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“UNITE AMERICA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H2582-H2591 on June 26, 2020.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
UNITE AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Dean). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2019, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).
In Memory of Mary Ellen Witter
Mr. SHIMKUS. Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the time and courtesy.
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about my West Point mom, who just recently passed away. Mary Ellen Witter of Bluffton, South Carolina, passed away peacefully Sunday, June 21, 2020, with her family around her.
My West Point mom, who loved me even though I ate her food, broke her chairs, and disobeyed a rule now and then. She was the definition of grace.
She was preceded in death by her husband, the love of her life, Colonel Lee Witter. They were married 61 years. She was the daughter of the late Allan and Alma Imse, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1937.
Mary Ellen went to the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, for her bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. She received her masters from C.W. Post Center, Long Island University, New York, in Library Science.
She was a dedicated military wife. She represented America while being an embassy military wife in Indonesia. She was a longtime educator, both here and abroad.
Mary Ellen was a pianist, singer, and a devout Christian, who was very active in her church and was part of the Stephen Ministries and prayer groups. For those who knew her, she was a soft-spoken woman who loved traveling, reading, gardening, camping, bird-watching, and going to the beach. But most of all, she loved her family and her friends.
She was preceded in death by her son, Mathew. She is survived by her two daughters, Nanette Jordan of Norwalk, Connecticut, and Dorinda Selby of Beaufort, South Carolina. She is survived by her sister, Sharon Quade of Crandon, Wisconsin, and her brother, Robert Imse of Naples, Florida. She dearly loved her five grandchildren: Ashley Benusa of Hong Kong; Taylor Jordan of Boston, Massachusetts; Zachary Jordan of Waterbury, Connecticut; Senior Airman Mathew Selby of Davis Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona; and Thomas Selby of Beaufort, South Carolina.
Madam Speaker, I look forward to attending the burial service, which will take place at West Point Military Academy National Cemetery at a later date. There, she will be laid next to her husband, Colonel Witter, and her son, Mathew.
First Thessalonians 4:14 states: ``For we believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.'' May we find comfort in this promise.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his words and express condolences for his loss of his dear friend.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko), my colleague and longtime friend.
Mrs. LESKO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) for yielding me the time.
Lawlessness has broken out across our Nation. It is absolutely outrageous, and it has to be stopped. Mobs are taking over parts of the city of Seattle. They took over a police precinct.
Just last Saturday, people were shot, and one man was killed. Criminals are looting stores and businesses all over the Nation, including in Arizona in the upscale Scottsdale Fashion Square. Protestors are throwing bricks at police officers. They are throwing water bottles at police officers. And I have seen them shine flashlights right up close into the police officers' eyes and call them all kinds of names. Rioters are burning the flag, the American flag. And the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial have been defaced.
Madam Speaker, a few days ago, St. Serra, the patron saint of peace, was torn down in San Francisco.
Francis Scott Key's statue was torn down.
The statue of Ulysses Grant, who was the general for the Union was torn down by thugs in San Francisco.
{time} 1730
And then we saw the other night how they were trying so hard, these criminals, to tear down the statue in Lafayette Park. And they almost had it torn down, if it wasn't for the Trump administration sending in the National Guard to stop.
And do you know what they wrote and spray-painted on that statue, that Federal statue? ``Killer scum.''
Does any of this show tribute to George Floyd? No.
Does any of this help? Absolutely not.
Now, I was really surprised to see that one of our colleagues, Congresswoman Norton, who is a nonvoting Member but represents Washington, D.C., has introduced legislation to have a statue of Abraham Lincoln taken down, a statue that was funded by the freed slaves.
What has our country come to? We need to return to a semblance of civility in our country. And so that is why I call on Democrat-run cities to clamp down on these criminals. No more autonomous zones. No more looting. No more destructing statues. Let's bring back law and order.
That is why I stand with President Trump and his calls to arrest and prosecute criminals. Let's stop the lawlessness. Let's try to heal our country.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman, and I appreciate her comments.
We do see an increase in the amount of lawlessness. We have moved from peaceful protests, which I support, I understand. That is what the guarantee of the First Amendment is for. We all get a right to assemble with whom we want to assemble with. We get a right to speak. We get a right to seek redress of grievances from the government. All of those are important rights that we support, we stand for.
But we move into rioting, looting, mayhem. There has been murder. There has been assaults. There has been brutal violence.
I have heard some of my colleagues in this body call those protests. It is not protesting. That is lawless rioting, and it needs to be curbed and checked.
I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Bishop).
Mr. BISHOP of North Carolina. Madam Speaker, the coronavirus pandemic reminded us that we are in this together. Despite serious and, as yet, unresolved ongoing questions about policy responses to that event, we have stayed home and sacrificed for our neighbors' health. We have seen the best of us.
But in the past month, we are seeing the worst of us: violent mobs stoning business owners, Federal agents shot to death, looting occurring nationwide, and avowed Marxist activists openly defending and promoting it, six blocks of a major U.S. city ceded to anarchists.
I don't recognize this America. People experience fear repeatedly of the wanton destruction of their livelihoods, their cities on fire or being canceled by social media mobs; government buildings attacked; monuments and memorials spanning the breadth of our history, from Washington to Lincoln to Roosevelt, torn down or threatened by riotous mobs.
And this is not impassioned, heat-of-the-moment destruction. It is a targeted, organized, and methodical purge of figures who represent ideas they wish to bury, ideas such as all people are endowed by our creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and property, and that government by, for, and of the people shall not perish from the Earth.
We have seen this deliberate tactic throughout history, in communist China's cultural revolution, in the theocratic purge of Afghanistan's Taliban, even in the terror campaigns of the Reconstruction and Jim Crow South.
What distinguishes America is how this Nation responds to such lawless and purposeful attacks. We hold, it is declared, that government's very purpose is to secure the inalienable rights of all of us and that, when order falls apart, so, too, does our Nation.
What we have seen in recent weeks begs the question: How is government serving its core purpose?
Local and State officials have flouted that purpose, abandoned that responsibility. But in those circumstances, the Federal Government has the tools to secure the rights of the people.
Attorney General Barr, chapter 13 of the United States Criminal Code, provides all the authority you may need. FBI Director Wray, the evidence of criminal conspiracies is in plain sight.
The Department of Justice and the FBI must act without delay. This government must restore the America we know.
Word is the Department of Justice is leading over 500 investigations, and that is good news. We are counting on them, and we know they are up to the task.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina for his comments, and I echo his sentiment that what needs to happen to restore order here is one must arrest malefactors who are committing crimes. We must then charge them and prosecute them and give them due process. But without a restoration of order, no one in this country has freedom.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber).
Mr. WEBER of Texas. Madam Speaker, some history from our country.
Yesterday was June 25. On June 25, 1788, the State of Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and thereby became the 10th State of the United States. Virginia willingly joined the Union. Virginia willingly left the Union and then willingly eventually rejoined the Union, a reminder from our past. Do we take down everything about Virginia? Certainly not.
Madam Speaker, on June 25, 1868, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union. Again, they had willingly joined the Union; they willingly left the Union; and, yes, they willingly rejoined that same Union. Reminders from the past. Do we do away with all reminders?
On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation for public facilities as long as they were separate but equal. In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that the use of unofficial nondenominational prayer in public schools was unconstitutional. They got it wrong twice, just two examples. Do we do away with any mention of the Supreme Court?
Madam Speaker, in 1973, June 25, again, yesterday, John Dean, White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon, admitted that President Nixon was involved in the coverup. Do we do away with all mention of President Nixon?
Madam Speaker, how about President Bill Clinton, who was accused of several sexual harassments and was found guilty of lying under oath and, as I recall, tampering with a witness or obstruction of justice? Are all mentions of President Clinton gone? No, not him, not Nixon. They were Presidents of this United States.
Madam Speaker, in 1999, on June 25, Germany's Parliament approved a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin, a painful but necessary reminder from the past.
And we could go on. We could talk about professional entertainers--
and I use the word ``professional'' loosely--who have been accused. And the list is Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and on down. You go right down that list. Do we demand any and all of their works, their mentions, their movies, their shows be blotted out from memory?
We could talk about professional athletes--and again, I use the word
``professional'' loosely--who have been accused of sexual assault, beating their wives up, their girlfriends up, caught with drugs, performance-enhancing drugs, gambling, cheating. Do we blot them out from all memory and all mentions? No.
Madam Speaker, even churches--the Catholic Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodists, other churches, other denominations--scandals, military sex scandals, Boy Scouts, congressional sex scandals, every occupation, every race, color, creed, and religion, none is perfect. Where does it end?
Should we pull down and attempt to erase all mentions of countries like Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, China? The list is endless.
Madam Speaker, George Floyd had a criminal record, but he did not deserve execution at the hands of an errant police officer. And then again, those whose lives and/or their livelihoods are being destroyed by vandals, looters, and rioters don't deserve to have their families and their livelihoods and their lives ruined either.
It is time for the violence to stop. Peaceful protests, yes; violence, no. The Governors and the President should send in troops when requested and needed. I stand with the President in that.
These criminals and lawbreakers deserve to be dealt with in a manner consistent with their behavior and the law. They are pulling down statues that were paid for with tax dollars, erected with the consent of the governed, no matter what community or timeframe. These thugs simply think they can tear them down.
Do we acknowledge there are those who have an improper mindset? Of course. Those are thugs tearing things down. Of course we do.
Do we also acknowledge that Black lives matter? You bet we do. I cannot even begin to understand the fear of parents and their children who live in that fear that some day they may suffer that same fate.
But let's have that conversation within the framework of a civilized people who earnestly desire what President Lincoln called ``a more perfect Union.''
Violence, property destruction, vandalism, arson, looting, and, yes, killing others is hardly what I think we would want or call a more perfect Union, Madam Speaker.
So how about a new reset? Looking backwards will only leave us hating everyone and everything. Statues and symbols of our great country should remind us how far we have come, but, more importantly, how far we have got to go still.
We should be taking pride in how far we have come. Actually, let us hope in the promises of where we can go, while being saddened as to some of the things that have had to happen to get us to this point.
Madam Speaker, how about a reset?
{time} 1745
George Orwell once said:
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
Madam Speaker, as we reassess our shared experience, let us learn from the past in order to make a better, brighter future. America's history is imperfect. But projecting contemporary norms through violence while rejecting the experiences of our past does a disservice to the sacrifices of the great men and women like President Lincoln, who fought for equality for all.
We must not erase our history. We must learn from it. This is one of the promises and the highest callings of America the beautiful.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, particularly relating to history. I am reminded, as I was pondering that, that each of us has a history. Each of us has a personal history. None of us are perfect. Sometimes, we have flaws that seem almost insurmountable in our own lives. But if we deny our history, then we deny who we are and who we can become.
When I hear folks out there attacking our history and saying, let's bring down this statue or let's do this or let's do that, some of it is so acontextual. By that, I mean it is as if there was no history to learn from. And I think, how in the world can we be so narcissistic that we don't accept the flaws of our own past and build upon the promise of the future?
We have problems, for sure, but it does not inure to lawlessness, rioting, murder, and mayhem. It should, instead, inure to the better angels within us.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from California
(Mr. LaMalfa).
Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona
(Mr. Biggs) for leading this tonight and for what he has been standing up for.
I just have to say that I am really grieved by the strife we have in this country, especially trying to exit out of this Wuhan virus situation and the horrific things we saw happening in Minneapolis. That was the moment when we saw George Floyd being abused and ultimately killed by that.
There was unity among 99.9 percent of the population of the people in this country saying that is wrong. We had a moment to learn from that, to build upon that.
Indeed, it seemed to be a short moment. Peaceful protests immediately followed. We agree with those. And then that has been co-opted by these forces coming out of the ground that have been looking for an opportunity to divide us, divide our Nation, whether it is antifa or other groups that are forming and now seeking political power with this. It is now beyond racism. It is something completely different.
The violence that we are seeing, the mayhem, the destruction, the vandalism has nothing to do with the good conversation we should have been having in that spirit of unity that I think most Americans felt in that window of time right after the George Floyd killing.
How are we going to come out of this? How are we going to have a good conversation about how we can improve things with law enforcement but not impugn law enforcement for what they are doing? They are out there every day trying to find the balance between how to defend the public, how to defend their own life when they knock on a door or walk up to a car--they don't know what is going on inside there--and also being a good ambassador for somebody who they just need to talk to.
How are we going to find this balance again amidst all of this mayhem, amidst all of this violence? Well, certainly, the signal needs to be sent that we are not going to tolerate the violence, the mayhem, the destruction, the vandalism. Severe penalties need to be coming down upon those who we already have on camera or other ways to identify in anything going forward.
I just came from Lincoln Park about 10 blocks east of here, and they have to put fencing and have guards out there for the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who is shown there putting a hand up for a slave depicted in that statue, an emancipated slave. He is still wearing the chains. He is looking up at Mr. Lincoln, who is lifting him and going to take him to a better place.
Yet, that is being misinterpreted in 2020 as something that is hateful. That same statue was paid for by emancipated slaves back then who were inspired by what Mr. Lincoln had done.
They even have a fence around Mary McLeod Bethune right next-door because they are afraid that might get vandalized because there is indiscriminate vandalism happening to any statue, to any memorial, to any monument just because it is a mayhem out there.
That doesn't even make sense. It is not even logical that you would tear down the ones, General Grant or whoever, who were actually in the fight to end slavery. We are not going to have a very good conversation about racism when frauds like this go on.
Even something so simple or silly as a garage at a raceway here a while back where somebody said it was a noose in the garage, and the media ran with it immediately without taking at least 12 hours to check out and find out that it was a pull handle for shutting a garage door. In no way does it meet the specifications for a noose. Unfortunately, the driver doubled down on that and continued in interviews saying definitely a noose.
That doesn't do anything to bring the harmony we should be having, especially when that driver was shown an incredible amount of harmony by his colleagues there when first that incident was reported.
Where are we going with all of this? I grieve for our country, the one that had imperfect roots but always has strived to build upon itself to do better, to improve.
Slavery came in with the country, but the Founders knew it wasn't right. There were compromises made to at least form this country to be something better than the monarchy that England had, compromises but still building until finally in the 1860s when Mr. Lincoln came and said enough. You had more than half the country that was already ready to do that.
We don't get a lot of talk about that because you think the whole country was racist. Most of the country was not. It was eradicated. Then we had the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to grant rights to those who originally did not have them. The Civil Rights Act of the 1960s continued on that path, the Voting Rights Act.
Yet, all we hear around here is, Republicans are against all that, when you find out that, actually, Republicans were leading in greater numbers on all of those things all the way back at that time. Now, Democrats are trying to co-opt that and turn it into something else completely. Indeed, the first 20 Members of Congress who were Black were also Republican because they saw who was really trying to lead them toward freedom.
What we have going on right now is not going to keep this great country in a place that is free. We have lost a lot of freedom already by the virus, first--something we have to handle--but also the freedom to actually assemble downtown in a large city or to go visit a statue or do anything.
Our freedoms are being eroded. Our freedoms are being eroded by roving bands of people who--mayors in large cities, Democrat mayors, and some Democrat Governors that govern States aren't doing anything about it.
What are we supposed to do? Stand and watch what is going on here? No, we are not going to watch this anymore. We are not going to put up with it. Severe penalties need to be had for these people inflicting this mayhem upon their own Nation, upon their own neighbors, upon neighborhoods. It needs to be harsh.
Then, once we can get the violence stopped, maybe we can get back to the table and have a real conversation about how we are going to improve the situations with race.
It grieves me that young Black males feel like they are going to be victimized by the term ``driving while Black.'' That is an awful feeling for them and for us, I think, to see that happen.
Our great colleague over on the other side, Senator Tim Scott, when he brought forth a bill he has been working on very hard for a long time, looking for bipartisan efforts, his JUSTICE Act, and then someone tells him it is a token effort.
What the heck does that mean? That really struck him deeply, that people would say that about that and not even give him the opportunity to have that bill developed further in the Senate. What a shameful moment that was.
Yet, now we have legislation here that is trying to eviscerate the ability of cops to operate how they need to, to have a little bit of immunity because a cop doesn't know what he is walking into or what she is walking into. They need a little latitude, not the latitude we saw in Minneapolis, but one to simply operate.
Doctors need latitude in order to work on patients and not be sued to death. Yet, we have this legislation that is going to be, basically, sue a cop. That is not going to help anything.
What is that going to do for morale for keeping cops on the force, for recruiting new ones? Do we want this mayhem we keep seeing happening right here in D.C., Minneapolis, L.A., any other large city, and we don't have some kind of law enforcement there?
Social workers do have their place in certain situations, and they can be helpful. But we don't take money away. We don't defund the cops who are already shorthanded in rural areas like mine, sheriffs, police, in order to try and change the whole game.
We have a lot of listening to do to each other on both sides. Not everybody with light-colored skin is a racist, and I think a lot of people around this country are really feeling, after the unity we had, after the George Floyd ugly incident in Minneapolis, this is a time to get together and listen to each other.
If this is allowed to continue to happen, it is going to make it awful hard for people to listen to each other because they are feeling under fire themselves for something they never did, never stood for. Instead, they have always stood for the greatness of that flag right up there. In God we trust.
I appreciate the time.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for his passionate and heartfelt words.
It is my pleasure now to yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey).
Mr. POSEY. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
``We want America back.'' Those were just a few of the lyrics of a song written by a group named The Steeles in 1996. Some of the lyrics said:
Something is wrong with America.This Nation is like a runaway train,Headed down the wrong track.
And it concludes, in part, with:
I love America. But I do not love what she has become.
Circumstances seemed pretty despairing back then, but they pale in comparison to what we are seeing going on across our country today, perpetrated by Marxists, anarchists, and those malcontents who are funding them.
Today, the miscreants are using George Floyd's death to neuter the ability of the police to enforce the law. So far, they have been successful in getting the police out of the way.
Without law enforcement, their mobs are free to move in, smash businesses, injure people, and cause chaos. Those aren't peaceful protesters, and they are not peaceful protests.
Their outcry for justice makes sympathetic, or perhaps even cowardly, corporations and stupid movie stars send money to them. Now they are tearing down the statues, intimidating the public and politicians into accepting their farfetched demands, and giving them even more power.
Circumstances are advantageous for them right now because we are in the midst of a pandemic so they have a freer rein of the streets.
Who could have ever imagined sanctuary cities where America's rule of law is ruefully ignored by government officials?
Who would have ever imagined some elected officials would allow domestic terrorists or wannabe revolutionaries to commandeer a complete takeover and rule of both public and private property and have dominion over other unwilling citizens of the United States in so-called autonomous zones.
Give me a break.
Then, the lawbreakers have the audacity to demand our police be defunded or reimagined, whatever the heck that means. It sounds insane.
It is really a campaign to drive our duly-elected President Donald Trump from office. Anyone who stands in their way they think should be destroyed.
We can expect it to get worse and worse until November 3, when they hope to put an end to the prosperity created by the President. You have to suffer from the world's worst case of Potomac fever, or beltway brain drain, to think they are fooling anybody.
Meanwhile, the leadership and majority in this Chamber have been silent. I have not heard a single word, syllable, or letter uttered by them in opposition to the miscreants. It is past time for them to condemn their activities, and it is time for law enforcement across this Nation in every State, in every county, in every city, in every little burgh, community, and the rural areas in-between to put an end to this lawlessness.
If you don't start acting soon, there wouldn't be anything left to tear down. I would like to take a bunch of these wannabe revolutionaries to South or Central America for a few days to see how their game would end if they were successful in having it their way.
{time} 1800
If you have ever traveled throughout those socialist countries there, it is a very eye-opening experience. The State Department, and even their own officials, warn you, don't wear any jewelry; don't carry much cash, because there is a good chance you are going to get robbed. And if you are approached by a robber, hand over everything, hold back nothing, because they would just as soon shoot you and kill you as not shoot you and kill you.
There is a lot of lawlessness, and they don't fear justice. They don't fear the police. They are going to take, and you are going to give, or you are going to die. And you know what the State Department and the local officials tell you next? If you get robbed, don't call the police. It is not like in our country where, if there is a problem, you call the police. There, they tell you not to call the police because they are all corrupt and they will shake you down for anything the robbers missed.
One common denominator of the countries that I visited, which was Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, and Trinidad, was a common denominator that every single house that I saw, large or small, urban or suburban, no matter how far out you went into the country, every single house that was more than a cardboard box had bars on every window and most of the doors. Why? Because that is what lawlessness brings.
They truly go to bed every night in those socialist countries with the expectation that if they did not have bars, they wouldn't wake up in the morning; or if they did, every possession that they had that was worth anything would be gone.
Very little police, high crime, high unemployment, bars on all the windows. Is that what we really want for our future?
We have been blessed to live in the land of opportunity, the most free and prosperous nation in the history of the world. Many, many, many people have risked their lives and the lives of their wives, their grandparents, their parents, their children, family members to come here. This place is really that good that people would risk their life just to come here, a chance at coming here. We cannot stand back and let it be destroyed. We want America back.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his thoughts and taking time to share those with us.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Yoho).
Mr. YOHO. Madam Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Arizona (Mr. Biggs) for putting this on. I really do appreciate it because it is so timely.
Growing pains, I think that is what we can say we are going through is growing pains again as a nation, a nation birthed over 200 years ago.
And for anybody who watched yesterday's debate, Madam Speaker, on the House floor, I think it was interesting to see the amount of, I guess, race-baiting that was coming from the other side, from my colleagues, which I found very unreasonable that, for some reason, if you are a Black man, you have to tell your children how to act with the police.
My mom and dad had that talk with me, probably for good reason, too, and they said: If you get pulled over, ``Yes, sir,'' ``No, sir,'' and then when you get home we want to know what happened and why you got pulled over. I had to have that talk with my children. So that is nothing new, and I think that we sometimes overplay that.
Does it happen maybe more with minority communities? Yes, I think it does, but nobody is immune to that. When I came into Congress, I got stopped multiple times to see if I had the right credentials. That has happened to me.
Since we have been up here, the divide in this country has gotten so much worse, and it has been since Donald Trump has gotten elected. And people will blame the President for doing this, but we can go back to other Presidents where we have seen this happen. We are Americans. We need to come together as a nation.
I have had the great fortune of being in Congress. This is my last term. I will have served 8 years. I was the chairman of the Asia-
Pacific Subcommittee last year, last Congress; I am the ranking member this year. I have bean able to travel the world. I have been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Africa is a continent of 1.2 billion, yet today, in the 21st century, 650 million people do not have electricity. I suppose they have a reason to protest. I suppose they have a reason to complain. But do they have the right to protest?
Being on the Asia-Pacific Subcommittee we got to travel to a lot of the Asian countries. We all know what is going on in Hong Kong today. Hong Kong is a province of China. There was an agreement of one country, two systems, where Hong Kong was supposed to be a semi- or a self-ruling area with an independent judiciary committee. Yet, 23 years into that agreement, Xi Jinping, the leader of the Communist Party, said that is null and void, and they have put the heavy hand of the Communist Party in there.
These young students are out there holding up that flag behind you, Madam Speaker, holding up that flag for liberty and freedom because they have tasted that. That is all they have ever known. Yet the Chinese Communist Party wants to take that away because it scares them. Free thought, independent thinking, freedom, they know the Communist Party cannot survive, so they are going in there to squash that.
These students are holding those signs up. Our flag is up. They have been in my office here in the Washington Capitol. They have a reason to protest, but they do not have the right.
You talk about Venezuela, somebody talked about it. Go down to Cuba and talk against the Castro regime. You don't have the right. Talk about religion in those countries. You do not have the right.
But then I look at this country, and I am as guilty as anybody else in this country. We have the right to protest, the First Amendment, but sometimes I think--and this is where I feel like I am guilty, like a lot of us. I think we take it for granted what we have in this country.
It was interesting because I was with the Ambassadors of both Malaysia and Indonesia, and they talked about the founding of their country. When they got their independence, when they broke away and they formed those countries, they told me that their founding fathers could have picked any system in the world. They could have taken Great Britain's system of government. They could have taken Germany's, Russia's, China's. But you know who they took? They took the principles of America because they had read our history, they had read those documents and what those documents meant.
And I heard people over and over here today, since I have been in Congress, America is not a perfect country because people are in it, and people are not perfect, but the ideals laid out there were the best ideals that have ever been laid out. If not, why are other countries adopting them? Why do people in Cuba come across the ocean, a 90-mile stretch, on inner tubes, on rafts, on surfboards to get to this country? It is called freedom. It is called justice.
But do you know what? We are not going to fix it if this side is accusing this side, and this side over here is accusing that side of pandering to our audience.
So what that meant to me when I was with those Ambassadors from Indonesia and Malaysia, what it meant to me was: Do you know what? America is bigger than a Presidency. It is bigger than the Democratic Party. It is bigger than the Republican Party. It is those ideals that this country stands for that we all need to fight to hold on to.
I want to read something that one of my constituents sent me. It says: ``The lesson taught at this point by human experience is simply this, that the man who will get up will be helped up, and the man who will not get up will be allowed to stay down. . . . Personal independence is a virtue and it is the soul of which comes the sturdiest manhood. But there can be no independence without a large share of self-dependence, and this virtue cannot be bestowed. It must be developed from within.''
I had an African-American man, a conservative Republican who is afraid to tell people he is a conservative Republican because he gets labeled Uncle Tom. You have been put on the plantation.
These are not my words. These are words coming from him.
But that quote came from somebody I wish we could go back and meet, Mr. Frederick Douglass, a person born into slavery who picked himself up by the bootstraps, who educated himself. He stood beside President Lincoln when they dedicated the Emancipation statue.
And I have got these people out here who loathe, despise, disdain this country, and it is being flamed by people--and I can't blame just people, the Democrats. There are people out there who just hate this country, but they are using that to tear this country apart instead of remembering the ideals that this country is built on. And those are American ideologies--not conservative, not liberal, not Republican or Democrat, American--and I think it is time that we all come together and realize we are Americans and we are on the same team.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his passionate comments about freedom.
Madam Speaker, those of us who have had the good fortune of studying history, we know that it bumps and claws along. We do see progress sometimes, and we also see devolution sometimes.
What we are seeing today, though, reminds me an awful lot of a revolution that took place in the early part of the 20th century. It was not a large revolution; it was a small revolution. It was the Bolshevik Revolution. It was funded by some of the bourgeoisie who did not like the form of government in then-Russia. It was not a massive revolution. It wasn't widespread, but it changed that entire nation's form of government.
I am reminded that it was Trotsky who prevented the military from intervening against the lawless revolution. What I am seeing here today reminds me an awful lot of that. This is a small revolution that is violent in nature, is anti-American in nature.
And so when my colleagues mention the police and what they need to do, what happens is there has been an emasculation of the police. They don't really want to get involved because, should they get involved, there is a legitimate concern that they will be sued, arrested, et cetera. So when you get rid of the blue line of defense against lawlessness, then you basically destroy the foundation of the protection of your freedoms.
President Trump called certain groups antifa, domestic terrorists. In our debate in the Judiciary Committee, some of my colleagues said antifa is a fiction. So I said: Well, you know, is it a fiction?
So I went to CNN, because I knew that if I went to FOX and referred to FOX, nobody was going to believe that that was not biased. So I went to CNN because I wanted to find out what they said, and you can go through and find extensive interviews where the conclusion is clear: antifa is a real organization. It is a group. And the group sometimes chooses to resort to violence.
So what do you have? They are definitely domestic. They are committing terrorist activity in this country. Thus, they are domestic.
And what would terrorism be? Terrorism is the use of force, intimidation, violence to change or alter behavior for a particular purpose.
So you begin to see you have domestic terrorism going on.
{time} 1815
18 U.S. Code, Section 2339A, I call on FBI Director Wray to begin using that statute, make the arrests necessary to restore order. And I call on Attorney General William Barr to use that same section to charge and prosecute these individuals who are attempting to intimidate Americans out of their freedom.
A lot of these Federal monuments and statues that are coming down, these memorials that are being ripped to shreds, destroyed are on Federal property.
And you know what? 18 U.S. Code 1369 is the statute that Director Wray should be having his Federal agency make arrests under. And then I call on Attorney General Barr to have his U.S. attorneys charge and prosecute under 18 U.S. Code 1369 for destruction of veterans' memorials. And we can go forward.
But why do I even bring that up? It is because I believe sincerely that this country is built on the idea that each of us should have agency, will, choice. It hasn't always worked out really well or perfectly. There are those who have had their choices and will taken away from them. That is inexcusable, of course.
But if we are going to have will and choice and freedom, then we are part of this great social contract where I delegate my right to defend myself because I can't do it all the time. There are people who are stronger or more vicious or are more malevolent who want to compel me to do something or take something from me.
We delegate police authority to police. It is not carte blanche. It is reasonable.
We have got to restore respect for the law, for the police, for the courts, and for process.
It is imperfect. I worked in that system for a lot of years on both sides, prosecuting and defending. It is not a perfect process.
The reality is, though, it is as Winston Churchill said, Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others.
It is the best humankind has come up with.
To destroy our history seems so antithetical to making progress, eradicating our history, erasing it.
College professors are now saying we have got to go through and remove books from the library.
Remove them from the library, because why? They have unpopular ideas in them. They may be unpopular ideas, but you know what is better than taking them out and burning them or removing them and trashing them ala Adolph Hitler and the Nazis? It is letting us read them, discuss them, and point out their flaws, and rehabilitate us, our hearts.
Artwork being removed from museums, being removed from this House. Why? Because some were not 2020 politically correct. What they did was, to some, unconscionable and abominable. Let's have the discussion.
Removing your history allows you to repeat the mistakes of your history. I simply don't understand it.
We have now moved beyond a motivational or some kind of philosophical attempt to remove historical items. Now we are seeing indiscriminate action.
Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a series of articles.
A greater percentage of U.S. registered voters believe Confederate statues, which have been targeted by protesters in recent weeks, should remain standing despite activists' demands to remove them, a Morning Consult poll released this week revealed.
The survey, taken June 6-7, showed that a greater number of Americans believe Confederate statues should remain standing, 44 percent, as opposed to the 32 percent who say they should be removed. Twenty-three percent expressed no opinion on the matter.
The fundings reflect a slight shift in opinion over the last three years. In August 2017, 52 percent of voters indicated that the statues should be left alone, with just over a quarter, 26 percent, indicating otherwise.
However, Morning Consult reported that the purported increase in support over the years is largely driven by Democrats:
The rise in support for removing the statues was driven by Democrats, a majority of whom now take that position, and independents, who still favor keeping those statues standing by a 10-point margin. Eleven percent of GOP voters say the statues should be removed, virtually unchanged since 2017.
The vast majority of Republicans, 71 percent, believe the Confederate statues should remain standing, whereas the majority of Democrats, 53 percent, believe they should be taken down. Forty percent of independents believe they should remain standing, with 30 percent vying for their removal and 30 percent expressing no opinion.
The survey was taken among ``roughly'' 1,900 voters, with a margin of error of +/- two percent.
The survey comes as protesters vandalize and, in some cases, tear down Confederate statues and others they deem offensive, including statues of Christopher Columbus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has also embraced the calls for change, requesting in a letter on Wednesday the removal of Confederate statues occupying the U.S. Capitol, or as she called them, ``monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end.''
``Monuments to men who advocated cruelty and barbarism to achieve such a plainly racist end are a grotesque affront to these ideals,'' she said in a letter to Committee Chair Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Vice Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA). ``Their statues pay homage to hate, not heritage. They must be removed.''
Interestingly, Pelosi has remained silent on her own father's role in the dedication of a Confederate statue in Baltimore's Wyman Park in 1948.
As Breitbart News detailed:
However, her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, Jr., oversaw the dedication of such a statue in Baltimore's Wyman Park--the Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee Monument--as mayor of the city in 1948. At the time, the Speaker's father said people could look to Jackson's and Lee's lives as inspiration and urged Americans to ``emulate Jackson's example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world.''
World Wars I and II found the North and South fighting for a common cause, and the generalship and military science displayed by these two great men in the War between the States lived on and were applied in the military plans of our nation in Europe and the Pacific areas,'' D'Alesandro said at the dedication ceremony, as detailed by the Baltimore Sun. He continued:
Today with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions . . . remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.
Pelosi's office did not return Breitbart News's request for comment.
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Which Confederate statues were removed? A running list
(By Christopher Carbone)
More than 30 cities across the United States have removed or relocated Confederate statues and monuments amid an intense nationwide debate about race and history.
After a ``Unite the Right'' rally in Virginia in August to protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee resulted in the death of a woman who was demonstrating against white supremacy, other cities have decided to remove Confederate statues.
Many of the controversial monuments were dedicated in the early twentieth century or during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Discussions are under way about the removal of monuments in Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Pensacola, Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, Richmond, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Charlottesville, Virginia.
Here is a running list of all the monuments and statues that have been removed and the cities that have taken them down:
Annapolis, Md.
Under cover of darkness, city workers removed a statue in August 2017 of former Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney that had been on the State House's front lawn for 145 years. Taney authored the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision, which held that African-Americans could not be U.S. citizens. The city's Republican mayor said through a spokesman that it was removed ``as a matter of public safety.''
Austin, Texas
The statues of four people with ties to the Confederacy--Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnson, John H. Reagan and former Texas Gov. James Stephen Hogg--were removed from pedestals on the University of Texas campus on Aug. 17, 2017. UT's president said in a written statement the deadly clashes in Charlottesville made it clear ``Confederate monuments have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.'' Separately, a 1,200-pound bronze statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis that was removed from UT's campus in 2015 has now returned to the campus, at the Briscoe Center for American History.
The Austin school board voted to strip Confederate names from five district schools, though they haven't been renamed yet. The board had previously renamed Robert E. Lee Elementary School in 2016.
The Austin City Council approved renaming Robert E. Lee Road and Jeff Davis Avenue.
Baltimore, Md.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh told reporters she wanted to move ``quickly and quietly'' to take down four Confederate statues or monuments--statues of Lee and Thomas, J.
``Stonewall'' Jackson and monuments for Confederate Soldiers and Sailors and Confederate Women--from the city's public spaces. Although the plan had been in the works since June 2017, the Baltimore City Council approved it only two days after the deadly events in Charlottesville. On March 10, 2018, the space where the Confederate statues had stood was rededicated to abolitionist and civil rights pioneer Harriet Tubman.
Bradenton, Fla.
Mantee County removed a Confederate soldiers memorial obelisk on Aug. 24 after the city commission voted 4-3 to take it down and place it in storage. The monument, which had stood there for more than 90 years, was accidentally broken into two pieces when city workers removed it. The removal came after days of protests from residents and activists, most of whom were in favor of taking it down, and it cost
$12,700 to remove.
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Plaques honoring Lee were removed from an episcopal church's property on Aug. 16, 2017 and the governor called on the Army to remove the names of Lee and another Confederate general from the streets around a nearby fort. ``It was very easy for us to say, `OK, we'll take the plaques down,' '' said Bishop Lawrence Provenzano, of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, who called them ``offensive to the community.'' New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for a review of all the city's public art to identify ``symbols of hate'' for possible removal.
Dallas, Texas
A bronze statue of Robert E. Lee, formally called the Robert Edward Lee Sculpture, was removed in mid-September 2017 from Robert E. Lee Park, which was also named in honor of the Confederate general. The Dallas City Council voted 13-1 to remove the statue, which has stood in Lee Park for 81 years.
The park was dedicated to Lee by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 during a renaming ceremony of the park.
Daytona Beach, Fla.
Three Confederate monuments were removed from a city park Friday morning. A city spokesperson said the plaques were going to be cleaned up and taken to a nearby museum. The decision to remove them did not require public input, the spokes-person told FOX35, because they were donated and not purchased with taxpayer funds.
Chapel Hill, N.C.
Protesters toppled the ``Silent Sam'' statue that has stood on the University of North Carolina's Chapel Hill campus since 1913 on Aug. 20. More than 200 people had gathered and were chanting ``hey, hey, ho, ho, this racist statue has got to go.'' In a statement, UNC Chancellor Carol Folt called the act ``unlawful and dangerous,'' adding that law enforcement were investigating the incident. The statue had been a source of controversy, with school officials claiming that state law prevented them from removing it.
Durham, N.C.
A nearly-century old statue of a Confederate soldier was toppled not long after Charlottesville by protesters associated with the Workers World party. North Carolina Central University student Takiyah Thompson, along with three others, were arrested and charged with felonies in the days following. As the bronze statue lay crumpled on the ground, protesters could be seen kicking it on social media. A Worthington assistant city manager said the community seeks to be one that ``promotes tolerance, respect and inclusion.''
A statue of Lee was removed from the entrance to Duke University Chapel on Aug. 19, 2017 and is set to be preserved in some way to study the university's ``complex past.''
``I took this course of action to protect Duke Chapel, to ensure the vital safety of students and community members who worship there, and above all to express the deep and abiding values of our university,'' university President Vincent Price wrote in statement to the school.
Franklin, Ohio
A monument to Lee was removed in August 2017 by Franklin workers. Gainesville, Fla.
A chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy paid for the removal of a monument to Confederate soldiers known locally as ``Old Joe'' that stood in front a building in downtown Gainesville for 113 years. It was moved to a private cemetery outside the city in August 2017.
Helena, Mont.
The state's capital city on Aug. 18, 2017 removed a memorial to Confederate soldiers that had been in a public park since 1916. The granite fountain, which was dismantled, had been donated by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. City Parks and Recreation Director Amy Teegarden told the Spokesman-Review that the fountain initially will be stored in a city warehouse--but it could be reassembled at a future date.
Kansas City, Mo.
A Confederate monument was boxed up in summer 2017 and is slated to be removed. The Missouri division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy had asked Kansas City Parks and Recreation to find a new home for it.
Lexington, Ky.
Two 130-year-old Confederate statues were removed from downtown Lexington on October 18 after the state's attorney general issued an opinion giving the city permission to take them down and move them to a private cemetery. Lexington used private funds to take the statues, of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan and John Breckinridge, a former U.S. Vice President and the last Confederate Secretary of War. Private funds will cover the cost of their upkeep in the cemetery.
Los Angeles, Calif.
A large stone monument commemorating Confederate veterans was taken down Aug. 16 from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery after hundreds of people demanded its removal. The 6-foot granite marker was loaded into a pickup truck and taken to a storage facility. A petition calling for it to be taken down had garnered 1,3000 signatures.
Louisville, Ky.
A statue of a Confederate soldier was removed from the University of Louisville campus after a legal battle between the city residents, the mayor and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. It was relocated to Brandenburg, Kentucky, which hosts Civil War Reenactments.
Madison, Wis.
A plaque honoring Confederate soldiers were removed Aug. 17 from a cemetery not long after residents and city leaders began calling for it to be taken down. ``The Civil War was an act of insurrection and treason and a defense of the deplorable practice of slavery,'' said Mayor Paul Soglin in a statement. ``The monuments in question were connected to that action and we do not need them on city property.''
Memphis, Tenn.
Crews removed two Confederate statues from Memphis parks on Dec. 20 after the city sold them to a private entity. The City Council voted unanimously earlier in the day to sell both Health Sciences and fourth Bluff Parks where the Confederate statues, of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and Confederate President Jefferson Davis, were located.
Nashville, Tenn.
The Legendary Ryman Auditorium, where stars like Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn made their Grand Ole Opry debuts, quietly moved a sign on Sept 21 hanging the venue's upper level that read ``1897 Confederate Gallery.'' Honoring an 1897 reunion of Confederate veterans at the Ryman, the sign had been shrouded over the years but has now been permanently removed from the main auditorium and added to a museum exhibit that explains the history of the 125-year-old music hall.
New Orleans, La.
New Orleans city workers removed four monuments in April dedicated to the Confederacy and opponents of Reconstruction. The city council had declared the monuments a public nuisance. The monuments removed were of Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, Davis and Lee. Also removed was the Liberty Place Monument, which commemorated a Reconstruction Era white supremacist attack on the city's integrated police force. The mayor plans to replace with new fountains and an American flag.
New York, N.Y.
Busts of Lee and Jackson were removed overnight on Aug. 17 from the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College. Prior to its removal, Bro x Borough president Ruben Siaz Jr. had said ``there is nothing great about two men who committed treason against the United States to fight to keep the institution of slavery in tact.''
Orlando, Fla.
A Confederate statue known as ``Johnny Reb'' was moved in June 2017 by officials from Lake Eola Park to Greenwood Cemetery in response to public outcry about it being symbolic of hate and white supremacy. A spokesperson for Orlando's mayor told Fox News that city officials are working with historians on a new inscription to put the monument ``in proper historical perspective.''
Richmond, Va.
The Richmond school board voted 6-1 on June 18, 2018 to rename J.E.B. Stuart Elementary School to Barack Obama Elementary School. The process began several months prior and involved input from students, teachers, administrators and local stakeholders. Virginia is home to the largest number of Confederate monuments and symbols in the country.
Rockville, Md.
A 13-ton bronze Confederate statue that had stood for decades next to Rockville's Red Brick Courthouse was relocated in July next to a privately run Potomac River ferry named for a Confederate general. The relocation cost about
$100,000, according to the Washington Post.
San Diego, Calif.
A plaque honoring Davis was quietly removed Aug. 16, 2017 from a downtown park. ``This morning I ordered the immediate removal of a plaque honoring the Confederacy at Horton Plaza Park,'' Mayor Kevin
Faulconer told the Los Angeles Times. ``San Diegans stand together against Confederate symbols of division.''
San Antonio, Texas
A Confederate statue was removed from Travis Park overnight Sept. 1, 2017 after the City Council voted 10-1 in favor of taking it down the previous day. There were no protesters during or after the removal, according to local media reports. ``This is, without context, a monument that glorifies the causes of the Confederacy, and that's not something that a modern city needs to have in a public square,'' said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg following the council vote.
San Antonio, Texas
A Jefferson Davis highway marker was removed in 2016.
St. Louis, Mo.
The Missouri Civil War Museum oversaw the removal in late June 2017 of a 32-foot granite and bronze monument from Forest Park, where it had stood for 103 years. It shouldered the costs of removal and will hold the monument in storage until a new home can be found for it. The agreement stipulates the monument can be re-displayed at a Civil War museum, battlefield or cemetery. In Boone County, a rock with a plaque honoring Confederate soldiers that had been removed from the University of Missouri campus was relocated a second time after the Charleston AEM church massacre to a historic site commemorating a nearby Civil War battle.
St. Petersburg, Fla.
St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman ordered city workers to remove a bronze Confederate marker at noon on Aug. 15, 2017 after determining that it was on city property. It's being held in storage until a new home can be found for it. ``The plaque recognizing a highway named after Stonewall Jackson has been removed and we will attempt to locate its owner,'' Kriseman said in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times.
Washington, D.C.
The stewards of the National Mall announced this week that the exhibit alongside the Thomas Jefferson Memorial will be updated to showcase his status as both one of the country's founders and a slaveholder. ``We can reflect the momentous contributions of someone like Thomas Jefferson, but also consider carefully the complexity of who he was,'' an official with the Trust told the Washington Examiner. ``And that's not reflected right now in the exhibits.''
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker introduced a bill in Sept. 2017 to remove Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol Building.
The National Cathedral voted that same month to take down two stained-glass windows of Confederate generals. The removal could take a few days and workers seen putting up scaffolding around the windows to start the process-
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a bill to replace a statue of a Confederate general at the U.S. Capitol with one of Mary McLeod Bethune, a black woman who founded a school that became BethuneCookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. She'll become the first black female to be honored in Statuary Hall.
Worthington, Ohio
Worthington removed a historic marker Aug. 18 outside the former home of a Confederate general.
Polls Find Little Support for Confederate Statue Removal--But How You
Ask Matters
(By Ariel Edwards-Levy)
Americans are generally unsupportive of attempts to remove memorials honoring Confederate leaders, new polling shows--although the way the question is framed may make a significant difference.
In a new HuffPost/YouGov poll, a third of Americans favor removing statues and memorials of Confederate leaders, with 49 percent opposed. Just 29 percent of Americans favor changing the names of streets, schools and buildings commemorating Confederate leaders, while half are opposed.
Those surveyed are effectively split on whether the Confederate flag is more a symbol of Southern pride (36 percent) or racism (35 percent), with the rest unsure or saying it represents neither. But even if Americans don't overwhelmingly recognize the flag as a symbol of racism, there's also little widespread enthusiasm for its use. Just 34 percent of Americans say they approve of displaying the Confederate flag in public, while 47 percent disapprove.
Opinions on the Confederate memorials are divided along racial lines, but to an even greater degree along political ones. Black Americans are 18 percentage points likelier than white Americans to favor removing statues of Confederate leaders--but the gap between Democrats and Republicans on the question is 46 points. And the difference between Hillary Clinton voters and those who supported President Donald Trump in last year's election is a full 58 points.
Within the Democratic Party, white and black people are about equally likely to favor removing the statues: 64 percent and 63 percent, respectively, say they'd like to see them taken down. There are differences, however, by ideology among the party's members--77 percent of self-described liberal Democrats, but just 40 percent of self-described moderates or conservatives--want to see the statues removed.
Most other surveys released in the past few weeks find at best modest support for removing Confederate memorials, although two distinctively-worded questions stand out in these results.
The strongest support for keeping memorials in place came in the poll conducted by Marist for NPR and PBS NewsHour, which gave respondents a choice between letting statues
``remain as a historical symbol'' and removing them ``because they are offensive to some people.'' (Arguably, the question might have been better balanced had the first option been written as ``because some people view them as a historical symbol.'')
The only poll to find majority support for removing some monuments, conducted by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, adopted a framework far more sympathetic to the monuments' opponents, asking about their ``relocation'' rather than their ``removal.''
PPP found voters split--39 percent to 34 percent--on whether they ``support or oppose monuments honoring the Confederacy.'' But those voters were largely willing to relocate Confederate monuments if the issue was instead presented as an attempt to move them ``to museums or other historic sites where they can be viewed in proper historical context.'' Unlike other questions, PPP also asked specifically about memorials on government property, rather than a broader question about public spaces.
Opinions surrounding Confederate symbols have also proved to be fairly mutable in response to current events. After a white supremacist killed nine members of a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, two years ago, support for the Confederate flag dropped quickly and significantly.
That doesn't appear to have happened yet following the violence earlier this month in Charlottesville, Virginia, sparked by a white nationalist rally opposing efforts to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. But if the issue remains a flashpoint in the days to come, its prominence could possibly polarize views even further than they already are. (Charlottesville on Wednesday draped black shrouds over the Lee statue and one for Confederate Gen. Thomas ``Stonewall'' Jackson.)
Since Trump took office, Democrats have repeatedly rallied around opinions that serve as anti-Trump shibboleths, expressing sharply increased alarm about global warming, mistrust of Russia and support for immigration. While Democrats are already generally in favor of taking down the Confederate statues, their level of support for doing so ranges between 45 percent and 72 percent in recent surveys--far lower than the party's almost unanimous dislike for the president.
____
Abolitionist Monuments Defaced by Anti-Racism' Rioters Is What Teaching
Fake History Gets America
(By Joy Pullmann)
The imagery couldn't be more direct. Across the nation, rioting and unrest that has killed black Americans and destroyed black neighborhoods has included the defacement of historic monuments, including those to abolitionists.
The last wave of monument destruction, in 2017, largely focused on Confederates and slave holders, erasing all the accomplishments of figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with a scarlet S, for slave-holder. This time, the ignorance has descended even further.
The rioters are now tearing down and defacing memorials wantonly, apparently assuming that if someone is being celebrated that person is ``probably a racist,'' as the image below says.
This prejudiced ignorance appears to be widespread, and unchecked by local authorities. Several of the defaced monuments are of abolitionists, including the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln, as Tristan Justice reported Thursday. For example:
``[I]n Boston, demonstrators also vandalized a monument to the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the second all-black volunteer regiment of the Union Army,'' Justice writes.'' . .
. Add to the growing list of civil rights freedom fighters defaced by social justice protestors a Minnesota memorial to three black men who were lynched in 1920 following false rape accusations from a white woman.''
These mob actions are not the result of accidental ignorance, but of cultivated prejudice. One month ago, I collected just a few pieces of evidence pointing in this direction:
A 2019 poll found . . . that ``more than 80 percent of Americans ages 39 and younger could not say what rights the First Amendment protects, and three-quarters or more couldn't name any authors of The Federalist Papers.'' Another 2019 poll found ``just 57 percent of millennials believe the Declaration of Independence `better guarantees freedom and equality' than the Communist Manifesto.'' A 2016 Federalist article notes, ``40 percent of recent grads were unaware that Congress has the right to declare war and 10 percent think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court.''
In February, I presented more such evidence:
Today, 4 in 10 Americans who are younger than 39 disagree that the United States ``has a history we should be proud of,'' according to a 2019 poll by FLAG/YouGov. The poll also found that half of all Americans agree the United States is a sexist and racist country, including two-thirds of millennials. Millennials showed the lowest level of agreement with the statement, ``I'm proud to be an American.'' Thirty-eight percent of ``younger Americans do not agree that
`America has a history that we should be proud of,' '' according to the poll. 2019's annual poll from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation found that 37 percent of millennials think the United States is ``among the most unequal societies in the world.''
The anti-American group of recent graduates is not a fringe element. It is a substantial and ominously growing group of voting-age adults.
The recent riots have given us many more indications that America's education institutions do not merely keep kids ignorant, but actively teach them to hate their country. Just refer to any of the emails and website banners you've been subjected to from every company you've ever purchased from online, detailing about how they're all ``fighting racism'' by frantically donating to people and organizations that make a living off heightened racial tensions.
These messages reveal that the nation's leadership class has all been re-educated extremely successfully to believe a pack of things that just aren't true about American history and ideals. They are well-catechized in what is billed as antiracist attitudes and activities that are rooted in false information and more likely to instead increase racial tensions.
Hardly a one of them, or any other American, can tell you much about George Washington besides he was a slave owner. Hardly one of them can identify Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as bona fide, deep-dyed racists. Not one of them know one of the first acts of Congress--the Congress that existed before today's Congress, the one that pre-dates the Constitution--was to pass a massive document outlawing slavery in territory newly acquired from Great Britain during postwar negotiations.
But they all have heard of Audre Lorde, whose great contribution to society is basically being black and gay. They are all up on movies directed by black women like Ava DuVernay and books by pathos-filled but fact-challenged black writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates. They all know Michael Brown put his hands up and said ``Don't shoot'' even though he didn't. They're passing around discredited fake history like The New York Times's 1619 Project as if it were accurate, and using it to justify supporting totalitarian thought policing because a black guy says this will solve racism.
These people's heads aren't empty. Their hate isn't blind. It's very well-formed. And it's been deliberately aimed at the very country that has paid for and overseen their indoctrination into political violence.
I've now spent about a decade tracking information like this, and have researched and written about it in more detail than most, and therefore can assure you there is much more to find. Entire books have and could be written to detail more. Each generation of American children has learned less real history than the generation before it. Each generation of American children has instead been subject to greater levels of indoctrination in place of genuine education. The alarms have been sounded for decades, even a century, and nothing effective has been done.
So now we have riots and unfettered monument smashing. This is no accident. It is a logical consequence of convincing ourselves, against all evidence, that America's public education institutions are largely sound outside a few crazies who never happen to be in one's own school district, and even if they were, one's own children would of course be impervious. Not like their stupid dupes of classmates, who in just a few short years will go on to vote and tear down monuments to American abolitionists in the name of anti-racism.
This is what happens when conservatives spend 120 years complaining about the left controlling academia while the politicians conservatives vote for and cheerily profile in our publications keep increasing funding for these intellectual enemies of our country. Seventy years later, God and man are still objects of scorn at Yale, and so is our nation, but still we keep sending them our kids and money, hiring their graduates to teach our children and rule us, and funding their students.
The postwar convention of Minnesota niceness in politics has been a disaster. That's because cowardice ultimately is not nice. It leaves the innocent and the vulnerable defenseless. And, as with Stockholm Syndrome, some of the preyed upon ultimately turn predator themselves after identifying too strongly with their captors.
How many more statues and American minds have to get smashed before people who genuinely love their country gain the courage to start fighting effectively for her restoration before it's too late? Here's part of what that would look like: Civil authorities first stopping vandalism and pursuing the vandals to mete out their just, legally determined penalties; second, politicians who claim to love America fighting for her by refusing to send public funds to institutions that fail to prove their graduates honor the country that pays for their education. At this point, that's just about all of them.
It's time for a new, non-racist boycott, divest, sanction movement--for taxpayer-funded education. Liberate public funds from these institutions with a century-long record of failure. Return it to families. At least half of them will be delighted to choose pro-America schools. That's a lot more than pick proAmerica schools now. It would give this country a chance to strive toward its ideals once more rather than burn them in chaos.
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Here's a List of All the Monuments Liberals Want To Tear Down So Far
(By Bre Payton)
In the wake of the violence that took place in Charlottesville over last weekend, numerous activists and politicians have called for the destruction of more historical monuments, although a significant majority of Americans (62 percent) think the monuments should stay put. Only 27 percent of Americans think these statues should be removed for fear of offending some people. As usual, public opinion's not stopping liberals from pursuing an unpopular agenda.
Though by no means comprehensive, here's a list of the monuments that are facing calls for removal or have already been torn down.
1. The Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC
In a PBS interview, Al Sharpton called for the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC to be abandoned because the third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence was a slave owner.
2. Statues In The Capitol
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have both called for statues commemorating Confederates to be removed from the U.S. Capitol.
3. Mount Rushmore
Vice News's Wilbert L. Cooper called for Mount Rushmore to be destroyed because the U.S. presidents whose visages are carved into the mountainside are problematic by today's standards.
4. Monuments In Baltimore
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh had Civil War monuments removed from the city in the cover of night, without any public hearings or any public discussion process. Pugh told The New York Times that she used her emergency powers as mayor to take down statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from a public park--surprising even some members of the city council.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan also called for a statue memorializing Roger B. Taney, a Supreme Court justice who penned the infamous Dred Scott decision. which determined that anyone descended from a slave could not be an American citizen, be removed from the pedestal where it had been erected since 1887.
5. Stone Mountain
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams called for a frieze depicting Confederate soldiers to be removed from Stone Mountain in Georgia.
6. Albert Pike Statue In Washington DC
In Washington DC, a group of protestors gathered on Sunday to call for the statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate general, to be torn down.
7. Chicago Parks Named After Washington And Jackson
A Chicago pastor has asked the mayor to remove the names of two former presidents--George Washington and Andrew Jackson--from city parks because both men owned slaves.
8. Confederate Soldiers Monument In Durham, North Carolina
The Confederate Soldiers Monument was torn down by protesters from its spot in front of the old Durham County Courthouse on Monday. Four have been arrested in connection to this instance of vandalism. The Workers World Party released a statement claiming that it should be their right to tear the monuments down.
9. Monuments Throughout The State of North Carolina
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has called for additional monuments to be torn down and is asking the state legislature to repeal a 2015 law that prevents the destruction of Civil War monuments.
10. Monuments Throughout The State of Virginia
In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is asking state legislators and city officials to tear down monuments throughout the Old Dominion.
11. `Old Joe' Statue In Gainesville, Florida
In Gainesville, Florida, a statue of a Confederate soldier was removed Monday from outside a county administrative building.
12. Statues In Lexington, Kentucky
The City Council of Lexington, Kentucky voted unanimously on Tuesday to remove Confederate statues from the lawn in front of an old county courthouse. In response, a white nationalist group is reportedly planning a protest.
13. Statues In Louisville, Kentucky
On Monday, protesters gathered in favor of removing a statue of Civil War officer John B. Castleman from Louisville, Kentucky.
14. Statues In Nashville Tennessee, Including One On Private Property
In Nashville, Tennessee, protestors gathered to call for the removal of a monument depicting Nathan Bedford Forrest, a lieutenant in the Confederate army, from the state capitol on Monday. People have also called for a memorial of Forrest, which sits on private property, to be hidden from view of the nearby highway.
15. Two Statues Vandalized In Wilmington, North Carolina
``A white flag was hung on the gun of the statue and its head and feet were spray painted,'' WECT reports. ``Officers were called back to the scene and found a rope tied to the statue's neck. Upon examination, officers said they believe it was likely tied to a vehicle in an attempt to pull the statue over.'' Another statue was marked with graffiti.
16. A Cemetery Marker In Los Angeles
A statue that stood in the Confederate section of Hollywood Forever Cemetery for more than 90 years was toppled on Wednesday, Los Angeles Times reports. A plaque commemorating Jefferson Davis was also removed from a park this week.
Mr. BIGGS. Madam Speaker, I will say that as we go forward, if we continue to denigrate all police officers because of a few police officers, if we denigrate all of our society because of a few in our society, we will see this Nation, the ideals of individual freedom, erased from this Earth.
I used to do work at multilateral institutions and at the United Nations, and I will tell you this: This country, to me, is special and unique; imperfect, but the idea, the ideals, the people who have gone before us, how can we erase what they have done? Some made magnificent sacrifices that we might enjoy the freedoms we enjoy today, and yet they were wrong on other issues in their lives.
How can we erase our history? We must face our history squarely and openly and build upon that history to the great promise of the ideals of this Nation if we are going to persist as a Nation.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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