America is A Great Nation

Floor Speech

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, we are here as lovers of liberty, as patriots, as people concerned about the future of our country, just citizen legislators, people who have children and grandchildren and who want our posterity to inherit the blessings of liberty and all of the opportunities this great Nation has afforded not only myself and my colleagues, but all Americans.

America is a great nation, and God has truly blessed America. America has been a blessing to the world, and as President Trump has said, we must keep America great.

It is not just what that statement means to our citizens and to our children and the next generation of Americans; it is what America means and what this great experiment at liberty and democracy means for the entire world.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to talk about the substance of that greatness, the true substance of it.

I would suggest that what makes America great is the American people and the values, the beliefs--what defines us--our culture, what we esteem.

That is what we must remember as we legislate, as we lead and represent our citizens throughout this great land, that what makes America great and what will keep America great are America's values. We must defend them. We must promote them.

We must fight for a future that has those values of faith, In God We Trust, one Nation under the sovereignty of God, with a firm belief, as John Adams says, that the Constitution is only good for a moral and religious people, for example.

He understood that, at the foundation of this great country, that we would only be able to persist, and we have only persisted as the longest democracy in the history of the world because we bow the knee to our sovereign God, who, as Ben Franklin said, if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground apart from His will, then a Nation cannot rise apart from it. And I would submit that this great Nation cannot persist without that.

We recognize that you can pass all the laws you want and, certainly, laws have their place in civil order, and the enforcement of those laws are critical for the domestic tranquility of our country. But you are not going to change anyone's heart through passing laws.

And John Adams and our Founders understood that if this republic would continue for generations it would be because we always remembered that above and beyond passing good laws and making good policy is that we would recognize that we have a higher accountability, and that accountability is Almighty God, that same God whose providential hand was with this Nation from the very beginning and, I pray, will continue with all of us, on both sides of the aisle.

Every person that swears an oath and has the good fortune and privilege of serving, I pray God's gracious and providential hand will continue to guide us in the challenges that we face today.

We have our 21st century challenges, just like every generation has and, I would submit, we must return to what made this country great.

Tonight, we are going to reflect on America's values, America's culture, and America's heritage, and why it matters to fight and defend those values.

I have dear friends who are much more articulate, Mr. Speaker, than I am on this, and they speak from the heart. They speak with personal conviction. They ran for office to serve, and to strive for a more perfect union, and to hand this country better than we found it to their children and grandchildren.

One of those individuals is Ralph Norman, from the great State of South Carolina, a businessman who decided that he would make tremendous sacrifice. He has got a beautiful and big family, and he said this is the best way he can love his grandchildren is to love his country through service and through making it better by passing the right laws and upholding the right values.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I consider him a great friend. As he spoke, I was thinking about the statement that Alexis de Tocqueville made that, I think, truly hits at the heart of this experiment that has persisted as the greatest beacon of liberty in all the land and, I mean, in all the globe, and that is America is great because America is good. And part of our goodness is civil discourse and debate.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to introduce another classmate and colleague of ours, Jim Banks; and he was part of our class that came in and said from the outset we need civil discourse. We have strong convictions. We have deeply held beliefs, and we will fight for the traditional American values that we believe have made America great.

But we can do that right here, without tearing a single person down, and contributing to the swampiness of this place and being a great example to generations of Americans.

The gentleman represents that. He is a great statesman, a great American. I thank him for his time.

The next colleague of mine, from the Hoosier State, who is, no doubt, a freedom fighter, and who I am terribly honored to serve with, and to know his beautiful family, his wife, Amanda, and his three children. I thank Representative Banks for joining us and taking part in this discussion about defending America's values.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my beloved brother in Christ and dear friend for not only his service as a Member of Congress, but for his service in wearing the uniform.

I think, at its core, this mission that we have to steward and to protect, as the Federal Government's limited--emphasis on limited--role in the affairs of our great citizenry, is to keep us safe and keep us free.

I thank the gentleman for doing that for his whole career. And God bless him for his service, both in the military and here in the United States Congress. I am honored to serve with him.

Now, another liberty loving Texan who has been in public service, who has been a prosecutor, and has been a leader for our Lone Star State; and, now, he too, has been willing to leave a lot of good things behind, including a loving family, to come up here to this city and to fight for our freedom, to change the culture of this place so that it serves the people who hold the sovereignty and the future in their hands. He is a dear friend, and I am honored to have him, Chip Roy, of the great State of Texas.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, as we say in west Texas, amen and amen. I could listen to Representative Roy all night because he speaks from his heart and from a passion for his country and for his fellow countrymen. He is a truth seeker and a fighter for all that is good about this country.

We are glad the gentleman is here as part of the great delegation of Texas. We are all better in this body because of his presence and his service as a Member of Congress.

May God bless the gentleman. I thank him for his words tonight.

Now, I want to invite another colleague who is a lover of freedom and a great patriot, who is unabashed and beaming in his pride for the United States of America.

Mr. Allen is another gentleman who could be doing a lot of things. He is an accomplished businessman who could be doing a lot of things and spending a lot of quality time with his children and grandchildren, but, once again, he believes that the best way he can love his family and love those grandchildren is to hand them a better, stronger, safer, and freer United States of America.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, my colleague and brother in Christ speaks the truth. And as I said, we can pass all the laws we want, Representative Allen, but we cannot pass laws that change the human heart.

We must return to those core values, to that relationship with God to remember that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor. And it is hard to find a lot of love in this world today.

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Mr. ARRINGTON. Mr. Speaker, the rise of socialism in this country is real. Probably in times past it was used hyperbolically against Big Government, liberals, but it is real, and it is hard to believe that such a destructive system of government and deceptive ideology has become mainstream in these United States. This beacon of freedom, this great experiment--not accident, but experiment--and liberty and democracy.

How do I know? Because people don't put their name to legislation on behalf of the 800,000 to a million American citizens they represent if they don't mean it.

H.R. 1 through H.R. 10 are just more government control, less freedom to we, the people, government takeover of elections, the Federal Government takeover of healthcare, taking over agriculture and energy and government seeping into every facet of our lives.

One of our central values, as we think about the defense of American values, is the value of freedom. And the central purpose of government is to protect our freedom. The central tenet of our democratic republic is that sovereignty resides, not in the State, but in we, the people.

There has been no other nation in the world, in the history of the world, that has done more because of that powerful force of freedom that elevates and unleashes the human spirit like nothing in the world, save and except the love of God, and no other country that holds freedom in such high regard and puts such a premium on freedom, on liberty, has done more to lift people out of poverty, to protect human rights and fundamental God-given freedoms.

No other nation has raised the standard of living or contributed to the quality of life, not only in this Nation, but in nations around the world, like the United States of America.

And I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that in large part, outside--save and except the providential hand and favor of Almighty God, that God that my colleague, Representative Rick Allen, implored us to return to, to repent and return and cry out for mercy--save and except for that, it has been freedom.

And this freedom is a remarkable thing. It is an attribute, it is a privilege, it is a responsibility, and people are literally risking their lives today--people will die this week just trying to get here.

They are not trying to get into Venezuela. They are not trying to get into Cuba. God bless those people and the poor citizens of those countries that don't have what we have that empowers us to be the envy of the world. And that is a tremendous responsibility.

And there is no doubt that is a core value. And I say: How are we losing this? How do we actually have a debate, a sincere debate, a legitimate debate, about government control, central planning, socialism as an ideology and as a system of government, when we have the backdrop of all of this history?

No, it is not perfect. We were striving for a more perfect Union. Imperfect people striving for a more perfect Union. And that is the legacy that has been handed to us. That is our mission and our calling.

I think about the erosion of the values we have talked about this evening. I think about the entitlement culture that we have created. I say ``we.'' I say Republicans and Democrats alike. We continue to expand the government as the answer to all that ails us, as the solution to every problem, with no regard for the cost and consequence.

$23 trillion before COVID; $4 trillion by the end of this year added on top of it. We will surpass our highest debt load per GDP in the history of this great Nation. Not since World War II have we been up over 108 percent debt-to-GDP. That is where we are heading.

And we have done that, and it has been at no cost. We don't hit anybody's pocketbook, and we don't cut someone's pet project and their favorite program to offset the cost.

So why wouldn't people think you can get everything for free? Why wouldn't we have created a generation of Americans that think things are really free, at no cost?

Well, there will be a rude awaking when the chickens come home to roost with respect to our fiscal affairs, because this $27-$28 trillion, on our way, is a deferred tax on our children. And it is unconscionable. It is immoral. And it is un-American for a generation of leaders to do that to our posterity.

On top of that, we have had the tyranny of usurpation of the will of the people. Listen, let's debate issues of immigration, let's debate all issues, and may the will of the people prevail. That is the way it works. Not by executive fiat, not by judicial activism, some judge making the determination of what is best. The people know what's best.

I believe that that government fiat and the tyranny of unelected bureaucrats and judges making policy decisions is another way we have accelerated the decline of this country, and we have moved away from these values.

I think now we are seeing maybe another phase of this. Mob tyranny, people running around in the streets destroying property, assaulting police officers and law-abiding citizens. It is just a free-for-all. No law, no order; chaos.

And our great American cities are just burning, I believe, in large part, because our local leaders in these cities, they are scared because they have been intimidated. And that is how the mob works, through fear and intimidation, and nobody is standing up to them.

But the people who have the resources, the people who are law-abiding contributors to those cities, and the best employers, they will eventually leave. But the poorest among our fellow countrymen in those cities, they can't go anywhere.

Mr. Speaker, I think the President is doing exactly what he should do. I am very sensitive to government intervention, and I think it is a very delicate thing when you intervene in civil affairs. That is a local and State issue.

But when you have this kind of mob violence that is unabated, when you have systems of law enforcement and local leaders that are overwhelmed and either unwilling or incapable of stopping it and you are risking the lives of our fellow Americans and their rights are being trampled and local law enforcement and Federal law enforcement officers are being assaulted and our buildings are being burned, Mr. Speaker, we have got to do something.

There is an appropriate way to engage, and this President has done that, through civil law enforcement officers of this Government to go protect that property, to protect those law enforcement and other Federal personnel, and to come alongside the local law enforcement there in Portland and Seattle so that they can keep some semblance of order and protection for their people. Because the local leaders have completely abdicated it.

And Americans all over are just scratching their heads and their hearts are breaking and they are tremendously concerned about what happens. And there is one thought that you just let it all burn to the ground, and that will be the lesson for Americans all over this country, in cities and communities, all over this country. We could do that.

Or we could say: You know what? Those are American citizens, by God. Those are American citizens, and nobody is coming to their help.

I hope we support this President as he is taking a measured approach to come alongside those local law enforcement officers who have been totally disrespected, dismissed, and either partially defunded or significantly defunded, and certainly hamstrung to do their job.

You watch as these criminals shoot fireworks in their faces and as they rough them up and call them names. It is just a sad scenario for a Nation as great as ours.

We are big enough to have the protests. That is as American as apple pie. Peaceful assembly, peaceful protest, speaking your truth to power, that is what made this country great. But what we are seeing in Seattle and Portland must stop. And we all must condemn it, Mr. Speaker.

And as for me, I stand with this President, and I say use every resource--use every resource in civil law enforcement to keep the peace, to protect our citizens and protect the taxpayers' Federal property in all these cities where their local leaders have completely lost control.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the indulgence tonight, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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