives today--people will die this week just trying to get here.
They are not trying to get into Venezuela. They are not trying to get
into Cuba. God bless those people and the poor citizens of those
countries that don't have what we have that empowers us to be the envy
of the world. And that is a tremendous responsibility.
And there is no doubt that is a core value. And I say: How are we
losing this? How do we actually have a debate, a sincere debate, a
legitimate debate, about government control, central planning,
socialism as an ideology and as a system of government, when we have
the backdrop of all of this history?
No, it is not perfect. We were striving for a more perfect Union.
Imperfect people striving for a more perfect Union. And that is the
legacy that has been handed to us. That is our mission and our calling.
I think about the erosion of the values we have talked about this
evening. I think about the entitlement culture that we have created. I
say ``we.'' I say Republicans and Democrats alike. We continue to
expand the government as the answer to all that ails us, as the
solution to every problem, with no regard for the cost and consequence.
$23 trillion before COVID; $4 trillion by the end of this year added
on top of it. We will surpass our highest debt load per GDP in the
history of this great Nation. Not since World War II have we been up
over 108 percent debt-to-GDP. That is where we are heading.
And we have done that, and it has been at no cost. We don't hit
anybody's pocketbook, and we don't cut someone's pet project and their
favorite program to offset the cost.
So why wouldn't people think you can get everything for free? Why
wouldn't we have created a generation of Americans that think things
are really free, at no cost?
Well, there will be a rude awaking when the chickens come home to
roost with respect to our fiscal affairs, because this $27-$28
trillion, on our way, is a deferred tax on our children. And it is
unconscionable. It is immoral. And it is un-American for a generation
of leaders to do that to our posterity.
On top of that, we have had the tyranny of usurpation of the will of
the people. Listen, let's debate issues of immigration, let's debate
all issues, and may the will of the people prevail. That is the way it
works. Not by executive fiat, not by judicial activism, some judge
making the determination of what is best. The people know what's best.
I believe that that government fiat and the tyranny of unelected
bureaucrats and judges making policy decisions is another way we have
accelerated the decline of this country, and we have moved away from
these values.
I think now we are seeing maybe another phase of this. Mob tyranny,
people running around in the streets destroying property, assaulting
police officers and law-abiding citizens. It is just a free-for-all. No
law, no order; chaos.
And our great American cities are just burning, I believe, in large
part, because our local leaders in these cities, they are scared
because they have been intimidated. And that is how the mob works,
through fear and intimidation, and nobody is standing up to them.
But the people who have the resources, the people who are law-abiding
contributors to those cities, and the best employers, they will
eventually leave. But the poorest among our fellow countrymen in those
cities, they can't go anywhere.
Mr. Speaker, I think the President is doing exactly what he should
do. I am very sensitive to government intervention, and I think it is a
very delicate thing when you intervene in civil affairs. That is a
local and State issue.
But when you have this kind of mob violence that is unabated, when
you have systems of law enforcement and local leaders that are
overwhelmed and either unwilling or incapable of stopping it and you
are risking the lives of our fellow Americans and their rights are
being trampled and local law enforcement and Federal law enforcement
officers are being assaulted and our buildings are being burned, Mr.
Speaker, we have got to do something.
There is an appropriate way to engage, and this President has done
that, through civil law enforcement officers of this Government to go
protect that property, to protect those law enforcement and other
Federal personnel, and to come alongside the local law enforcement
there in Portland and Seattle so that they can keep some semblance of
order and protection for their people. Because the local leaders have
completely abdicated it.
And Americans all over are just scratching their heads and their
hearts are breaking and they are tremendously concerned about what
happens. And there is one thought that you just let it all burn to the
ground, and that will be the lesson for Americans all over this
country, in cities and communities, all over this country. We could do
that.
Or we could say: You know what? Those are American citizens, by God.
Those are American citizens, and nobody is coming to their help.
I hope we support this President as he is taking a measured approach
to come alongside those local law enforcement officers who have been
totally disrespected, dismissed, and either partially defunded or
significantly defunded, and certainly hamstrung to do their job.
You watch as these criminals shoot fireworks in their faces and as
they rough them up and call them names. It is just a sad scenario for a
Nation as great as ours.
We are big enough to have the protests. That is as American as apple
pie. Peaceful assembly, peaceful protest, speaking your truth to power,
that is what made this country great. But what we are seeing in Seattle
and Portland must stop. And we all must condemn it, Mr. Speaker.
And as for me, I stand with this President, and I say use every
resource--use every resource in civil law enforcement to keep the
peace, to protect our citizens and protect the taxpayers' Federal
property in all these cities where their local leaders have completely
lost control.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for the indulgence tonight, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
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