[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3091-3095]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


 IN DEFENSE OF ACTIONS TAKEN IN IRAQ AND TEACHING AN APPRECIATION FOR 
                          WESTERN CIVILIZATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, as I listened to the comments that 
preceded me in the Special Order that dealt with our involvement in 
Iraq, certain thoughts came to mind that I think I would like to 
present this evening prior to getting involved with the issue of 
primary importance right now, or, I should say, not primary importance, 
but the issue I had intended to bring forward. I will do that, but I 
will do it subsequent to the thoughts I have had listening to our loyal 
opposition.
  We have heard for approximately an hour that there were a number of 
things wrong with the intelligence reports that we received; that there 
are problems that we now face in trying to pacify Iraq; and that as a 
result of these things, there should be investigations. And a lot of 
people's integrity has been called into question, not the least of 
which the President of the United States.

                              {time}  2045

  There are many issues that I disagree with the President on, and I 
have not been hesitant to express my opinions when I do disagree. But 
on this issue of Iraq, let me just present a few ideas that may I hope 
stimulate some thinking about whether or not we were right to do what 
we did in Iraq.
  I would ask, Mr. Speaker, for all of us to think about what pundits 
and political opponents would have said if in some time between, say, 
1933, when Hitler took power in Germany, and 1939, when finally the 
world decided to go to war against Hitler, or at least a good portion 
of the world decided to go to war, what if at any point in time between 
1933 and 1939 the United States and Great Britain and as many other 
countries as would join us would have taken a very, very bold action? 
And that action would have been preemptive. It would have been before 
any sort of aggressive action had been taken by Germany and by Hitler 
against the West, against the Allies, before Poland had been invaded, 
even before Czechoslovakia. Could we imagine what would have happened 
on this floor and throughout the world, really, in terms of the 
reaction, if America and a group of nations had taken preemptive action 
and stopped Hitler, if we had gone into Germany, if we had deposed 
Hitler and attempted to bring about a different and truly democratic 
regime?
  Well, certainly there would have been an awful lot of second 
guessing. Certainly there would have been people here on the floor of 
the House talking about the fact that we really do not know for sure 
whether V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed. Maybe the hard 
evidence would not have been available at the time. And so where were 
we? Why were we doing such things and was it not against all rules of 
engagement, was it not something that we should be challenging our 
administration for and saying you did the wrong thing?
  We did not have all of the very specific information that we needed 
to make this decision. Could it be that we would have been questioning 
whether or not Hitler's intention would have been to, in fact, bring 
about the ``final solution'' for the Jews in the world?

[[Page 3092]]

  All these things would have been speculative, certainly. We could not 
have perhaps proven that that was his intent. We would have been 
perhaps without all of the hard evidence to bring in front of the world 
body to prove that the decision we made to preemptively act was right. 
But if we had done so, just think about what would have been the 
outcome of that decision and that action. Fifty million people, 50 
million people died as a result of our unwillingness to take action. 
National treasure, untold national treasure had to be expended; and, of 
course, hundreds of thousands of American lives were lost to try and 
stop him and stop the Axis powers after they made their intentions 
perfectly clear.
  Now, I think that there is a lesson to be learned here, and it is 
that at some point in time it is imperative that the civilized world 
take action and, in fact, take preemptive action to try to prevent an 
occurrence similar to World War II. If we could have done that now, 
knowing what was the outcome of World War II, knowing what it took to 
actually stop him when we chose to finally get involved, who would 
suggest that we should not have taken preemptive action?
  Does anyone really believe that we should have waited knowing now 
what we know? Does anybody believe that we should have waited for 
Hitler and the Japanese empire to strike first? Well, we did. That is 
history. And we know the outcome. So I will suggest to the body that 
there was a great deal of evidence presented not just to the United 
States but to many other countries and many other intelligence networks 
around the world that would lead us to believe that there was a problem 
in the making in Iraq. No one, not a single person has ever denied the 
fact that Iraq was in the process of developing nuclear weaponry and 
weapons of mass destruction; and, of course, we knew that they had used 
similar weapons in the past. So that was not a question.
  The question is would he have, would Saddam Hussein have actually 
used those weapons had he gotten ahold of them? How long would it have 
taken for Iraq to actually obtain those weapons? Those are questions we 
do not know the answer to right now, but we can be fairly sure by all 
of the empirical evidence that we have in front of us that they have 
would have developed the weapons and that either he would have used 
them or think of this, what if, what if those weapons became disposable 
to the two sons of Saddam Hussein, Uday and Qusay? Does anybody really 
believe that they would like to live in a world where those two guys 
would have the ability to push the button?
  Well, now they are gone. Saddam is in custody. Uday and Qusay are 
history. So now we can stand on the floor of the House and we can get 
on all of the talk shows and say we really did not have all of that to 
worry about. It really was not worth the expenditure of our resources, 
both human and financial. Well, maybe not. But I have to say that from 
everything we know about history and from everything that we know, 
absolutely, unequivocally know, not the if's, not the ``I wonder if,'' 
but what we know about the regime in Iraq would lead us to believe that 
the action we took eventually would end up saving a lot of lives. Not 
only that, but we are now engaged in a very difficult process and that 
is to impose democracy, to plant the seeds of democracy in an area of 
the world in which, of course, it is a very alien idea. And the task is 
incredible, it is true, but think of the task we have faced when we 
chose to rebuild Germany and Japan and to rebuild those countries on 
democratic models. In Japan, of course, where it had never ever existed 
before, and in Germany, where it had been bastardized, the concept of 
democracy. We undertook that huge, monumental task; and people could 
have said in 1946, 1947, 1948, look at the problems we are facing. How 
come we have not been able to construct these democratic models over 
there by now? Why are American troops still occupying Germany and 
Japan? Why are our people still at risk? Why are we spending hundreds 
of millions of dollars which would equate in today's terms to hundreds 
of billions of dollars in the rebuilding of both Japan and Germany? Why 
are we doing it? They would have been there and they may have been here 
on the floor saying those things at that time. I know that is true.

  I am not saying they are not legitimate questions and that they 
should not be raised. All I am saying to you is that we have history on 
our side. We know what happens when you do not undertake the task, and 
we know what happens when you do in fact persevere, when you say we are 
going to rebuild these countries, it is going to take a lot of money, a 
lot of time and a lot of effort because they are not used to this 
concept; but did it work out to the benefit of humanity that we did 
what we did? Of course it did.
  Who argues that we should not have rebuilt Western Europe and even 
Japan? They became prosperous. They became willing to accept the ideas 
and ideals of Western civilization, which will get me into my next area 
of discussion here. But we faced all of these things. We did it. We 
persevered.
  In terms of the time frame that has expired between the ending of 
major hostility to today, it is a blink of the eye. Think how long it 
took for the United States of America to perfect this concept of a 
republic based on democratic ideals. It did not happen overnight. You 
may recall at the end of our revolution many people went to George 
Washington with a council, figuratively speaking, a council and said, 
We want you to be king. And, of course, Washington refused and said 
that is not why we fought a war against a king. That is not the kind of 
government we were going to establish. Even then, of course, we did not 
warm to this concept of a republic very quickly.
  The Articles of Confederation were problematic. There were things in 
them that did not actually address all of the problems that we had in 
this country trying to pull it together. Just as today we are watching 
Iraq in this process, and we are saying, gee, whiz, even their 
constitution, or the lead up to the constitution, even what we have 
developed in Iraq today is problematic because we still do not know 
whether or not exactly what the role of religion will be in Iraq.
  Well, you may recall that we did not know exactly what the role of 
slavery would be in the United States and we refused to address it in 
the Constitutional Convention because we could not come to an 
agreement. So we put it off and, admittedly, it led to a lot of 
violence. But the issue was settled. The republic remained and we now 
still present to the world the best possible hope for stable government 
and for peace. But it did not come easily. It did not happen when 
Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. Lots of things, even bloodshed 
followed the surrender of the British.
  Peace will not come easily in Iraq. Democracy will not come easily in 
Iraq. Many trials and tribulations lay ahead, much bloodshed, certainly 
true. Should we abandon it because there are these obstacles? Shall we 
walk away because the challenge is very, very difficult? Well, that is 
the proposition that is put before us. And I suggest to you that 
planting democracy and the concept of a republic in a part of the world 
where it had not heretofore existed is a worthy endeavor.

                              {time}  2100

  I also suggest to my colleagues that our efforts in Iraq up to this 
time can be described as noble.
  This is an interesting situation that we are in; and this develops 
into another discussion that I want to have tonight, and that is the 
value of Western Civilization and what it really means, because 
tomorrow I am going to introduce a resolution, and I am joined by many 
of my colleagues, and the resolution is a simple one.
  It says that this body, the Congress of the United States, believes 
that all children graduating from schools in this country should be 
able to articulate an appreciation for Western Civilization; and it may 
seem to some at first to be a heavy topic, some amorphous idea, and one 
might wonder what are its practical implications and why

[[Page 3093]]

I would be doing that, as I say, and I and my colleagues would be doing 
this.
  I think in a way it is ironic that we are desperately attempting to 
implant concepts of Western Civilization in a place called Iraq while 
we, in this country, challenge their relevance in our schools and in 
our textbooks and certainly in the media in our culture. I believe that 
we are in a war that can be described as a clash of civilizations. 
There is a great book by an author by the name of Samuel Huntington 
called the ``Clash of Civilizations,'' and I remember reading this 
book, I do not know, maybe 8 years ago and thinking that it was 
interesting; but I remember going back and reading it again after 9/11 
and thinking that it was profound and prophetic.
  I believe the United States is in a clash and Western Civilization is 
in a clash of civilizations. It is a real clash, if you will, a real 
war. It is bloody. There are times when the clash becomes even more 
violent and times when it subsides, but the clash is real and it will 
be here for some time. The clash is with radical Islam. It is with 
people who have said openly and repeatedly that their desire is to come 
here and kill you and your children, me and my children, to eradicate 
us from the planet.
  There is an interesting diary, I do not know whether it was on Al 
Jazeera, but it was published some time ago, and it is a diary of a 
person who became a suicide bomber. He talks about in this diary why he 
has to do what he believes he has to do. He says that the ultimate 
threat to his view of Islam is the West, is the concept of a republic, 
a democratic republic. He said that this is a threat to the heart; this 
is a threat to the existence of Islam as he saw it because what the 
West provided, through democratic principles and free enterprise, was 
the good life essentially, what it sort of boils down to. It provided 
the good life. People could achieve more and more; and, yes, they could 
achieve in monetary ways, but they could also achieve even from the 
standpoint of advancing oneself and one's self-esteem, and this he said 
would turn people away from looking to the afterlife as the ultimate 
goal or as the ultimate glory.
  I can tell my colleagues that certainly there are aspects of Judeo-
Christian tenets that tell us also that it is what comes next that is 
important, but Western Civilization has allowed us many things. It has 
provided a system and a set of ideas and ideals that have served 
humanity well; and, yes, those ideas and ideals are a threat to other 
ideas; and, therefore, a clash occurs.
  How do we fight this war? How do we deal with this clash? Well, of 
course, it will require the force of arms at times, and it will require 
the commitment of resources, and it will require something else. It 
will require a belief in who we are, which by the way is the title of 
Samuel Huntington's new book, which I certainly commend to everyone, 
``Who We Are.''
  We have to know the answer to that question. We have to know who we 
are. We have to understand that this Nation uniquely was created on the 
basis of ideas and ideals, all other nations formed for other reasons, 
but ours started for a brand new reason, ideas. Those ideas were held 
up to the world, and people came from all over the world to embrace 
them. Uniquely, we said this old concept that people should be ruled by 
individuals is not acceptable; it has not worked out well and it does 
not accrue to the benefit of most human beings. So Western Civilization 
was based upon a different idea, and it is called the rule of law, not 
the rule of man, not one person making arbitrary decisions about 
everything that affects our lives, but the law making those decisions 
as developed by people who represent all of us, a brand new concept 
that we put into effect and that I think serves the world well.
  Western Civilization was based on other ideals, the ideal of the 
individual being superior to that of the collective; the idea that 
humans had inalienable rights. This is a Western concept. No place else 
does it show its face but in Western Civilization.
  Today, in America, however, there is a movement, a philosophy, I call 
it radical multiculturalism. It has taken hold of our society. It is 
seeping its way into our public schools and on to our college campuses. 
This philosophy may be peculiar to most Americans; but it does seem to 
be taking hold among elites, academics, the media, and certain groups 
within the political establishment. It is a corrosive movement, and its 
purveyors are threatening to accomplish in the classrooms what they 
could not get through elections: one, to erase the notion of 
citizenship; and, two, to teach young people that there is nothing 
positive or unique about America and that Western Civilization 
contributed nothing to world history but imperialism, slavery, and 
discord.
  Let me emphasize something here. I do not for a moment want to tell 
the children of America, the citizens of America or the world that we 
believe that we have never done anything wrong and that Western 
Civilization is nothing but a set of ideas and principles that have 
been put into place without problem. Many of those ideals are not yet 
reached, by the way. So I am totally and completely supportive of the 
thought that we have to teach our children the truth about who we are, 
the truth, warts and all; but I have to tell my colleagues I am 
becoming extremely concerned, as I think many others are, about the 
fact that we concentrate so much of our effort and time on teaching 
children and immigrants into this country that there is nothing good 
about Western Civilization or about the United States as a 
representation of that civilization.
  These are some examples that we have taken, by no means exhaustive. 
These are just tiny little snippets of some of the things we tell our 
children in textbooks and some of the things that, in fact, teachers 
and professors have told our children about America, about the West, 
all in an attempt to essentially eliminate any concept that there is 
something good and special about us and who we are, and I will go 
through them in a minute.
  I just want to tell my colleagues about something that happened to me 
just a short time ago.
  I was visiting a high school in my district, and there were probably 
150 to 200 students who came into the auditorium to have a discussion 
with me; and it went on for, as I say, about 60 minutes or so, and at 
the end, some students were sending up written questions. One of them 
said, What do you think is the most serious problem facing the country? 
I said, well, I am going to answer that question with a question, if 
you do not mind, and that is this, How many people in here believe that 
we live in the greatest Nation on the Earth or as Michael Medved always 
says, on God's green Earth? And I looked around. It was fascinating to 
see what happened out there.
  This was a suburban district in Douglas County, Colorado, middle- to 
higher-income families in the area, predominantly white. If one looked 
up suburbs in the dictionary, probably a picture of this particular 
area, and when I asked the question how many of you believe that you 
live in the best country in the world, about two dozen raised their 
hands, most of them very sheepishly I should say, and the rest just sat 
there. Some looked uncomfortable, and I must admit that I thought to 
myself at the time that some of them looked like they actually wanted 
to say yes, but they were afraid to. They looked at the teachers who 
were lined up on the sides of the walls. They were kind of looking at 
them like, gee, should I actually say this, and more than that I think 
that they were thinking, if I say yes, if I say yes I believe I live in 
the best country in the world, someone might challenge me, maybe even 
he will, and would I be able to defend that principle.
  These are high school students; and I said, well, let me ask you 
about do you realize that we are a product of Western Civilization and 
that how many of you would agree that this is something again about 
which you can be proud? Maybe a dozen at that one, and I said, well, 
this is what I consider to be one of the biggest problems facing 
America, what is happening to you and what has happened to you as a 
result of this multiculturalist philosophy that we push in the schools.

[[Page 3094]]



                              {time}  2115

  This idea that all cultures are at worst the same; at best they are 
better than ours; and that we cannot make these kinds of statements 
about what is better or best, about which country is better or best, 
which civilization is better.
  Now, that happened, and I know it is not unique to this little 
typical suburban school in my district. I could have asked that 
question in any high school in America and the response would have been 
similar; tepid, sheepish support, with most people saying, I do not 
know, I do not care, and what does it matter?
  I wonder how this could have happened. How is it that people living 
here in this country, at this time, can look at the rest of the world 
and not recognize that every single day millions of people are 
struggling to get here, if not to America at least to Western Europe; 
that they are struggling to get to Western civilization? And I have to 
ask, how many people do you know that are struggling to go the other 
way? Is that not empirical evidence of some sort that what we have is 
pretty good; that it is worthy of our allegiance, worthy of continuing?
  People ask me why I am so involved with the immigration issue; why I 
speak on that issue so often. Well, there are a whole bunch of reasons, 
and they deal with jobs and the environment, and the cost, and all that 
sort of thing. But after all of that is said and done, I worry about 
this. I worry about the fact that we are not doing a very good job of 
creating a society, a cohesive, homogenous society out of all of the 
disparate parts that make up America. I worry that we are working very 
hard to divide us, to divide this Nation into camps; into Balkanized 
areas that are based on linguistic, cultural, or political differences 
while simultaneously trying to erase anything that smacks of an attempt 
to bring people together around a set of ideas other than the concept 
of diversity, which is the only thing that multi-
culturalists will say is worthy of our allegiance.
  I worry about what will happen to us in this clash of civilizations 
when it is not only the force of arms necessary to win the day but it 
is the force of ideas. For us to be successful as a people, as a 
civilization, as a country we have to know who we are, where we came 
from, and where we are going. We have to believe in who we are, where 
we came from, and where we are going. And I worry that too few of us 
know who we are, where we came from or where we are going, and that 
this in the long run will prove to be our undoing.
  So that is why I talk about immigration, and that is why I talk about 
issues like this. That is why I worry about the fact that in the 
textbook called Across the Centuries, which is used for 7th grade 
history, the book defines the word jihad as ``To do one's best to 
resist temptation and overcome evil.''
  Now, maybe that is somebody's interpretation of jihad. But, remember, 
this was not even suggested as someone's idea, this is presented as the 
interpretation, the definition of jihad: ``To do one's best to resist 
temptation and overcome evil.''
  I guess we would not want to tell children, would we, that that word 
implied something quite different? It is a call to arms to those people 
who believe we should be annihilated, and everything we believe in 
should be wiped out because it is a threat to fundamentalist Islam. 
Well, we need to say it, because it is true. We may not like it, we may 
feel uncomfortable by telling children the truth, but it is imperative 
that we do so. That is not the only definition of jihad.
  In 2002, the New Guidelines for Teaching History in New Jersey's 
public schools failed to even mention America's Founding Fathers, the 
pilgrims, or the Mayflower. How do you tell the history of the United 
States, I might ask, without mentioning the Founding Fathers, the 
pilgrims, or the Mayflower?
  Maybe it is a good thing that the book did not, because in many 
textbooks, and certainly out of the mouths of many teachers, the 
mentioning of these people would be in derogatory terms. The Founding 
Fathers, all white men, who were slave owners, who came here to pillage 
and rape and whatever. Columbus came here to destroy paradise. I have 
seen that.
  So maybe it was better that they did not mention it. Do you think at 
least some reference to the ideas and ideals upon which this Nation was 
founded should have been made, and the fact that people struggled and 
died to bring those ideals into fruition? Do you think that was worthy 
of mentioning?
  In a Prentice Hall textbook used by students in Palm Beach County 
High Schools, titled A World Conflict, the first five pages of the 
World War II chapter focused almost entirely on topics such as gender 
roles in the armed forces, racial segregation in the war, internment 
camps, and women and the war effort.
  Do you think I make this stuff up? You can go and look, if you do not 
believe me, that this is in fact being taught to our children. This is 
in the textbooks of the schools in this Nation.

  By the way, Madam Speaker, if anyone were to be so inclined, they can 
go to our Web site, www.House.Gov/Tancredo and they can click on a pop-
up that says Our Heritage, Our Hope, and they can see what I am talking 
about here, and they can also sign up to help us in this endeavor to 
change the situation. And I have some very specific things I would like 
them to do.
  A Washington State teacher substituted the word ``winter'' for the 
word ``Christmas'' in a carol to be sung at school programs so as not 
to appear to be favoring one faith over the other. The lyrics in Dale 
Wood's carol From an Irish Cabin were changed to read ``the harsh wind 
blows down from the mountains and blows a white winter to me.'' Not 
``Christmas.''
  I was in a school, again in my district, again a typical public 
school, and it was right before Christmas. I was talking to a lot of, I 
think they were in grades 5 and 6 in an elementary school. When I left 
the room, I said Merry Christmas. Again, there was this kind of an 
uneasy response, and some kids said okay. And as I was walking out the 
lady who had invited us to come and speak, who was an aide at the 
school, said, you know, the principal does not like us using the word 
``Christmas'' here. I said what is that, as I pointed to a Christmas 
tree in the hallway? And she said, that is a seasonal tree. And I said, 
are you telling me that we cannot use ``Christmas''? And she said, no, 
the teachers do not.
  So I went back and I yelled, as I was leaving and all the kids were 
coming out, I said, Merry Christmas, and they all said, Merry 
Christmas. But this is happening, of course, in schools all over the 
United States. I bet if people go to their own schools and check these 
things out, they will see what I am saying is not just unique to my 
little suburban district in Colorado.
  In a school district in New Mexico the introduction to a textbook 
called 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures states that it was 
written ``In response to the bicentennial celebration of the 1776 
American Revolution and its lies. Its stated purpose is to ``celebrate 
our resistance to being colonized and absorbed by racist empire 
builders.'' The book describes defenders of the Alamo as ``slave 
owners, land speculators, and Indian killers,'' Dave Crockett as a 
cannibal, and the 1857 ``War on Mexico'' as an unprovoked U.S. 
invasion. The chapter headings include, Death to the Invader, U.S. 
Conquest and Betrayal, We Are Now a U.S. Colony, In Occupied America, 
and They Stole the Land.
  Now, again, I certainly do not say that mistakes were not made, that 
manifest destiny as an idea and an ideal did not have inherent in it 
problems for other people. I certainly believe that is true, and I 
believe we should teach our children about those problems. But this is 
what we call objective history text?
  I am going to repeat it. This book, it said, was written ``in 
response to the bicentennial celebration of the 1776 American 
Revolution and its lies.'' Its stated purpose is to ``celebrate our 
resistance to being colonized and absorbed by a racist empire 
builder.''
  Children are often taught only the most negative things about the 
United

[[Page 3095]]

States and about Western civilization. And if these efforts go 
unchecked, children will lose any real connection to the goals and 
aspirations and ideals of America and the West, the ideals exemplified 
in the Constitution and articulated by the people who founded the 
country over 200 years ago. If we fail to instill these values in our 
children, we risk losing our national identity.
  It is not surprising to me that a brand new phenomenon is developing 
in the United States with regard to the immigrant community. Since 
about 1947, the United States has allowed people to claim a dual 
citizenship. Most of this happened in 1947 as a result of the creation 
of the State of Israel, and to provide Israelis here with the 
opportunity to travel back and forth and to state their allegiance to 
Israel by accepting a dual citizenship. But we never had very many 
people, to tell you the truth, that actually accepted that offer. It 
numbered in the hundreds of thousands, at the most, at any given time 
in America.
  Today estimates are that there are between, we do not know for sure, 
5 and 10 million people in this country who claim a dual citizenship, 
mostly with Mexico, after Mexico allowed Mexican nationals to keep 
their citizenship once they came to the United States. This happened a 
couple of years ago, and the number skyrocketed.
  When we tell people that they should keep their political 
associations, political allegiances to other countries, that they 
should keep their language of origin, that they should not actually 
blend into this American mosaic, should we be surprised by the fact 
that they do not?

                              {time}  2130

  McDougal's ``The Americas,'' another textbook, states that the 
Reagan-Bush conservative agenda limits advances in civil rights for 
minorities. Again, these are statements of fact by a textbook, not 
somebody's opinion, and that the conservatives' bid to dismantle the 
Great Society's social programs could be compared to abandoning the 
Nation.
  It goes on to include a text stating that Communism had potentially 
totalitarian underpinnings, and contrasts future Taiwan President 
Chiang Kai-Shek's repressive rule with Communist Chinese Dictator Mao 
Zedong's benevolence toward peasants in the early 1940s.
  Now, if we did not know anything else and read this, why would you 
not believe it to be true? If the book and your teacher failed to 
mention the deaths of about 65 million Chinese after Mao came to power 
in 1949 or Taiwan's peaceful transformation into a thriving, 
pluralistic multiparty democracy, no one would know this. They would 
never understand it. They would never truly understand world history. 
Would we be lying to tell children this was the case? Would it be 
chauvinistic of us to suggest that it was not just the possibility of 
some totalitarian underpinnings, but a totalitarian regime, and that 
Communism could only survive out of terror.
  Is it not acceptable for us to tell the truth? That is what I wonder. 
Why are we so fearful about telling children about who we are really, 
all of the warts but all of the good things, too.
  Here is a study by Philip Sadler, director of science education at 
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, which shows that 
students who had taken high school physics classes that used textbooks 
did substantially worse than high school classrooms that used no 
textbooks at all. I would suggest that if these other textbooks, these 
history textbooks are an example of what we are doing, it would be 
better to not use them at all.
  Madam Speaker, tomorrow I am going to ask this Congress to pass a 
simple resolution, and that resolution will state, as I said, that all 
children graduating from our schools should be able to articulate an 
appreciation for Western civilization. That is it. No mandate, no 
textbook mandates, no curriculum change, just whatever you do, this 
should be an outcome.
  Simultaneously we are going to be joined by State representatives all 
over the country who will be introducing into their representative 
legislatures a similar resolution, and we are going to be joined by 
hundreds of Americans, and this is where other people can get involved 
because we are going to be joined by I hope eventually hundreds of 
thousands, maybe millions of American citizens who will go to their 
school board with a resolution that we have on that Website that I 
mentioned earlier, www.house.gov/trancredo, and go to Our Heritage, Our 
Hope, and there you will see a copy of a resolution that a person could 
take to their school board and ask their school board to adopt.
  Now, the NEA, the National Education Association, has already 
attacked this proposal. And I keep thinking to myself, what is there 
about this? And not just the NEA. Tomorrow is when we are going to 
actually drop this resolution and announce it, but we have had all 
kinds of people responding saying that in fact this is a bad idea. Now, 
please, let us really think about this for a second. They are saying it 
is a bad idea to teach children facts so that they could articulate an 
appreciation for Western civilization. I mean, is that not the 
definition of what would be a good history education, a good civics 
education? Should children not be able to articulate those principles?
  We can argue whether they are right or wrong, but we should be able 
to have children who can articulate them, understand who we are, where 
we come from and where we are going.
  I know that this is a stretch for a lot of people. It is hard for a 
lot of people to get their hands on this because it is not an issue 
that you can condense into a bumper sticker, but I encourage people to 
think through this and think about the possibility that it is important 
for us and for our civilization to actually transmit these goals and 
ideas to the next generation. We cannot continue to teach only the 
negative. Doing so contributes to the balkanization of the United 
States into subgroups, subcategories, and hyphenated Americans.
  In Numbers U.S.A., an organization that does a lot of great work and 
also has a great Website, Numbers U.S.A. talks about the fact that if 
we continue as we are in terms of population growth and the source of 
our population growth in this country, being 90 percent from 
immigrants, that by the year 2100 two-thirds of the people here in the 
United States will be descendants of people not yet here at the present 
time. Think about that. In 96 years, two-thirds of the people living in 
this country will be descendants of people not yet here. Think about 
that and then think about what we are teaching them, the folks that are 
coming in and the folks that are here about who we are. How can we 
expect this new Nation essentially that will be created by 2100 to be 
steeped in the same goals and principles and ideas?
  Again, Madam Speaker, I hope that we will be joined by hundreds of 
thousands of Americans all over the country who will be willing to say 
that it is important for their schools, it is important for our 
civilization that we teach children to appreciate the value of Western 
civilization and there is something we all can do about it. I am going 
to do what I can do here, State legislators will do what they can do in 
their respective bodies, and then it is up to the people of this 
country to take this on and move it forward. It will determine whether 
we are a Nation at all in years to come.

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