Issues of the Day

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, I do appreciate my friend, Congressman Al Green. We are friends. People have said: ``What do you have in common with Al Green?'' Well, actually, he is my brother. We are Christian brothers. He adds significantly to this body, and I am proud to be his brother.

Slavery does shock the conscience, and, I agree, it is really a crime against humanity. And it is still going on. It is happening across our southern border. It is horrendous what is happening to some of the people who are being sex trafficked.

We saw it in Nigeria after the 250-plus girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram from a Christian girls school and handcuffed to beds and, according to some of the stories from the girls who had escaped, repeatedly raped day after day. Just horrendous conditions.

I had been asked to fly over to meet with some of the parents of the girls who were kidnapped. We had to go out a few hours from the city to a safe house. We met with no fathers, all mothers. I asked the pastor who was there with them during a break in our meeting, ``Where are all the fathers?'' He said that is part of the tragedy. The fathers don't feel like they did their jobs as a father since their daughters were abducted and, they knew, were being made to perform acts, chained and handcuffed to beds, being raped every day repeatedly. The fathers didn't feel like they had done their job or that they deserved to have a home and a bed, so they went out into the bush. As I understood, later on, many of them had died out there.

It is tragic. It is a form of slavery. Horrendous. To think that is still going on, I was totally shocked.

I thought humanity had advanced so far, yet during the later years of the Obama administration, we learned that, in the world today, there are currently more slaves than ever in the history of the world, with over 40 million people in slavery while the United States is a superpower.

I know the people in Nigeria told me they had word from the Obama administration that if Nigeria would legalize same-sex marriage and would legalize and provide abortions, then the United States would help Nigeria defeat Boko Haram. But as a very scrupulous, caring Catholic bishop in Nigeria said, our Christian beliefs are not for sale to the United States, to President Obama, or to John Kerry. We are not selling our Christian beliefs.

That seemed pretty tragic, too, that we would basically try to compel people to go against their Biblical beliefs so that they could get help removing children from sex slavery.

I was surprised many years ago to find out that as a history major--I was with the Army 4 years, so I was going to be going there. I loved math; I was good at it. Biology was very interesting. Not as interesting to me was botany. I loved history, and I majored in it. It turned out that when the horrendous mistake, crime against humanity, whatever you want to call it, it was horrendous, that first ship brought slaves to America, it turns out they weren't the first slaves to North America.

There were numerous cases of Indian tribes that would war with another tribe. They would kill many of the braves, the males, and often take women and children as slaves. That is something for which mankind should not be proud at all. There are even references in the Bible to people selling children to pay off their debts. It is just tragic.

Hopefully, in the days ahead, we can do more to alleviate this crime against humanity that has grown substantially in the world today.

I saw this article from The Washington Times: ``DHS released unvaccinated Afghans while threatening to fire unvaccinated Border Patrol agents.'' That seems grossly unfair to American law enforcement, kind of a war against law enforcement. We are going to force you, even though we know that the vaccinations don't actually prevent the spread of COVID.

That is science now. That should be clear. Even Fauci and President Biden have admitted that what they thought was originally true was not. It doesn't prevent people from getting COVID. We are told, ``Oh, it keeps it from being as serious,'' unless you happen to get myocarditis or one of the other terrible side effects that have been found to occur.

Then we got Secretary Mayorkas maintaining the border is secure. While he is saying the border is secure, we have had millions of people come across illegally just since President Biden has been in office.

Then a big headline recently has been the big Democrat donor Sam Bankman-Fried, SBF some call him, the founder of FTX, the second largest contributor to the Democrat-affiliated political action committees. The company he founded dealing in cryptocurrency, FTX, has gone bankrupt, and he has gone out of business. We have a letter that was prepared by one of our Republican colleagues to Secretary Blinken.

It points out: ``It has come to our attention that millions of taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine to assist with their war efforts were potentially invested in a crypto exchange that then made massive donations to Democrats in the United States during the 2022 midterm elections.

``In March 2022, the Ukrainian Government officially--and for the first time--partnered with crypto exchange FTX Trading Limited to launch a crypto donations website, `Aid for Ukraine' ''--it was called--``within days of President Joe Biden pledging billions of American taxpayer dollars to assist the country with war efforts against the Russian invasion.''

It goes on to say: `` . . . the Ukrainian Government also invested portions of the $54 billion of U.S. economic assistance into FTX to keep Democrats in power.''

Madam Speaker, this is just incredibly outrageous.

So their answer is being demanded, and Secretary Blinken will need to respond. I feel sure that he will be called as a witness shortly after the first of the year.

I hate to think that with all the suffering going on in Ukraine that some of that money intended to help them ended up helping FTX before it went broke, and, obviously, some of his money went to the Democrat campaigns. So we will see what is going on there.

I have made a dear friend since I have been in Congress, and he has been co-chair of the Thursday Morning Prayer Breakfast. He is a friend, and he is a fine person.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Suozzi).

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Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend, and my apologies if calling the gentleman my friend gets him in trouble.

There is an article in The Epoch Times by Joseph Hanneman titled: ``Judge's Latest Refusal to Grant Bail Looms Large for January 6 Defendant Maced Twice by D.C. Jail Guard.''

Having been a felony judge in Texas handling how many thousands of felony cases, nobody gets more incensed than I do when judges abuse their position. I recall having a bailiff. I found out that during recesses he was trash-mouthing, talking terrible to people who I was sentencing. When I found out, I called him in and said, look, I am sentencing these people to prison. We are supposed to show the example of civility. When you trash-talk somebody when they come into court, it builds up hatred and anger. They seethe during the time they are in prison, and it makes them more likely to come back and recidivate. There is no reason to do that. We are going to treat them civilly and fairly and make sure they are not abused verbally and physically.

Yet, I see Federal judges who seem to have the attitude of gee, I am confirmed for life, so once I am confirmed, I will do as I please and as I think I can get away with on appeal. It is outrageous.

So I am encouraging my friends on the Judiciary Committee that there is such abuse by Federal judges, there is such abuse by the Department of Justice, and by the FBI adopting gestapo tactics.

They didn't used to act like that. I heard so many FBI just tell me, you remember how it was in the eighties and nineties? We didn't go break down doors of people we knew would show up voluntarily if we just told them when and where. We didn't do it in the middle of the night to scare families and drag them out in their underwear and alert the news media so they would be there to humiliate them. Yet, it has been going on.

People say January 6 and think that justifies the worst criminality by the Department of Justice and even Federal judges. Because I do believe it is a breach of a Federal judge's oath when they ignore due process requirements and they take the position, I am not going to do anything about somebody that is being abused in jail until I am told to by an appellate court.

So I am hoping that the Judiciary Committee will even be subpoenaing judges to find out--not belabor specific cases--but to find out what their judicial philosophy is that allows them to avoid due process and to allow prisoners to be punished in pretrial confinement against the constitutional rights they have, and what allows and provokes a Federal judge to act like a dictator in their courtroom?

Here are some examples: I would not know U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan if he was here in the room, but I have read and heard firsthand from people who have had to deal with some of the injustice of him.

And I know the Federal judge that refused to recuse himself so he could sentence Dr. Simone Gold, even though he dated her, and she wouldn't date him anymore, so he looked forward to abusing his position to sentence her as the first woman with no criminal record and only guilty of a misdemeanor trespass. He got to sentence the girl that quit going out with him--the woman, the brilliant lawyer and MD--to a maximum security facility down in Miami.

He needs to come in and answer about recusal and who he thinks he is, above the law. It is in the law that a judge must recuse himself or herself if there is even an indication there might be some impartiality there.

We have got a lot of cleaning up in the Federal system to do, and I am glad that Republicans will be able to do that.

The article points out:

``Despite audio and video evidence showing former Tennessee sheriff's deputy Ronald Colton McAbee did not assault a police officer on the Capitol steps on January 6 as alleged by prosecutors, a Federal judge again refused the defendant's motion to be released from the District of Columbia jail pending trial.

``The issue took on added urgency on September 5 when McAbee, 28, was twice assaulted with chemical spray by a guard in the District of Columbia jail for not wearing a COVID mask, his wife Sarah told The Epoch Times.

`` `This is just inhuman,' Sarah McAbee said. `It doesn't even matter what your political beliefs are. You should never treat somebody that way. Are we living in the same universe?' she asked. `This is not the America I once knew.'

``McAbee is charged by Federal prosecutors with seven January 6- related crimes: assaulting, resisting, or impeding a Federal officer; two counts of civil disorder; entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon; engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.''

That sounds horrible. But then when you find out that actually--if you listen to the audio as you watch the video, Madam Speaker--you find out he was helping a Capitol policeman who was down. Yet, this judge has the audacity to say, we are not listening to the audio, so he could hear that evidence.

Why wouldn't you listen to the evidence as well as watch a video that gives a false impression?

Why?

Then to chastise this guy and punish him even more because he was law enforcement, he should have known better than to assault a police officer, but he wasn't.

The judge doesn't want the facts to get in the way. He is too busy being a tyrant and punishing January 6 defendants while they are in pretrial and punishing them with pretrial.

People need to answer for the tyranny of our justice system as it has become.

I have no problem--and I didn't as a judge--punishing people who deserve the punishment. There were people on January 6 who deserved to be punished. But it sounds like that corruption continues to grow in the Department of Justice, the FBI, and even in our judicial courts, Federal courts.

It is tragic. He had been pepper sprayed in the jail twice and was not allowed to clean it all off. It was a threat to his health.

By the way, this request for bail sat in front of the judge 117 days. In our State courts, we make sure somebody has a hearing--we used to, I am sure they still do--within 48 hours. If they had other evidence to bring in, then we would set a hearing and have that.

But this judge had this matter sitting in front of him for 117 days while the prisoner was being abused in the D.C. jail where there was a deputy warden that had tweeted out, F the supporters of Trump.

Well, she made sure what she tweeted was what was being done at the jail.

Judge Sullivan took 69 days after the hearing to issue a ruling on whether somebody should stay in jail or not. What kind of judge is that? And then he dismissed the new video and audio evidence, calling them ambiguities the Court could not resolve.

Well, apparently the only reason he had a hearing in the first place was because the U.S. Court of Appeals was going to require it if he didn't do it. So he did it, begrudgingly.

This matter had gone before a U.S. magistrate in the Middle District of Tennessee, he heard the evidence and saw the evidence and he ordered McAbee to be released to home detention pending trial after hearings were had in August and early September of 2021.

That judge said, ``I do not believe that Mr. McAbee poses a future danger to the community if he were to be released between now and the time that he resolves this case. And the government, despite my request that they provide me any evidence that he's presented any sort of a danger to the community, have been able to point to absolutely nothing beyond the events around and during January 6.''

Well, prosecutors knew they had to get that matter away from the judge in Tennessee where there was more evidence of who McAbee really was to the core. So they got it up here to Judge Sullivan, who immediately rescinded that order and kept him in jail as punishment, despite the requirement to the contrary by the U.S. Constitution.

It really is outrageous. If a judge were deciding whether Judge Sullivan breached his sworn oath, that judge could say exactly what Judge Sullivan said to McAbee. Judge Sullivan said, ``Someone tasked with enforcing the law has shirked that responsibility, and that is why they are dangerous.''

Well, it sounds kind of like that is where Judge Sullivan is. He has shirked his responsibility to the law and the Constitution, and that is why he is a dangerous judge. I hope they will have hearings and get to the bottom of what his problems are with following the Constitution.

Last summer, there were a number of times, I met Pastor Tommy Nelson of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas. I listened, years ago, to hours and hours of Bible study he did. I am very impressed with him, and I love the fact that he loves history so much. He uses that as he speaks.

I heard him online doing sermons to his church, and he would kid and say: I am going to include that when I get to speak to Congress some day. I talked to Tommy, and I said: Look, you know, you are not going to be able to come in and talk to Congress as Tommy Nelson, but I can pass on your messages, we quote people all the time. Put together what you think would be good to have Congress hear and I will deliver that.

Tommy provided me this information. ``His father was born in 1914''-- and these are Tommy's words. ``If you had asked my father if one should steal, kill, cheat on his taxes, commit adultery, or lie, he would have said `Absolutely not'. If you had asked him, `Why not?', he would have said, `Because it is wrong'. If you responded, `Says who?', he would have said, `God'. If you said, `Where does God say it is wrong?', he would have said, `The Bible'. If you asked for an explanation, `How do you know it is true?', he could not have given much of a defense of Biblical authority. But his world view, like most of his generation was of a Western or Judeo-Christian world view. He connected all the dots of diversity within the unity of an infinite personal God who had spoken truly to all mankind through His word, the Bible, and had intersected man through the Bible's chief idea, the incarnation of God in His son, Jesus Christ.''

The God we speak of, actually, I am glad to say, is the one mentioned right up there: In God we Trust; because we used to.

Tommy said: ``If you had said to any of that greatest generation, `Truth is something relative to what you want it to be'. Or `There is no final truth', not only would there be wonderment at you, but anger. They would have seen you as a threat to their day.

``Wisdom to that generation and every generation of Americans before them was to know the truth and to follow the will of God as truth was not simply the way that was true but the way that was best. Truth that carried them through the hardest century of our history.

``Now? That former view is seen as antiquated, as though greater minds have progressed beyond that. That former view is now seen as that which holds back the growth of society.

``But the belief in `oughtness', in moral truth, is the marvelous byproduct of belief in the true God.

``It was Plato who said, `In life we must seek the best opinions of men and hold to them as to a boat in a storm unless we have a more certain word of God.' The idea of God, the Bible, Christ the Redeemer is the highest dream of the hopes of man. We can know what must be known to truly be mankind. Morality, marriage, the home, the dignity of man, the meaning of love, right and wrong, all are revealed on that which was the foundation of our civilization, Bible.

``It brought a world view which was light and salt to our culture and our country. It brought law and order and dignity. It served as a point of integration to which all answered. Our only problem was our refusal to live in keeping with it.

``But our day has cut off the limb upon which we were sitting in our rejection of God, banning school prayer, permitting the murder of children in the womb, and abolishing traditional marriage.

``Modernism is the belief that God can be rejected and yet be replaced by the reasoning and science of man. Post-modernism is the recognition that modernism will not work. Because post-modernism states that there is no such thing as absolute truth and with God refused, society as we have known it `dis-integrates'. The earthquake beneath our feet began in the country's shift in the 1960s. The tsunamis followed and with each year more and more devastating. We are now worse than in the jungle. The jungle has natural law which governs it. But the law that governs man is God. Man as in God's image chooses. He can be angelic or demonic based on those choices. Without God and His word to guide man his fallen nature is unleashed. And unlike nature, man has become more and more immoral, violent, ignorant, and cruel. And that is the horror that is sweeping our country day by day. And as it has laid waste to Europe, it is about to eliminate the greatest culture in the history of man, the Western culture, the Judeo-Christian world view that sees all of life through the perspective of the God of the Bible which we, the leaders of the United States as a body have renounced.

``Washington's last words to us were to beware of following the path of Europe. A path that began in the exaltation of reason and science in the Enlightenment. We have not heeded his words, and now Europe's inhumanities of the 20th century have become ours.

``I need not spend much time on the violence, contempt of authority, breakdown of the home, violence in our cities, decay of our educational system, the division of our leaders and citizens, pornography, STDs, 65 million dead through abortion, gender confusion, illegal immigration, drug addiction, opioids, loss of constitutional freedoms, the homeless, the increase of mental illnesses, pedophilia, gun control, racial tensions. Not to speak of the economy and COVID.

``And yet in all this plethora of dysfunction, the terms `God, righteousness, sin, repentance, Jesus Christ, the Bible, and salvation' are forbidden terms. We cry over `what ain't right' and yet offer nothing but Band-Aids and tourniquets.

``Man must be changed. His heart must be changed at the deepest level. He must have a new birth. He must be born again as a child of God. He must as Nineveh in the days of Jonah, repent and heed the warning of God that destruction awaits.

``Our country and its leaders must `humble themselves and pray and turn from their wicked ways that God may hear our prayer, forgive our sins, and heal our land.

``We must be reconciled to Him who is our life and being. It starts with us, the God-ordained leaders.

``Sadly, repentance cannot be legislated.

``It begins in revival. It begins in the yearning of individuals who have cast off the blinders of modern man and face the truth that their can be no truth, right, love, or life without the unique personal God of the Bible.''

Tommy Nelson referenced a quote from Alexis de Tocqueville. I want to provide some, with thanks to William Federer's research and publication, there is much to be learned from Alexis de Tocqueville.

He was born July 29, 1805. He was a French social scientist, he traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work ``Democracy in America,'' 1835, and then the second in 1840, which has been described as ``the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has every been written''.

In it, de Tocqueville said: ``Upon my arrival in the United States, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention; and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

``In France, I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America, I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country . . . ''

He also said: ``They brought with them . . . a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion . . . ''

``From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved.''

That was Alexis de Tocqueville's note back in the 1800s. He said: ``Religion in America . . . must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it . . . This opinion is not peculiar to a class of citizens or party, but it belongs to the whole Nation.''

De Tocqueville says: ``The sects that exists in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship that is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God . . .

``Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same.''

De Tocqueville also said: ``In the United States the sovereign authority is religious . . . there is no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence than in America . . . ''

Inserting parenthetically, that drove and led to the Civil War. There were so many people that were going, wait a minute; we can't treat brothers and sisters with chains and bondage. Yes, I understand some fought for States' rights. But let's face it, it was about slavery for most.

De Tocqueville said: ``In the United States the influence of religion is not confined to the manners, but it extends to the intelligence of the people . . . Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent . . . ''

He is talking about America. He said: ``The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.''

In Book Two of his Democracy in America, de Tocqueville wrote: ``Christianity has therefore retained a stronghold on the public mind in America . . . in the United States . . . Christianity itself is a fact so irresistibly established, that no one undertakes either to attack or to defend it.''

Wow, things have changed.

Tommy Nelson points out: ``Remember the words of the atheist, John Paul Sartre, without an infinite reference point by which all things are judged, all singular points are meaningless. Without God, all of life disintegrates.

``It has always amused me that in 1789 two historical events occurred simultaneously. The American Constitution in Philadelphia and the French Revolution in Paris, both representing opposite world views. The American Constitution though not uniquely Christian reflected the historic Christian world view of `nature's God' and the `inalienable right' of life and liberty. It gave birth to a culture that France honored in their sending us the Statue of Liberty because our country was successful. Not because of our revolution but because of our Constitution. Revolutions are relatively easy. They are simply tearing down. What is difficult is rebuilding. The French had their revolution, but their replacement was not a document that reflected the Bible. It was a culture that reflected French enlightenment; atheism that replaced God with nature, science, and unaided reason. With no divine standard it collapsed into a socialistic bloodbath that prompted a new term, `guillotine.' All of Europe would follow and by 1848, the year of revolution, all European monarchies were gone.

But in France without the God of truth their replacement failed only to be conquered by a dictator to bring order, Napoleon, who plunged Europe into darkness.''

And let me add, I agree with historians that have said the major difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution was the American Revolution, like Tommy Nelson points out, it was about liberty that stemmed from biblical belief, whereas the French Revolution was about revenge. And we see how that worked out.

``The same would happen in Russia who exchanged the church for the communism of Marx and Lenin and, finally, the horror of Stalin.''

Tens of millions killed.

``Germany had Hitler; China had Mao; and Cuba had Castro.

``But as a Russian pastor has said: `Russia is a nation of darkness looking for the light. America is a country of the light searching for the darkness.' Our search has sadly been successful.

``The Christian philosopher and author Francis Schaeffer said: `Where there is no absolute to govern society, society is absolute.' There is nothing magic about democracy or `government of the people, by the people, and for the people'. It assumes that the majority of the voting public has the wisdom and character to place worthy men and women in places of authority. Should that society over time abandon their historic world view and adopt a modern one where truth is shaped by individual opinions . . . or should that society reject God and enthrone man, then absolute divine law will erode with each generation until the tyranny of the majority removes the freedoms enjoyed by the past. And considering the influence of modern media the majority will be controlled by the few. And the America of history will be just that . . . past history.

``To abandon God is to disintegrate.

``Imagine, if you will, a great metal machine operated by a man. The parts are sharp and pointed, moving with great speed and perfect synchronization. Anything that would get caught in the machine would be ground into nothingness within seconds. As long as the man operating the machine is careful to stay outside of the machine, he is safe. But should he catch a shirt sleeve in the gears, he will soon disintegrate. Such is man and the universe. As he stands unique in God's image outside of nature, man can observe the machine, use it and marvel at it. But should he become part of the impersonal, he is ground into mulch. Such is man and nature. Though part of the creation, man stands infinitely distinct from it as in the image of God. As distinct from the impersonal machine, man maintains his glory but to be merely part of nature, all of the glory of man, mind, reason, conscience, soul, and will, merely become biological phenomena. The loftiness and magic of `man' is lost in the machine of nature.

``King David wrote, `When I consider the heavens and the works of Thy hands what is man that Thou art mindful of him? Yet Thou has made him for a little while lower than the angels. Thou dost crown him with glory and majesty and Thou dost appoint him over the works of Thy hands.' And these are the `hands' that America has rejected.

``Man without God is a cosmic orphan with no one who gives him meaning, care, or hope of redemption or life after death. There is no way, truth, or life without God.

John 3:16 evaporates in that circumstance. ``For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.''

``Man may `act' atheistic, wise and secular, but he cannot `react' as an atheist. As soon as he is sinned against and done unjustly, he becomes a Puritan longing for an injustice to receive absolute retribution. Without God the only thing man can feel guilty about is guilt. Guilt assumes transgression, and transgression assumes law that assumes God. Without God there can be no final law, guilt, or true government. No civility to build a civilization. No `cult' or religious rules to build `culture'.

``We cannot legislate a return to truth. One hundred and fifty years of governmental, academic, artistic, scientific, philosophic, moral, domestic, medical, education, and judicial denial cannot be naturally fixed. We are beyond hope for a return. We are too stubborn, and too proud, and too self-centered, and too indulged.

``Our only hope is the divine reprieve of Nineveh in the day of Jonah. A prophet who rose from the dead promised life or destruction in 40 days upon their response to his prophecy of destruction. From the king to the people and even to the animals, a fast was called for and all wore sackcloth. The disaster was averted, and so it is now. Prophets who rise from the dead after 3 days and nights are not to be disregarded.

``If indeed man, has judged rightly for 20 centuries that there is an infinite and personal God who has revealed Himself in the Bible, the foundation of history's greatest culture, who raised His son from the dead to offer man repentance and salvation, and if he is indeed a God of wrath upon those countries who hold Him in contempt . . . then our country revels today in the shadow of Vesuvius.

``Jeremiah 48:42, `Moab will be destroyed from being a people because he has magnified himself against the Lord'.

``Icarus may fly high with his wings of wax, but should Hubris carry him too high, his wings will melt, his feathers fly to the wind, and he shall come to a violent end.

May those who have ears to hear, take heed, repent and reform accordingly.''

Tommy Nelson has profound truth that he has provided, but that is because it comes from truth beyond him, which he readily acknowledges.

Dostoevsky was quoted by Solzhenitsyn. I had not seen the quote before Solzhenitsyn used it in The Gulag Archipelago. Dostoevsky was taking on the crazy ideas of this nut named Marx, a sad man, sad family, who couldn't even foresee the formation of unions.

Dostoevsky said that the big problem with Marxism is not economic. Obviously, that is a problem. They always go broke eventually. The problem with Marxism is atheism.

I hear some of my colleagues talk about how wonderful progressivism is. That is the new term for Marxism; how great it will be when everybody shares and shares alike.

But as Khrushchev found when he set up a commission to come up with a plan of how you move to true communism, where there is no government, everybody shares and shares alike, he ended up disbanding the commission because there is no way to ever get to a place; until the Messiah comes, it won't happen because you have got to have a totalitarian government that takes away everybody's rights and tells them what they will be allowed to do and not do, and that government becomes the God. That is what Dostoevsky was saying.

So, I won't be back next year. I will be back in 2 weeks and the week after that.

Madam Speaker, I continue to have hope that springs eternal in the human breast that we won't lose the greatest freedom, the greatest country, the greatest gift of a country any people has ever received, that it will not be our generation that sees it lost.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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