[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4891-4895]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE FALL OF GREAT NATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Reichert). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, in 2003, I was privileged to hear British 
Prime Minister Tony Blair speak in this Chamber, and one comment he 
made that particularly caught my attention was this: He said, ``As 
Britain knows, all predominant power seems for a time invincible, but 
in fact it is transient.''
  What he was referring to, I believe, was that all great nations, when 
things are going well, assume that they are going to go on forever. But 
history shows us with example after example that this is really 
fallacious reasoning. So we might examine three such instances.
  First of all, going clear back to Rome, which ruled nearly the entire 
civilized world 2,000 years ago, Rome appeared to be invincible, but 
eventually it fell. The reasons given generally by historians are 
these: There was a general decline in morality; there was an increasing 
corruption and instability in leadership; an increasing public 
addiction to every more violent public spectacles; an increase in crime 
and prostitution; and a population that became more self-absorbed, 
apathetic and unwilling to sacrifice for the common good.
  Secondly, we might look at Great Britain itself. Certainly Great 
Britain has not fallen from preeminence, but it certainly is not the 
power it once was during the 1600s up through much of the 1800s, when 
it really dominated the entire world.

                              {time}  2140

  That empire slowly crumbled, and the reasons given again by 
historians were these: It lost the national resolve to maintain its 
territory, values that led to its ascendency were eroded, and spiritual 
underpinnings shifted dramatically.
  Thirdly, we might just take a look quickly at a more recent 
superpower, Russia, which was one of two great superpowers as recently 
as 20 years ago. In a matter of months Russia disintegrated before our 
very eyes, and I think I along with many other people were amazed at 
how quickly this happened. Alexander Solzhenitzyn reflected on this 
fall when he observed this. He said, ``Over a half century ago when I 
was still a child, I recall a number of older people offering the 
following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen 
Russia,'' and he quotes. ``Men have forgotten God. That is why all of 
this has happened.'' Marx and Lenin had dismantled Russia's religious 
heritage and values, and Russia's foundation was broken and it 
collapsed like a house of cards with nothing to sustain it.
  There are some common themes in all of these historic national 
collapses. First of all, the citizens became less willing to sacrifice 
for others and for their country; citizens became more self-absorbed, 
had a greater desire for the state to provide instead of providing for 
themselves; a weakening of commonly held values, and a decline of 
spiritual commitment.
  You may say, well, what does all of this have to do with the United 
States, and why are you talking about this this evening? We obviously 
have the most powerful military, the strongest economy, the most stable 
government of any nation in the world today.
  It is very easy to think that we are invincible and that this may 
last forever. But as Tony Blair stated so clearly, as Britain knows, 
all predominant power for a time seems invincible, but in fact it is 
truly transient.
  This statement of Prime Minister Blair's rang a bell with me as I sat 
and listened to him, because over 36 years of coaching and working with 
young people I witnessed some trends that were concerning to me. The 
young men that I worked with were more talented physically and more 
gifted each year, yet they showed more signs of stress, more personal 
struggles, less moral clarity as time passed.
  This chart illustrates some of the difficulty that we are currently 
experiencing with some of our young people that shows the juvenile 
court delinquency caseload. It starts in 1960 with really not very many 
cases, and it more than quadrupled by 1995 and 2000, and that trend has 
continued upward even today.
  Several factors I think have contributed to these changes. First of 
all, the family structure has certainly eroded in our country. In 1960, 
when I first started coaching, the out-of-wedlock birth rate was 5 
percent. Today it is 34 percent; in parts of our country, the out-of-
wedlock birth rate is 60 and 70 percent. So we have at least one-third 
of our young people entering the world with two strikes against them. 
It does not mean they cannot live a successful life, but it is 
certainly going to be much more difficult.
  In 1960, the great majority of children lived with both parents. 
Today, nearly 40 percent of our young people grow up without both 
biological parents. Again, this makes life more difficult. Less than 
one quarter of families with children under 6 have a parent staying 
home with them full time. Of course, that again is a tremendous shift 
from the way it was 40, 50 years ago. One-third of all school-aged kids 
come home to an empty house for at least part of the week, and the 
hours between 3 and 6 p.m. are the largest at-risk time for children in 
our culture at the present time; it is those 3 hours after school, 
before parents begin to come home.
  Twenty-four million children in our culture live without their real 
father. Fatherless children are two to three times more likely to be 
abused, have emotional and behavioral problems, abuse drugs, alcohol, 
or to commit a crime. There is a greeting card company that contacted 
the inmates in a prison just before Mother's Day, and on a whim they 
decided that they would provide Mother's Day cards for any inmate that 
wanted to send a card to his mother. The reception was very good. 
Almost 100 percent of the inmates accepted cards, sent it to their 
mother. So they decided that they would try the same thing on Father's 
Day, and yet they had almost zero response. Practically no inmate would 
write a card to his father. I would assume the reason is that so many 
of the people there were people who had been abandoned by their 
fathers, did not have fathers, and as a result you could see a 
tremendous dichotomy between those who were still attached in some way 
to a mother as compared to those who were attached to their father.
  The foundation in our culture, the family, is certainly under 
assault. It does not mean that we do not have good families, we have 
many good families; but there has been some sign of erosion, some 
things that are certainly very concerning. Of course, the family unit 
is the basic element of our social structure. When that begins to fall 
apart, then things begin to get very difficult indeed.
  Also, we might mention that in addition to some of the difficulties 
that we are experiencing in our families, the environment in which our 
young people

[[Page 4892]]

currently exist has certainly changed as well. One thing I am going to 
talk about here for the next 3 or 4 minutes is underage drinking, 
alcohol abuse, because this has become a huge problem in our culture. 
The National Academy of Science study showed that alcohol kills six and 
a half times more young people than all other drugs combined. So it 
kind of flies under the radar screen, where we think about cocaine, we 
think about heroin, we think about methamphetamine, we think about 
marijuana, and yet six and a half times more young people are killed by 
alcohol than all of these other substances combined. It costs the U.S. 
$53 billion annually, alcohol abuse, underage drinking. There are 
roughly 3 million teenage alcoholics, which is by far the largest 
number of those who are addicted to some kind of substance. The average 
first drink in our country today is at 12.8 years of age, and that age 
is declining.
  One of the problems we have with underage drinking is that so often 
young people binge drink. On average, they will consume twice as much 
alcohol per occasion of drinking than an adult will. Of course, this 
leads to some very difficult situations. Twenty percent of eighth 
graders drink regularly. Children who drink before age 15 are five 
times more likely to become an alcoholic than those who wait until they 
are 21 years of age to start drinking. Youth are 96 times more likely 
to see an ad promoting alcohol than to see an ad discouraging underage 
drinking. So, obviously, in the advertising world, you can see where 
the emphasis is. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars to fight drug 
production in Afghanistan, Colombia, and around the world, and a 
fraction of that money spent on curbing underage drinking might be more 
cost effective in our own country.
  The National Advertising and Education Campaign has been effective in 
combating teen tobacco use, and the same thing is needed to combat 
underage drinking and yet we seem to ignore the problem.
  Another substance abuse epidemic that is sweeping the Nation and has 
really gotten most of our attention is the methamphetamine epidemic. In 
my State of Nebraska, the problem has become tremendously pernicious 
and has been somewhat overwhelming. I would like to illustrate this by 
showing a few charts at this time.
  This was the incidence of methamphetamine labs in 1990. California 
and Texas were the only two States that reported more than 20 meth labs 
out in the countryside; of course, that changed rather rapidly. We see 
here in 2004, all but maybe seven or eight States in the Northeast were 
reporting large numbers of meth labs, and of course in many cases they 
are reporting as many as 300 or 400 or 500 meth labs that we know about 
in a given year. So methamphetamine has swept from the west coast and 
the Southwest all across the country, and the prediction is that 
certainly those Northeastern States will also be hit very hard by 
methamphetamine within a relatively short period of time.
  Many people have seen the following pictures, but I think it shows 
rather graphically what methamphetamine does. This was a young lady who 
was arrested in November of 1979, and was arrested each succeeding year 
for the next 10 years for methamphetamine. She was picked up by 
authorities, and each year they took her picture, a mug shot. You can 
see the first 5 years that she certainly deteriorates somewhat, and 
then in May of 1986 there is a more dramatic change; in January of 
1988, a significant change, and this is where some people begin to 
believe that she started to inject methamphetamine, and then you see 
further deterioration in the bottom right picture was taken in January 
of 1989, 10 years later, after the first picture.

                              {time}  2150

  This was taken in the morgue when she had eventually succumbed to her 
addiction, and so the interesting thing is that she did survive for 10 
years. Many people on meth do not do this, but you can see that the 
aging process was tremendous and it probably took the toll that 
normally a person would age 50 years in that 10-year period of time, 
and she did it in 10 with the assistance of methamphetamine.
  A report released by Voices For Children found that meth is one of 
the reasons for a 38 percent increase in child abuse and neglect in the 
State of Nebraska. This is true all across the country. As we see meth 
increase, we see child abuse, child neglect goes up, and we see many 
cases of serious injury and death on the part of young people simply 
because their parents no longer are able to care for them or care about 
them. The meth addiction has taken over and occupies all of their time, 
their attention and their devotion, and children suffer greatly.
  According to a recent report to the legislature by the University of 
Nebraska at Omaha, an estimated 22,396 Nebraskans are methamphetamine 
dependent or abusers. This is in a relatively sparsely populated State 
with 1.7 million people. So it constitutes the population of a pretty 
good-sized town in the State of Nebraska.
  A study done by the University of Arkansas found that methamphetamine 
users cost their employers about $47,500 annually due to increased 
absenteeism and loss of productivity. If you took $47,500 costs, and 
that is fairly conservative, times 22,000 individuals addicted, you 
have got over $1 billion in costs in the State of Nebraska. Of course, 
I am extrapolating those figures from Arkansas, but I believe that they 
are probably fairly accurate.
  Judge John Icenogle, a drug court judge in Buffalo County, Nebraska, 
testified at a hearing here in Washington before the Education and 
Workforce Committee, and I would like to read you a little bit of what 
he said: ``In April of 2005, approximately 6,000 children were living 
in out-of-home foster care placements within the State of Nebraska. 
More than half of the parents from whom children are removed have 
problems due to use of methamphetamine.''
  So we have 6,000 people in foster care living in out-of-home 
placements. Roughly 3,000 of those kids are there because their parents 
are addicted to methamphetamine.
  During a recent 2-week period in Lancaster County in Nebraska, the 
county attorney filed juvenile petitions on behalf of nine newborns 
because of methamphetamine use by the mothers. This is the interesting 
part: additional birthing expenses for a meth mother include as much as 
$1,500 to $25,000 per day for the care of her child. Some children 
require nearly a quarter of a million dollars of care to ensure the 
child attains the age of 1. This is simply because of reduced 
birthrate, damage that methamphetamine causes; and this does not say 
anything about the horrible suffering that these children go through.
  The developmentally delayed children can require up to three-quarters 
of a million dollars in special care during the child's first 18 years 
of life. So to get one of these meth babies from birth to age 18 in 
some cases will cost $700,000, $750,000, not in all cases.
  Congress has taken some steps to address meth production by making it 
more difficult for meth cooks to be able to obtain pseudoephedrine, 
which is one of the primary ingredients, the only ingredient which you 
absolutely have to have. That regulation has been helpful, along with 
some laws from various States.
  One thing that I think we did in that bill, which I think is very 
important for us in Congress to realize, is that at the present time, 
somewhere in the vicinity of 70 to 80 percent of the methamphetamine 
coming into the United States today is not made in meth labs. Those are 
kind of on the way down. Meth is coming, in most cases, from Mexico 
from superlabs; and in order to have a superlab, you have to purchase 
huge amounts of precursor chemicals, and chief among these are the 
pseudoephedrine. There are only six or seven places in the world that 
manufacture large quantities of pseudoephedrine, and so in the bill 
that we did, we said we want the five leading exporters of 
pseudoephedrine and the five leading importing countries of 
pseudoephedrine to report, to give their invoices to the United States, 
to report to us, and that way we would be

[[Page 4893]]

able to track where the pseudoephedrine is going and where those 
superlabs are.
  We think much of it will be in Mexico; and if they do not comply, we 
are entitled to remove up to 50 percent of their foreign aid, which is 
a significant penalty, which should get cooperation. This is part of 
the bill that I think will really help us get a handle on the crystal 
meth that is currently coming in from those superlabs.
  It is critical that we have a balanced approach to this problem of 
methamphetamine. There is not just one thing you have to do. You have 
to start out first with education, and probably start with young people 
in third, fourth, fifth grade and their parents, and of course, photos 
like I have just shown are very graphic. Sometimes they are rather 
disturbing, but it shows people exactly what methamphetamine does. We 
think education is critical because for every one dollar you spend on 
education and prevention, you are usually going to get anywhere from 
$10 to $15 from the back end in reduced crime and not having to lock 
people up and reduced assaults, foster care and so on. So this is 
important.
  The second thing that you have to do is you have to have 
interdiction. You have to have people on the ground who are attacking 
the meth problem on a daily basis, and in many parts of the country, 
drug task forces are critical. This is why the Byrne grants that 
Congress provides, which fund these drug task forces, is critical. Last 
year, we were zeroed out in the President's budget on Byrne grants, and 
we restored as much as we could, about two-thirds of what we probably 
needed. This year again we are zeroed out, and again we will have to 
fight to get that funding back; but this is critical to have the 
Federal money to be able to attack the meth problem in terms of law 
enforcement.
  Then, lastly, the third leg of the stool is the issue of treatment. 
Right now, we have a lot of people who do not manufacture 
methamphetamine, people who have not committed crimes on 
methamphetamine; but these are simply people who are addicted to meth. 
The question is what are you going to do with them. So often what we 
are doing is we are sending them to prison for 12 months or 18 months. 
They get no treatment. Their family usually falls apart, and as a 
result, they come out as bad off or worse off than when they went in. 
On the other hand, if you put them in a drug court, they get tested 
twice a week. So you know that they are clean. You know that they are 
off the drug. They get treatment. They get to go to group therapy. They 
can usually hold down a job and pay taxes. They can usually hold their 
family together. So this is critical, and it is the most cost-
effective, efficient way to treat the problem. Again, we need to have 
substantial amounts of money for those drug courts.
  So, anyway, we feel that the meth issue is becoming huge, and it is 
really impacting our culture.
  The United States is also one of the most violent nations in the 
world for young people. We have the highest youth homicide and assault 
rates in the developed world, and suicide is currently the third 
leading cause of death for young people. The violence has certainly 
escalated.
  Pornography has also exploded. There are currently 260 million 
Internet porn sites cataloged as recently as 2003. Let me repeat that 
number: 260 million Internet porn sites. Our Internet is simply 
inundated with this type of activity. Nine out of 10 children between 
the ages of 9 and 16 have viewed porn on the Internet, mostly 
unintentional. This was according to a study done by the London School 
of Economics.
  Many of us are dismayed by the way the FCC is regulating obscenity on 
our Nation's airwaves. We do not feel they are doing enough, and a poll 
in 2004 found that 82 percent of adult Americans surveyed say that the 
Federal laws against Internet obscenity should be vigorously enforced, 
and most people do not believe they are being enforced to the degree 
that they should be.
  Video games, something also impacting our young people. More than 90 
percent of American children play video games every day, and one-half 
of the top sellers contain extreme violence. Some teach stalking and 
killing of victims, similar to military training and video games; and 
pornography is sometimes a reward for hitting a target in one of the 
video games.
  The young man who was a school shooter in Kentucky had never fired a 
gun before the day that he went to the school and started picking off 
his classmates, but he had been trained and trained on video games, 
shooting lifelike people, and he became remarkably accurate.

                              {time}  2200

  So we think that some things should be done in this regard as well. 
Much music, some television, and many movies are very graphic, and that 
content would have been impossible to present for public consumption 30 
years ago. I have some grandchildren, ages 6 through 13, and I know 
many people in Congress are concerned about grandchildren, children, 
and the effects that some of the things we have just mentioned are 
having on those young people.
  Lastly, let me just mention that the value system in our country has 
certainly shifted. We mentioned that the family has been eroded to some 
degree, the environment is more threatening, and the value system that 
we have held dear for so many years seems to be changing to some degree 
also.
  Many folks may have read a book by Steven Covey called ``The Seven 
Habits of Highly Successful People.'' Covey points out in his book that 
over the first 150 years of our Nation's history success was defined 
primarily in terms of character traits. And so a successful person was 
honest, a successful person was hard working, faithful, loyal, and 
compassionate. And that was what success was all about. Then he noticed 
that over the last 50, 60 years that the definition of success has 
changed remarkably. He said, success now is viewed as acquiring 
material possessions, acquiring power, and prestige. And so success is 
no longer a link to character traits, rather it is linked to those 
things which are powerful, impressive, and have to do with monetary 
advantage.
  So the value system, obviously, has shifted significantly over the 
last 50, 60 years. We have seen certainly a discouraging lack of 
integrity, sometimes in government, sometimes in athletics, sometimes 
in the business world. We have seen extreme political partisanship. 
Ofttimes on this floor you hear one side attacking the other. I think 
that has eroded public confidence to some degree in the political 
sector.
  Presently, Mr. Speaker, the predominant world view is something 
called post-modernism. Post-modernism is certainly very alive and well 
in our culture, especially on our college campuses. What post-modernism 
says, essentially, is this: It says that there are no such things as 
moral absolutes. There is nothing absolutely right or nothing that is 
absolutely wrong. Everything is relative. In the case of theft, maybe 
even murder, maybe even incest, adultery, or treason, it depends on the 
circumstance. So as a result, we have a whole generation of folks 
growing up with the idea that there really is nothing that is truly 
wrong and that everything can be explained away depending upon the 
circumstance.
  In view of all that I have been discussing, this is an extremely 
difficult time for our children. We are asking them to weave their way 
through a mine field littered with alcohol, drug abuse in some cases, 
harmful video games, and sometimes music, television, and movies that 
are not very healthy. And we are asking them to weave their way through 
with less parental guidance and an ever shifting value system. So we 
have to be aware of what is happening to the next generation. We need 
to pay close attention. There is no culture that is more than one 
generation away from dissolution.
  I am not one who is a doom and gloom individual. Much of what I have 
talked about this evening is certainly not very cheery or terribly 
optimistic. But I think unless we begin to look at

[[Page 4894]]

things in a realistic way we will not be able to do much to correct the 
problem, maybe before it is too late.
  A Frenchman by the name of de Tocqueville made an astute observation 
early in our Nation's history. He said this about America. He said, 
``America is great because America is good.'' And he was referring to 
the large number of churches and civic clubs and youth groups and 
individuals who reach out to help those who are less fortunate. To some 
degree, that is still very true of our country. We are a generous 
people. We are really basically at heart, I think, a very good people. 
So he was referring to the inherent decency of the American people. He 
was referring to the strong moral and spiritual underpinning of the 
Nation, and he was referring to the basic American ethic, which is 
essentially do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
  Of course, de Tocqueville wrote 200 years ago. So the question is, 
are his observations true today? Some are. However, as we have pointed 
out, there are some disturbing signs of change. But what can be done 
about this? We don't want to leave the subject, Mr. Speaker, without at 
least talking about some possible solutions.
  One thing that I have been very interested in through the last 10 or 
15 years and during my time here in Congress has been the issue of 
mentoring. Mentoring, of course, is providing an adult in the life of a 
young person who cares, number one. And it is amazing how many young 
people really don't have an adult in their life that they can 
absolutely count on; that they can depend on; someone who cares about 
them unconditionally.
  So a mentor is someone who does that. It is not a preacher, not a 
teacher, not a parent, and not a grandparent. It is not somebody who 
has an obligation. It is somebody who simply cares enough to show up. 
And that is very powerful in the life of a young person.
  Secondly, a mentor is someone who affirms, who says, I believe in 
you. Again, there are so many young people today who don't hear a 
positive message. They do not hear a kind word; that somebody believes 
that they can be successful; that they can do what they need to do; 
that they see some strength.
  Then the third thing a mentor does is provide a vision of what is 
possible. Again, so often young people are really limited by their 
experience. Maybe they have never seen a parent who has completed high 
school. Maybe they have never seen anyone in their immediate family who 
has accomplished anything or maybe even has held down a steady job. So 
their idea of growing up is to drop out of school at age 16 and get a 
job in a fast food place and maybe buy an old car, and the rest of the 
future is maybe not very promising. So providing a vision, again, is 
something that certainly a mentor can do.
  Mentoring programs have been proven to reduce dropout rates, drug and 
alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, violence, they increase attendance, 
graduation, grades, and even peer relationships. So it is one of the 
best things we have going. And in view of the fact so many young people 
do not have tremendous parental support, mentoring is one thing that we 
can provide.
  A few years ago, the President proposed $150 million annually for 
mentoring programs, and Congress has come through pretty well, I think. 
We provided $184 million over the last 5 years, and this really has 
reached hundreds of thousands of young people who are now being 
mentored who would not otherwise have had a chance to have a mentor in 
their life.
  Currently, the National Mentoring Partnership estimates that there 
are roughly 18 million young people in our country today who badly need 
a mentor, and yet we are only mentoring somewhere between 2 and 3 
million of those 18 million. So there is a lot of work to be done. But 
if we could begin to fill that gap and get somewhere close to providing 
an adequate mentor in the lives of those 18 million young people, it 
would make a huge difference in this country and make a huge difference 
in the future of this country.
  Sometimes legislation can help, and there have been a number of bills 
introduced. I have introduced H.R. 1422, the Student Athlete Protection 
Act, to close a Nevada gambling loophole. Some people say that is 
really not that relevant, but it is interesting in that the State of 
Nevada is the only State that legalizes betting, gambling on amateur 
sports. It seems that this is something that we ought to think about a 
little bit. Currently, thousands of people go to Nevada during the NCAA 
basketball tournament, also during the football bowl games, because 
they can bet on game after game after game.
  Having been a coach, and the reason this is important, so often you 
had to win twice. You had to win on the scoreboard and you also were 
expected to beat the point spread. And that puts a lot of pressure on 
young people. It certainly puts pressure on coaches. But we are older 
and we are expected to be able to perform. But I think that that 
influence has not been healthy on the world of sports and certainly has 
been difficult for young people.
  The Software Accuracy and Fraud Evaluation Rating Act, or SAFE Rating 
Act, sponsored by Joe Baca and myself, is one that would require the 
Federal Trade Commission to study the voluntary rating system for video 
games to determine if its practices are unfair or deceptive.

                              {time}  2210

  This is important because right now in the video game industry, you 
cannot really tell much about the content by looking at the rating. It 
is not quite like movies and some other rating schemes we have. So the 
bill holds the video game industry accountable for their products and 
ensures that parents have accurate information in making purchasing 
decisions for their children.
  I think there are an awful lot of parents who have kids playing video 
games every day who have no idea what is going on in those games. They 
simply are not aware of the content.
  We certainly could use a fundamental shift in some of the court 
decisions regarding the first amendment. Legislation passed by Congress 
will not help if it is overturned by the courts on a regular basis. The 
court has ruled in some cases to protect pornography. In 1996 Congress 
passed the Communications Decency Act, which made it illegal to send 
indecent material to children via the Internet. But in June of 1997, 
the Supreme Court overturned portions of the law stating ``indecent 
material is protected by the first amendment.'' Of course that ruling, 
that decision, set the tone for many other decisions.
  In 1996, the Child Pornography Prevent Act outlawed child 
pornography. In April 2002 the Supreme Court declared the act 
unconstitutional. Again a precedent was set.
  In October 1998, the Children Online Protection Act was signed into 
law to prohibit the communication of harmful material of children on 
publicly accessible Web sites. The Supreme Court's refusal to rule on 
the 1998 law prevent the law from being enacted.
  There are many, many cases like this. What we see is sometimes under 
the guise of free speech, and certainly everyone in Congress believes 
in the principle of the first amendment. However, we find that some 
people's rights are being trampled because 80 to 90 percent of rapists 
and pedophiles use pornography on a regular basis, often before or 
sometimes during the commission of their crimes. Therefore, we think 
that it is time that we rethink some of these rulings.
  Some people say pornography is harmless. However, what we read and 
see and think about certainly affects behavior. If this was not the 
case, I am sure that people would not spend billions of dollars on 
advertising because advertising does change behavior. There is no 
question to that effect.
  The court has often ruled against school prayer, and I certainly 
would not advocate that a teacher or superintendent or principle or 
somebody in the school should be allowed to proselytize or say a prayer 
in class that would be offensive; but in 1962 the Supreme Court ruled 
the following prayer unconstitutional: ``Almighty God, we acknowledge 
our dependence on thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, 
our teachers, and our country.''

[[Page 4895]]

  So it would appear that many court rulings regarding separation of 
church and State have ranged far afield from the intent of the framers 
of the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin said, ``We have been assured, 
sir, in the sacred writings that except the Lord build the house, they 
labor in vain that build it. I firmly believe this. I also believe that 
without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in the political building 
no better than builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, 
partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we 
ourselves will become a reproach and a byword down to future ages.''
  He continues, ``I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, 
prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessing on our 
deliberation be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed 
to business.'' On Franklin's insistence and urging, the House of 
Representatives and the Senate open every day with prayer.
  I am not suggesting that the same thing needs to happen in our 
schools, but it does appear that the intent of the framers of the 
Constitution was maybe a little different than what we have seen played 
out in the courts.
  George Washington said, ``The propitious smiles of Heaven can never 
be expected on a Nation that disregards the internal rules of order and 
right which Heaven itself has ordained.''
  We have seen that the warnings of Franklin and Washington to some 
degree have come full circle. As we have moved further and further away 
from our spiritual underpinnings, we begin to see some of the fruits of 
that wandering. So despite the fact that the Constitution does not 
contain a separation of church and State clause, in 1992 the Supreme 
Court decision declared an invocation and a benediction at a graduation 
ceremony unconstitutional. The court held a minute of silence in a 
school was unconstitutional. So if you started the school day with a 
minute of silence in which students may pray silently, they may think 
about their history test, that minute of silence was held to be 
unconstitutional. That seems a little bit strange.
  The court ruled a student-led prayer at a football game was 
unconstitutional. And of course many of us know the words ``under God'' 
was struck from the Pledge of Allegiance by the Ninth Circuit Court. 
The Supreme Court restored the phrase, but it threw the case out on a 
technicality. I am sure that challenge will resurface sometime soon.
  So we have seen many examples of different rulings that have 
certainly affected our culture. A partial-birth abortion ban was 
recently struck down by the courts. And many in this body who favor 
abortion voted for this ban. More than 70 percent of the public now 
oppose partial-birth abortion. I am not going to go further into the 
abortion issue, but it seems rather strange that something that is 
disapproved of by so many people in the United States would be struck 
down.
  The Constitution is increasingly interpreted as a living document. So 
the Constitution is often not interpreted as it was written, but rather 
as justices believe it should be or maybe how it should have been 
written. Legal decisions increasingly come down based not upon what the 
law states, but rather based upon the personal ideology of the jurist.
  The Constitution is not based upon absolute principles, but rather 
the shifting sands of relativism. The philosophical bent of the Supreme 
Court Justices and district court justices determines the course of the 
Nation.
  And so it will be interesting to see now that we have had some change 
on the court, and I do not mean to say that the court over a number of 
years has been totally errant, there are many great decisions they have 
made, but I am saying that the general drift of the court has been one 
which has led us down a path that is certainly quite a distance from 
where we started out in the founding of our Nation.
  So the makeup of the courts and the will of Congress will greatly 
influence whether we continue to drift further from our spiritual 
heritage or draw close to those values upon which our Nation was 
founded, the willingness of Congress to focus upon the pernicious 
influences impacting our children. And sometimes I am concerned because 
I see people who are here in Congress who fought the fight over the 
Internet battles and pornography and some of these things, and have 
simply started to back off because they realize that they have passed 
laws and they have passed laws and because of various court rulings 
they have not gotten anywhere and so they have almost quit trying. That 
is unfortunate.
  And also the willingness of the American people to demand that those 
profiteering at the expense of our culture and our young people be 
reined in will largely shape the future of our Nation.
  Terrorism is an ever-present threat. The economy is of great concern. 
However, terrorism and economic distress will not prevail as long as 
our national character is silent. So we are engaged in a cultural and a 
spiritual struggle of huge proportion, and I can only hope that the 
principles upon which this Nation was founded remain preeminent. As 
Congress addresses important issues such as national defense, the 
economy and health care, it is critical that we not lose sight of the 
fact that our Nation's survival is directly linked to the character of 
our people.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to address the House this 
evening.

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