Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman for his commitment in being down here on the floor. We have this Special Order reserved tonight to talk about an issue that I think is fundamentally important to what we are seeing now today. And that is what I describe as the ideological cleansing of America, the silencing of dissent--cancel culture in common parlance today. It is a sickness that lies among us. It threatens to tear apart our Republic at the seams. It undermines our economic strength, our families, our schools, our churches, our culture at all levels, and even our military strength. That sickness is indeed the ideological cleansing of America.

We have witnessed in America in just a matter of months the shaming of Americans questioning COVID. They are not questioning its existence. They are questioning our response. They are questioning the fact that we have got people who are committing suicide, who are stuck, unable to see loved ones, or can't get cancer screenings. They are questioning why hydroxychloroquine is one day okay and one day not okay, and then suddenly okay again. They are inquiring about the efficacy of masks.

Do they work or not work?

How well do they work?

Where should we wear them?

They question the removal of Americans from social media, the coordinated effort of technology companies to block companies or threaten to pull down news media outlets.

We see examples of cancel culture in society are all around us.

Ryan Anderson is a good friend of mine. His book is behind me, titled ``When Harry Became Sally,'' responding to the transgender moment. It is an important work on civil rights and transgender policy. Well, it was deplatformed by Amazon and Apple without explanation this week. It has been on for 3 years. It is a good book, whether you agree with it or don't agree with it.

Are we really into book burning?

Is that where we are?

Is that what we have become as a country that supposedly values freedom and the free exchange of ideas?

A book written by a good man, a PhD, on a topic that matters, ``When Harry Became Sally.''

Am I going to get canceled?

Is C-SPAN going to cancel this?

Is Speaker Pelosi going to cancel this because this is somehow offensive?

It is a book with ideas researched and offered. That is where we are as a country.

Gina Carano was recently canceled by Disney for tweeting a comparison of Nazi Germany rounding up Jews for the current hate doxing and targeting of fellow Americans for political views.

Now, should she make that comparison?

I don't know. But we are a free country where people are supposed to have the free exchange of ideas. And if there is anything that should bind us together, it should be a unanimous belief that standing up against tyranny and standing up against this kind of cleansing is something that this body--all 435 of us--should agree to. We see it from college campuses to religious schools, to small businesses, to corporate boardrooms.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to have more to say on this. I have some of my colleagues here who want to join. So I am going to yield first to my good friend from Texas, Michael Cloud.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say to my friend from Texas that I know he has a heart for immigrants who come to the United States of America. We both live in Texas. We both deal with an open border and we deal with the issue of immigration on a regular basis.

Too often when you talk about cancel culture, if I dare to say that we should have a secure border in the United States of America and that I believe that is pro-immigrant, that that undermines the power of cartels, that makes it less likely that immigrants are abused, also protects us, protects us from the dangers of fentanyl. That is the kind of canceling that we see every single day.

Oh, you want a secure border?

You hate Brown people.

It is as if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have some sort of monopoly on being able to say things about Brown people, and here I am trying to protect our border for the betterment of the United States and the immigrants who seek to come here, and somehow I am a bigot. The very structures put in place by the Obama-Biden administration are called cages for kids.

And now what has happened?

The Biden administration is having an uh-oh moment because their absurd policies of open borders are attracting people to come across our border. Now they are saying: Oh, no, what do we do with unaccompanied children?

Well, who the heck could have seen this coming?

Yet somehow we are canceled for believing in a secure border.

The gentleman from south Texas, who I know has a heart for immigrants--

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Mr. ROY. And has a family who does as well, does the gentleman have thoughts on that?

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman. If you take that view, you are labeled a bigot. If you take the view that we want a secure border, you are labeled as someone who wants to keep people out of this country.

If you dare to say what you just said, which is that maybe we should think through how to make sure that Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are strong so that--by the way, the first lady of Guatemala was visiting and said something along the lines of: All of these caravans and all of the cartels are driving a lot of our people out of our country, and it is hurting our country.

I am told from the other side of the aisle that it is compassionate to have open borders, and then we are labeled as bigots.

I know the gentleman has somewhere to go. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks and passion for this issue. May God bless the gentleman.

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Mr. ROY. Well, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Colorado. I will tell you, you know, as I was thinking through the times we are in right now, the Book of Acts is my favorite book in the Bible.

And when you--you know, I look at the arrows that some are taking today for standing up for their beliefs and some of the things that are happening today; and then you remember that we are not in the middle of a circle yet, getting stoned.

You remember what those men did and what they faced in the early church, and it inspires us to know, to have the strength that we need to have. And this is true of all faiths. This is true of all Americans. It is instructive to stand up in faith when you believe something in your soul and in your heart.

And we, as Americans, when Patrick Henry gave his famous speech at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia, in that famous speech, ``Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death,'' that is the founding building block of this Nation.

And it is that liberty, that liberty expressed in the First Amendment of the Constitution, which is under assault today on a bill voted on the floor of this body today in the so-called Equality Act, with a direct assault on the First Amendment of the United States, a direct assault on religious liberty, a direct assault, basically. It is the tyranny over the mind of man.

I am inspired by the Book of Acts, and I assume that the gentlewoman from Colorado agrees.

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Mr. ROY. I appreciate the gentlewoman from Colorado, and I appreciate our joint commitment to the Lord Almighty and liberty in this country.

And I would just say before I yield, I think, to the gentleman from Georgia next, a couple of thoughts.

You know, we are talking today about cancel culture. We are talking about the silencing of dissent, the cleansing of ideology in the public square in America. It is truly an ideological cleansing, but it is always not direct.

I alluded to it when I was talking to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Cloud) about immigration; that if we dare stand up for secure borders, we are a bigot. It happens all the time. You hate Brown people. You are a bigot.

Today, I stood up against the Equality Act. The first thing out of the indivisible crowd in Austin and San Antonio, you're a bigot. You're transphobic.

Dare stand up for what you believe. Oh, my gosh. The gentleman from Texas says that there is a man and woman. Bigot. All right?

I mean, this is where we are today. And you know, look, if you want your child to actually be educated in a school, then despite the science, you don't care about public health and you want teachers to die. Right?

All last year, running against an opponent in Austin, it was, oh, you want people to die. You don't care about the science.

If you want to keep your business open to keep your livelihood going, you just want to survive. You are a barber in Dallas, Texas, and you just want to stay working to pay for your kids and your family, put bread on the table.

Well, you are just greedy, and you hate science.

If you think Dr. Fauci is inconsistent--I mean, I am just going to be nice and say inconsistent--if you think Dr. Fauci is inconsistent, sometimes making stuff up, maybe to be on the front cover of a magazine, and maybe we ought to hear from 20 scientists instead of one, well, suddenly, you hate science.

If you say that COVID has been politicized, as I did last year, or question any aspect of it, not that it exists, not that people are getting sick--I have had it--not that you want to protect your family-- I canceled Thanksgiving because my dad is 78 and had polio--but if you question any of it, you are calling it a hoax.

If you want to go to church, you are reckless.

If you believe men are men and women are women, you are a bigot.

If you think it is wrong to let biological boys compete against your daughter in a sports competition, or you don't want your daughter to have to share a locker room with a male, you are a bigot.

I mean, when are we going to sit down, roll our sleeves up and actually do the work of the American people, instead of sitting here firing shots across everybody and saying, well, you are a bigot.

I yield to my good friend from Georgia, Mr. Hice.

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Mr. ROY. Yeah. There is no question. In my view, what we are seeing today is the assertion of power over the mind of America, right? And it is just happening as we see it.

We have got a fence with razor wire around the Capitol. We were all horrified, sitting right here, all of us here in the body who were here on January 6. We all want to protect each other.

But we also have a duty to lead. We also have a duty to have a Capitol that is open; to figure out a way to secure the body without sending signals to the world that somehow this is a military state.

You walk around the Capitol and there are people in camouflage. There is a fence. I can't even walk around D.C. We are harming business. We are telling the American people that, nope, sorry, you can't come here, all in the name of a virus or then what happened on January 6.

That is all about power. That is all about message. Okay?

I do not believe for a minute, with all due respect, that that is about actual security of this building and this complex. That is about projecting a message to the American people. That is what the magnetometers are for. That is not to keep us safe. It is not.

It is not the highest and best use of the Capitol Police to be having 20 people around this floor every day; literally having Members of Congress duly elected by the people to have to go through magnetometers. You have got to go through security to get in the building. It is all a show. And that is all a projection of power. And that is what the Equality Act was today.

And the last thing I will say is my point about immigration earlier. That whole point is: It makes no sense to be yelling about kids in cages, when any rational human being knows you are trying to figure out what to do with this child, a child that could be being abused by this guy who claims to be his or her uncle, and you are trying to keep him or her safe. You can't just let him go. You have got to do something with them.

I mean, I am sorry we don't have four-star resorts up and down the Rio Grande to put these children into, but go down and work at Border Patrol--who, by the way, are majority Hispanic--dealing with immigrants coming here through policies that attract them.

That is all about power. Kids in cages. Republicans are evil. Republicans are bigots. They hate Brown people. It is all about power.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would ask how much time we have left in our Special Order. Sorry for surprising the Chair.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Georgia that I could not agree more, and I have spoken a little bit about the Equality Act. The only thing I would add to it--and I said this earlier on the floor about the Equality Act--my wife and I, products of public school, K through law school, undergrad, law school, we currently send our kids to a private Christian school, not an easy thing for us to afford. We are fine, we are blessed, but it is a lot of work to make that happen. Why do we do that? It is because, unfortunately, increasingly those with beliefs and values that they want to be able to have their children experience, we are being forced into the corner.

We are being forced to kind of be shoved back away from mainstream society. I mean, forget just saying Merry Christmas. I mean, it is just hostile to our values, hostile to our beliefs, teaching our children something different than that there is one man and one woman. These are the things that are happening every day across America.

To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I would say whatever frustrations you have about the previous President, just understand this: President Trump represents a large number of men and women across this country who are feeling exactly what we are saying right here. They are frustrated and angry about what is happening to their country. They are scared. They believe the power of government will be used against them, and in many cases, we have seen evidence of it.

The point of this is not to just rant about it. It is that we should be having a debate and a dialogue, and we need to come together as a Congress and do our job to do what is right for the people of this country. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia very much.

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Mr. ROY. Yes. One of the things that you made me think of is how much cancel culture is now getting rooted in government and, in fact, the institution in which we are currently standing. The gentlewoman is well aware that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle stripped you of your ability to serve and sit on committees, in an unprecedented action, for things that you said before the election, that you have addressed on the floor of this House. That is canceling.

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Mr. ROY. We are in a situation right now where this body is now refusing to work. Democrats are refusing to work with Republicans. They are threatening to hold up and block their legislation because they dared to object to the electors, a proposition, by the way, that I disagreed with, on my side of the aisle. I spoke right there. I stated my disagreement with my Republican colleagues.

But it is perfectly normal speech and debate under the Constitution and the laws, under an act passed in 1887, one that my Democrat colleagues have engaged in themselves: Ms. Waters from California, for sure, Mr. Raskin from Maryland, others who have objected.

Now, Democrats in this body want to cancel my Republican colleagues. That is how bad it has gotten. Cancel culture is now in this body.

I have a couple more colleagues here, Mrs. Greene, but do you have a closing thought?

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Mr. ROY. I am going to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I would ask the Speaker how much time we have remaining.

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Mr. ROY. I thank the Speaker. Right before I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, I want to appreciate his service, his service to the country, both in the military and now in Congress. I know he has a passion for this issue.

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Mr. ROY. Will the gentleman yield?

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Mr. ROY. I also have a quote here I was going to close with from Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn because it is so on point. I am going to go ahead and do it now rather than closing with it because you just went there.

He said this in another part of that book:

What was drummed in our ears as political courses, we have now internalized. Live comfortably and all will be well ever after. We lie to ourselves to preserve our peace of mind. It is not they who should be blamed, but ourselves. One can object but cannot imagine what to do. Gags have been stuffed into our mouths. Nobody wants to listen to us, and nobody asks our opinion. How can we force them to listen to us? It is impossible to change their minds. Some will lose their jobs, but there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be honest.

Now, that may sound like a diatribe from a conservative talk radio host today, but it wasn't. It was him.

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I know that is true and I know your heart for service, and I know wearing the uniform of the military of the United States meant a lot to you and that your service here means a lot.

Mr. Speaker, as I get ready to yield to my friend from West Virginia, I would add that my colleagues across the other side of the aisle are effectively canceling Congress. I mean, it is pretty extraordinary when the members of a body essentially act to cancel its own institution.

Proxy voting. Half of my Democratic colleagues are never here. About half of the time I look over there and you look at the number of people there, and they are voting from home. By the way, the rules suggest that is supposed to be directly tied to the pandemic. But do you know how many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle--and maybe increasingly a few on my side of the aisle--have been here voting and then submit the proxy form and then fly home?

It happens.

We are turning this institution on its head. We have remote hearings that are halfway functional, where you sit there for an hour trying to hear each other. We have no regular schedule. It is come and go. It takes hours to vote. We have no regular order. We have massive bills. We have things being done in smoke-filled rooms. We never get to amend. We never get to debate. We never get to actually have an actual discussion on the floor of the House. And we have fence and razor wire around the Capitol.

Tell me how Democrats are not canceling Congress. You might as well just say Speaker Pelosi can just pass a bill by herself.

I know my friend from West Virginia is going to talk a little bit about spending, and the only thing that I will add to my point here about order is that we are going to be passing a $2 trillion monstrosity of a bill in the next week with no actual debate or amendment on the floor of this body; no real review by the members of this body. That is an absolute travesty.

Sanctity of Human Life and the Unborn

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, may I ask how much time I have remaining?
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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from West Virginia for his remarks. And I would echo that--and I think the gentleman would agree--that I believe that, of the $2 trillion, only 9 percent is directed to COVID relief.

And I really just can't believe that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle can really market this as a COVID relief bill when, by the way, we have $1 trillion remaining from the $4 trillion last year and only 9 percent of it is directed to COVID.

Does the gentleman agree?

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the gentleman from West Virginia, and I appreciate his comments.

I have 1 minute left and I will simply just say this: This chart showing debt is not just about the big number. It is not just about the $30 trillion of debt. This is about tyranny.

That money, that debt that we owe to our kids and grandkids is being used to fund an education system that teaches our kids that America is evil.

It is being used to fund an education system that won't even put teachers back to work.

It is being used to fund a DHS that won't secure the border and is turning it into a catch-and-release agency.

It is being used to fund the very institutions that are coming after our precious Bill of Rights.

And I would just say to the Speaker and my friends on the other side of the aisle: It is time that we come together and protect the rights given to us by our Creator, that are reflected and defended in the Constitution of the United States.

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