JOBS AND IMMIGRATION
(House of Representatives - April 1, 2004)
[Page: H2059]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. TANCREDO. Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I address the House this evening for the purpose of continuing the discussion that has been ongoing here about jobs; about what it is in this economy, in this new world economy, this new world order that is creating the dilemma for many people and creating concern on the part of many folks out there, creating fear about their own jobs, if they still have them, and certainly encouraging the depression of those folks who have lost their jobs and have not been able to find others.
This is a perplexing and challenging issue. Undeniably so. And the tendency, the desire, I think, for a lot of people is to immediately, especially in our position, any elected position in America, when we recognize there is this kind of a problem and that people are hurting, the natural response is to say, what can I do about this? How can I change the situation? What can the government do to create a better situation for those folks who are hurting? And this is enormously perplexing when we are talking about this brave new world of a global economy that we do not entirely understand.
For well over 100 years, we thought we really had this thing pegged. We thought we knew what it took to create a prosperous society and a vibrant economy, and it boiled down to two words: Free trade. And we listened to and read the works of economists that all adhered to an economist in the 18th century by the name of David Ricardo. He coined the phrase "comparative advantage." He said, look, when two countries are competing to produce a particular product, one may have an advantage over the other and we should concentrate on producing whatever it is in that country that they have the advantage to produce because of their climate, the geography, and the natural resources in that country.
He used two examples: He said, let us look at Portugal and England. Portugal could produce wine and textiles, but in fact would have to put a lot more effort into producing textiles. England could produce textiles and wine, but would have to put a lot more effort into producing wine. So, therefore, Portugal should produce wine, England should produce textiles, and, therefore, the comparative advantage would accrue to each one of those countries. Each one of them would be doing what they do best and, therefore, each one of them would prosper and they would not be wasting their resources doing things they cannot do very well.
That is the theory we have been operating under for now well over 100 years. And I believe that it had great merit and that it can work well. But we have added a new dimension to this whole discussion, and it is the dimension of labor. That was not an issue in Ricardo's day. Labor was not all that mobile. You could not move work to worker anywhere in the world. So labor was a constant in Ricardo's day and, therefore, you just dealt with what natural resources and the climate and the geography dealt you.
Today, of course, we know that because of technology we are no longer able to rely on just what nature has given us in terms of resources. We also have to deal with the fact that labor is another one of those commodities that can be traded and for which there is a competitive advantage for some countries. But today that advantage will accrue to one country over another. It is not a win-win situation any more. It is not that one country can produce X, the other Y. Each of them will do that. Today, the economy is such that if you can provide cheaper labor, you win. The country that cannot deal with that loses. It is not a win-win game. That is the situation we face.
American labor has become ever more productive, ever more efficient, and has been able to stay relatively competitive with the rest of the world, enough so that we have been able to maintain the standard of living that is far above the rest of the world for quite some time. How long this will be, we do not know. The answer to the question is that we do not know exactly what we can do to make sure that American jobs and American workers are saved.
We can erect barriers, that is true. A law can be passed tomorrow in this body and passed in the other body, signed by the President, that will erect trade barriers. Will that protect American jobs? Well, it really cannot do that any more because there is no way to actually control the flow. Technology allows us to export work to worker anywhere in the world, and there are really very few ways that you can actually, in fact we may not have any way in which we can actually stop that phenomenon. I am certainly willing to look at any proposal that is designed to slow that down, that is designed to protect American workers and American jobs. I would like to do it.
There is this, as I say, natural desire on the part of most of us here to get up and say, here is what we have to do and it will solve all of our problems. I believe the last speaker said we should stop trying to bust the unions. Well, let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that will not solve all of our problems.
If in fact we are also talking about the creation of some sort of tariff to stop the exportation of certain commodities or to in fact increase the cost of certain commodities being brought into the United States, I do not think that will solve the problem.
We are at a comparative disadvantage because our workers make more money than workers in most other countries of the world. And I am willing to admit that this is a dilemma for which I do not have a solution, but I am also willing to state that there is something we can do that neither my friends on the other side of the aisle or even my friends and colleagues on my side of the aisle are very willing to deal with, and yet it seems to me to be the most logical way of addressing this situation of the exportation of American jobs and stagnant wages that result from the fact that we can no longer compete in that particular environment.
What I suggest, Mr. Speaker, is that we begin to enforce the law, the law that actually determines how many people can come into this country. And that if someone comes into this country without our permission, they are eligible for deportation. And if someone hires someone who has come into this country illegally, they in turn can in fact be fined. And if they do it often enough, they can go to jail.
There are estimates that range from between 9 million and 18 million people in this country who are here illegally. Most of them appear to be working, and we are told they are working in jobs no American will take. Well, I would like to test that theory, that they are coming to take jobs that no American will take. And here is one way we can test that theory, Mr. Speaker. We can look at what is happening on the border today.
Now, we all know that the job increases in this most recent recovery have been minimal. Some people refer to it as a jobless recovery. Whatever, the number of jobs we have created in the United States in the last couple of years is relatively low, relatively few. And we have an unemployment rate now of about 5.6 percent. We have a chronic unemployment that may go even higher. That is to say, that includes people who have long since ceased looking for jobs. So there are, again, estimates ranging from 8 million to 18 million people in this country unemployed.
We know, right now, that there are not many jobs available out there. I mean that is pretty much a given. Well, let me tell you what happened on our borders since October 1 of last year in only one sector, the Tucson sector. According to Rob Daniels, the border patrol public information officer of the Tucson sector of the border patrol, there have been more than 200,000 illegal aliens apprehended in that sector alone this year. This is an increase of almost 50 percent since last year, and much of it as a result of the fact the President made a speech in which he put out the hope of an amnesty. Although he would not call it that, of course that is exactly what it is, and most of the world saw it for what it is, including the people that are coming across the border illegally.
More than 60,000 people have been detained this month alone in the Tucson sector, representing a stunning increase of over 85 percent over March of 2003. Those numbers are expected to rise, as April and May are typically the peak months for intending border crossers seeking to make the trip through the desert before forbidding summer conditions set in.
Now, I present these figures because I think they are important for us to understand if we really and truly are talking about trying to do something important for the American worker. In the last 6 months, 200,000 people in one sector were detained. And let me say this, Mr. Speaker. Everyone who is involved with this issue will tell you that for every single person we detain, at least three get through. That is a very conservative figure.
So in the Tucson sector, if you use that figure of three coming through for every one we are able to catch, 600,000 people made it into the country from one sector in 6 months. Now, think about what this means for the entire border, both north and south, and our ports of entry, both land, sea and air, and it certainly could be as many as a million people came across our borders without our permission in the last 6 months.
But let us say for a moment that those are just simply exaggerated figures, somehow, some way, we have been able to actually stop more people from coming into the country than is the general rule and that maybe only one or two get by for every one that gets interdicted. That still means about 500,000 people came across the border illegally along with about another 500,000 who came into this country legally from our very liberal immigration policy. So in the last 6 months, the most conservative estimate possible for the number of people who came into this country both legally and illegally has got to approach a million people.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if a million people came in here in 6 months, what are they doing here? What jobs are they doing? Are they taking only those jobs that Americans will not take? Do you mean to tell me that in the last 6 months we have created a million jobs that have gone begging? And that employers are out there saying, oh, my goodness, I have all of these jobs and I just can't get an American citizen to take them, so I'm going to employ the million people both legal and illegal aliens who have come across the border in the last 6 months? No, Mr. Speaker. No, they are not taking jobs that are simply out there that American citizens will not take, they are taking jobs somebody else has and they are taking them because they will work for less. It is a simple proposition. These numbers are incredible. Most people cannot believe it when I tell them that these are the numbers that are actually provided by the border patrol themselves. This is not my wild guesstimation of how many people are coming into this country illegally.
So if, in fact, there are already these folks in this body that are so intent on doing something to increase the number of jobs available to Americans, I suggest that they look carefully at immigration. This is something that, of course, my friends on the other side of the aisle will never, ever, ever bring up. In one hour of all of the problems that were identified by my colleague on the other side of the aisle here, you never once heard anybody talk about the fact, in particular talk about the fact that immigration may be one of the problems we face when trying to create jobs for Americans. Never said it. Why? Because, of course, the issue is incredibly political. My friends on that side of the aisle know that massive immigration into this country both legal and illegal accrues to their political benefit. It will mean voters for the Democratic Party. They know it. It is the historical truth. On my side of the aisle, you will not hear a discussion of this issue, either, because we look at it as being a source of cheap labor. So between the two of us here, between the two parties, it is very difficult to get an honest discussion of this issue and what it means for America. The President said in that speech that he gave a month and a half ago or two months ago, I want to match every willing worker with every willing employer. It is a high sounding goal. But let us think about what that really means, if it is true, if he really wants to do that. Every willing worker with every willing employer.
Mr. Speaker, there are billions, with a B, there are billions of willing workers in the world anxious, desiring a job that pays them more than they are getting wherever they are but far less than is being paid to the person in this country who is doing that job. So do we really mean that we are willing to abandon the border? If so, let us say it if that is the truth of the matter. If in fact that is our purpose and our policy, to eliminate the whole complex process of immigration, erase the border and allow people to simply come here to take the jobs that some employer is willing to provide, and I assure you that every employer is looking for, and there is nothing wrong with it. This is not some nefarious purpose on the part of employers. They are looking for a way to cut their costs. That is a part of the process we call free enterprise capitalism and a process to which I adhere and a philosophy to which I adhere. So they are looking to cut their costs.
Believe me when I tell you that if somebody presents themselves to you who has got all the skills necessary to do the job but they will do it for less than the person you have got working there, you are probably going to hire them. They may only be there for a short time, until the next person comes in the door and said, you know what, I'll do it for even less. This is something that has happened, of course. We know this has happened in our manufacturing economy. This is one of the things that has really and truly been problematic in the United States. It has happened to our low-skill, low-wage jobs. There is so much competition for those jobs, so many people seeking them, that it has had the effect of depressing the wage rates for all the folks who are making very little money. They have not seen an increase in their salary because there are so many people here who are willing to take those jobs, those low-skill, low-wage jobs. Something new is happening, a new dimension here, because now we are figuring out a way to export or import, either way, export the jobs to a place that will have workers who will do the job, will work for less or import the worker to come here and do the job for less.
We are doing it for high tech industries. H1B is the visa category for people who have special skills and who come to the United States with a higher degree than the person who is coming here to do menial labor. These are mostly people in the high tech industry and they are skilled and they are capable and they will work for less. So we hire them or we outsource the jobs that are here. Employers have manipulated the visa category to bring these folks in even though they do not fit the requirements of H1B or even L1 visas. They are bringing them in by the hundreds of thousands. We now have probably 2 million people in this country with those two visa categories, H1B and L1, high tech workers who have displaced American workers. Why? Because, of course, we have succumbed to the siren song of cheap labor and we have agreed to essentially abandon our borders.
It is amazing to me to see what I see and hear what I hear and read what I read about what goes on every day on our borders, to read statistics like those I just gave you, with over a quarter of a million people having been interdicted at the border in one single sector, the Tucson sector, in 6 months and far more than that having made it past our border patrol and are here in the country illegally. We have, I believe it is approaching 20 million people here illegally. They are all working or at least most of them are in jobs, of course, that Americans will not take.
I do not know, Mr. Speaker, how it is in your district, but I will tell you how it is in mine. I have people who are unemployed, high tech workers who are driving cabs at night. I have people who will take jobs of any kind in order to keep a roof over their heads and who are right now unable to find those jobs. Or if they find a job, it is, of course, working for much less money than the job they had. So their standard of living is decreased. That is, of course, what we face. That is, perhaps, an inevitability. Maybe there is absolutely nothing we can do about it because of this new world economy. How harsh that sounds. But it may be the case that we cannot stop it, we cannot stop the exportation of jobs. But should we not attempt to control our own borders? Because we only have two choices: Either we do that or we eliminate the border, we can erase the border, pretend they do not exist, allow people to come in and however they get here, they are now residents of the nation. That is an option. It is one I think that many people in their heart of hearts around here accept and in fact desire. There are folks in this body who believe that borders are simply anachronisms, they really should not be there, they do not matter anymore, they are not important and they only serve to obstruct the flow of goods and services and people. And that really the whole idea of the nation state, some concept of sovereignty, is all offered up on the altar of free trade.
I do not know, Mr. Speaker. I cannot tell you that I have a magic bullet here, but I can tell you that there is no way I am going to accept this situation without railing against it and without suggesting something that we can do, and that something is to actually control our own borders. Mr. Speaker, it is fascinating. The Wall Street Journal used to write an editorial every Fourth of July that said that borders were no longer meaningful and that we should erase them. They stopped writing that editorial after 9/11 but it is not because they have changed their mind, it is just because they are afraid to say such a thing subsequent to such a national tragedy perpetrated by people, of course, all of whom were here as aliens and most of whom, by the way, in some way or another had violated our laws and could have and should have been deported. So they do not talk about it anymore but they still believe it and so do Members of our own body, believe that that is in fact the way of the world, that national boundaries will not matter, that pretty soon the United States, Mexico and Canada will all together join in some sort of grand alliance similar to the EU, kind of hold hands and sing "Cumbayah" and that the only thing that will matter at that time, the only thing that will determine how profitable it is to live where you live and how good a job you may have, the only thing that will determine that are markets.
Let me suggest that there is another reason why we should try to control the border even if you do not believe that we should get involved with trying to protect the American jobs that are sacrificed to open borders, even if for some reason that just goes against your grain and that you are willing to allow American jobs to be sacrificed to those people who are willing to come and do them for less. And, remember, I say that there are billions willing to do that. There is no job here that we can create that someone out there cannot compete for. If we import the labor on one hand to do the jobs that are necessary here from the service economy, those kinds of jobs that only can be done here, a waiter or a waitress, building homes, whatever, if those jobs we bring in people who will work for less and the other jobs that do not require you to be physically here in the United States to do, we export, then of course there has to be some sort of ramification to that. There is something that is going to happen to the United States of America as a result of this phenomenon. I suggest that at the minimum it will be stagnant wage rates but almost assuredly it will be declining wage rates. Or maybe we can live with that. Maybe it is going to have to happen. No one wants to get up in front of their constituents and say, get ready, your wage rates are going to go down, your standard of living is going to be reduced because we are committed to the concept of free trade and that includes the free trade of labor.
In fact, we have asked the Congressional Research Service to actually try to identify to us those countries that are actually dealing with us on a free trade basis. That is to say that we will import the products that they produce and they will import the products that we produce without any trade restrictions.
I have yet to find a country like that. We are the ultimate free traders in the world. That is for sure. We offer far more in terms of an allure to come here and bring their products than we are able to do and that any other country is willing to offer us.
China is a great example. Since we opened trade with China, our balance of trade, or the imbalance of trade, I should say, has skyrocketed.
The same thing happened with Mexico. Mr. Speaker, before NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, we had an actual surplus, a trade surplus with Mexico, about $9 billion. Since NAFTA, we have gone to about $60 billion in the red, a trade deficit with Mexico. We have relatively few countries right now in the world with whom we have a positive trade balance, and most countries with which we trade do not trade on an even basis, on a level playing field. But we are committed to free trade, regardless of what it does to the American wage earner. And as I say, maybe, just maybe, we cannot do anything about that. But I think there is something. I would like to at least try because even if it is not something that the free trade adherence will go for, maybe if they are somehow concerned about the trade implications of actually controlling our own borders, think about the other implications. Think about the costs to American taxpayers of massive immigration, both legal and illegal.
Mr. Speaker, we hear all the time about the importation of cheap labor and how important it is, but I assure the Members that cheap labor is only cheap to the employer. It is not cheap to the citizen taxpayer who has to pay for the housing, the health care, the educational services, the incarceration rates. All of these things become very expensive to the taxpayers of the country, but they are passed on to them. They are not paid for by the corporation that brings them in or the business that hires that person; so what do they care, essentially?
But this concept of cheap labor has all kinds of other implications. The concept of open borders, borders that really do not matter, borders through which half a million people, minimally half a million people, could come through without our permission in one sector, called the Tucson sector, in 6 months. That kind of a border provides us with all kinds of more severe problems, even more severe than the economic catastrophe that is inherent with this concept of open borders.
As I say, it is a cost to the American taxpayer, but it is also something else, Mr. Speaker. And this gets a little more, I guess the word I am looking for is esoteric perhaps, but nonetheless I think it is a very important discussion we have to have because even if the Members disagree with everything I have said about the economy and the impact of cheap labor, the impact of open borders on the economy, even if they think it is just great to allow people to come into this country and undercut someone who is presently working here, underbid them for the job, even if they think that is okay, let me suggest to them that there are other problems that I would like them to deal with. And one of these things is the problem that I believe is enormously important for us to talk about, although uncomfortable, certainly, to discuss, and this is the problem with the effect of massive immigration, both legal and illegal, when it sort of meshes with what I call the cult of multiculturalism that permeates our society. Radical multiculturalism.
Not just the philosophy or the attitude that we should appreciate our differences and the acknowledgment that those differences have made us richer in many ways as a Nation. That is not radical multiculturalism. Radical multiculturalism is the philosophy that says that in order to appreciate anybody else, one must degrade one's own culture and that one could never ever suggest that what we have here, that the product of western civilization we call the United States of America, is superior to anyplace else in the world because of course all cultures are relative to the multiculturalist radical. There is no difference. It is the ultimate "I am okay, you're okay" view of the world. And we have spent an enormous amount of time and money telling our children in our schools that this is the case, that they cannot be attached to anything that we had in our day, when I was in school, called the American experience because, of course, the multiculturalist radicals would say it is just a reflection of a society and a civilization that was nothing but greedy and degraded and corrupt, and that when Columbus came here to the New World, he began what was eventually to become the destruction of paradise.
This is what we tell children. This is in our textbooks, and this is what is rotting the core of American culture. And we are doing it to ourselves, and it is not the fact that immigrants are coming here and perpetrating it. They are simply coming into this new environment. This is dangerous, I think, to our society.
When we tell our children there is nothing of value, there is nothing worth their sacrifice, there is no set of ideas or ideals around which we can all gather, that all cultures are the same, that all is relative, when we do that, we are at great risk.
We have example after example. If the people go to our website, www.house.gov, that is g-o-v, /Tancredo, T-a-n-c-r-e-d-o, and go to a site that we call "Our Heritage, Our Hope," or our immigration site, either one, they will get a great deal of information, Mr. Speaker. And I hope that everyone would do that because there are literally hundreds of examples of this cult of multiculturalism that I am talking about. Let me give the Members just a few.
"At Los Angeles Roosevelt High School, an 11th grade teacher told a nationally syndicated radio program that she `hates' the textbooks she's been told to use and the State-mandated history curriculum because they `ignore students of Mexican ancestry.' Because the students don't see themselves in the curriculum,' the teacher has chosen to `modify' the curriculum by replacing it with activities like `mural walks,' intended to `open the students' eyes,' " she says, " `to their `indigenous culture.' A friend the teacher invited to help with the `mural walk' went on to tell the students that `Your education has been one big lie after another.' " And that essentially there is nothing they should as a student attach themselves to in terms of this American experience. It is white. It is Anglo-Saxon. It is not theirs and that they should never ever attach themselves to it.
"In the textbook called Across the Centuries that is used for seventh grade history, the book defines the word `jihad' as `to do one's best to resist temptation and overcome evil.' " Because, of course, we would not want to say that another interpretation of "jihad" is a holy war against Christendom because, oh, my heavens, what that sets up in the mind of the reader, even though that is exactly what the term implies: a holy war.
We try to euphemise it. We try to change the definition so as not to possibly create the impression on the part of a student that someone might hold a view like the people who hold this view actually have, and that is this: that their purpose, their reason to be, is to exterminate us. That is the truth of the matter, that for millions and millions of Muslims around the world, their one purpose is to exterminate any semblance of western civilization. It is a threat to them.
I had a book given to me not too long ago. It was an actual diary of an Imam who went on, I believe, to become a suicide bomber. In his diary he explains that is what all good faithful Muslims have to do, because, he said, We cannot live in the same world with the west. Western democracies have created a world in which people live the good life here on earth, and that is a world in which we cannot exist because in our world, the only thing to which we look forward is the afterlife. This is just a temporary status, and we are moving on to something greater, and if we allow western democracies, western civilization, to survive, it will essentially turn the heads of all of our people, turn their heads away from the joys of the afterlife to the joys of this life. So, therefore, we have to set ourselves on a path of destroying western civilization.
This is what they are committed to, many millions of Muslims are. Many millions of Muslims would not take up that particular sword, at least not physically. They may do so mentally. One wonders how many people of that faith, even though they would not themselves commit an act of violence, how many in their heart of hearts, when one of those acts of violence is committed, think it is okay, that it is good, they deserve it.
Nonetheless, in our classrooms we refuse to even tell our students about this. We refuse to actually define the word "jihad" for its real meaning.
"In a Prentice Hall textbook used by students in Palm Beach County high schools titled `A World Conflict,' the first 5 pages of the World War II chapter cover such topics as women in the Armed Forces, racial segregation in the war, black Americans in the home front, Japanese Americans being interned, and women in the war effort." Although 292,000 Americans died in that conflict, most white male soldiers are represented far less in photos and words than all others.
"A Washington State teacher substituted the word `Christmas' with the word `winter' in a carol to be sung at a school program so as not to appear to be favoring one faith over another."
Let us see. Oh, a school in New Mexico, this is just fascinating, a school district in New Mexico introduced a textbook called "500 years of Chicano History and Pictures," and this book states that it was written "in response to the Bicentennial celebration of the 1776 American Revolution and its lies."
It stated its purpose is to "celebrate a resistance to being colonized and absorbed by racist empire builders."
The book describes defenders of the Alamo as "slave owners, land speculators and Indian killers."
Davy Crockett, they said was a cannibal, and the 1847 "War on Mexico" was an invasion.
The chapter headings include "Death to the Invader," "U.S. Conquest and Betrayal," "We Are Now a U.S. Colony," "Occupied America," and "They Stole the Land."
Nicholas DeGenova, an assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University, told students he wanted to see "a million Mogadishus," which is a reference to an operation in Somalia in 1993 in which U.S. Army personnel were pinned down in a fierce firefight. Eighteen Americans were killed, 84 wounded.
DeGenova added, "The only true heroes are those who find ways to help defeat the U.S. military."
He is an assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University. Administrators at Columbia University have expressed regret, saying they were appalled by his statements, but took no action to dismiss DeGenova, who was still teaching.
Royal Oak Intermediate School in Covina, California, students in Len Cesene's 7th grade history class, fasted last week to celebrate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. His letter to parents explained that "in an attempt to promote a greater understanding and empathy toward the Muslim religion and toward other cultures, I am encouraging students to participate in an extra credit assignment. Students may choose to fast for 1, 2 or 3 days. During those days, students may only drink water during daylight hours."
Imagine what would happen if he tried to suggest that students do something to adhere to Lent, let us say, a Christian religious holiday, not a holiday, but a time that Christians recognize for fasting. What if he tried to say that is what he wanted his children to do? What kind of an outcry would there be? Nobody said a word about the fact that he was trying to make the kids more sort of sensitive. That is okay.
A Federal judge in Brooklyn interpreted a New York City policy on holiday displays in public schools allow for the display of the Jewish Menorah and the Muslim Crescent, but not the display of the Christian Nativity Scene. The judge based his decision on the notion that the Muslim Crescent and Jewish Menorah are secular symbols, while the questioned Nativity Scene is not.
Really, we have just tons and tons of examples, and, again, I just suggest that perhaps the best thing to do, Mr. Speaker, is to have folks go to the web site, House.Gov/Tancredo. Look at "Our Heritage, Our Hope." We will have these for you.
One more I do want to bring to your attention, because this one really was intriguing to me. Remember now, I bring this up, I am talking about this particular part of our culture, this multi-culturist phenomena, this multi-culturist cult that has control of a large part of our school system, certainly, and the textbook developers and the media and on and on and on.
I bring this up in the context of a discussion of immigration, because I believe that these two issues are interwoven and you cannot really discuss one without the other, and as we increase the number of people here, both legally and illegally, and as we encourage those folks who come here to be anything but part of the American experience, whatever that may be anymore in anybody's mind, as we encourage them to stay separate, as we tell them they should not learn English, that we will teach them in their language in the public schools, that they should keep that language, that they should keep their culture, and they should even keep their political affiliations and connections to the country of origin, that this cult of multi-culturalism then is enhanced by this policy on the part of our government. And here is the kind of thing that does happen.
In California, Victorville, California, there was a Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum on Highway 15 in the High Mojave desert. I saw this clip, somebody had put it on my desk and I was thinking, why is this significant? Why did somebody give me this clip from the Los Angeles Times about the fact that the Roy Rogers Museum had been moved from Victorville, California, to Branson, Missouri.
It picked up and moved because of a transformation in the cultural nature of the region, as new immigrants who settled in California are not absorbing the cultural history of the region or the country.
The guy who was writing a newspaper story about this went into a bar and met a lady by the name of Rosalina Sondoval-Marin. She was having a beer at the El Chubasco Bar on historic Route 66, and the newspaper reporter said, "I am doing a story about the fact that the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum is moving after having been here for, I don't know, decades and decades and decades. What do you think about that?"
And Ms. Sondoval-Marin said, "There is a revolution going on here, and it don't include no Roy Rogers or Bob Hope."
I thought that was a fascinating observation really, and an indication of in fact something that is going on here. It is a revolution. It is true. It is a cultural revolution, and we aid and abet those people who are desirous of separating themselves from the rest of American society, creating a balkanized America, by encouraging bilingual education in schools and encouraging the cult of multi-culturalism that permeates our society. So it is that combination. It is the combination of massive immigration with this multi-culturalist cult that is the most dangerous thing we face.
Now, Mr. Speaker, this has nothing to do with race or ethnicity, it has not got anything to do with country of origin. This is something that would happen to any country, no matter where it was on the globe, if it practiced this kind of divisive sort of philosophic approach toward immigration.
I was recently in a school in my district, and it is a brand new school, it has only been there a short time, and it is in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, by way, a county in which I do not live, I hasten to say, but it is part of my district. And a beautiful school, and very bright kids coming from parents that are well-to-do, who have given them all kinds of advantages, and they certainly have all the economic and educational advantages they could ask for.
They came into an auditorium where I was to address them for a while, and we talked for, I don't know, half an hour, maybe an hour. And then they were sending up their questions. One of them sent a question up to me and it said, "What do you think is the most serious problem that we face as the Nation here?"
I said, "Well, I am going to ask you a question, and perhaps then I will be able to answer yours." I said, "How many people in this room," by the way, there were about 200 kids, and I said, "How many people in this auditorium right now will agree with the following statement: I live in the greatest country on the face of the Earth?"
It was so interesting to see this. There was all kinds of shifting about and discomfort. You could see it. And finally maybe two dozen kids out of 200 raised their hand. Two dozen kids out of 200 said, yes, I think this is the best country on the face of the Earth.
I hasten to add, I think there were many more in that room that wanted to say that. I do not mean to suggest that people, all of these kids, disliked or hated America. I will say that it is apparent to me as a teacher, I taught for many years, I have seen that look on faces before in my classroom when you ask a question and the kid has this sort of look like, well, if I put my hand up, he might call on me. I better not do it, because I am not sure I could defend the proposition.
That is what was happening. Even though they may have felt that they were living in the best country in the world, they also knew they could not defend it if I asked them to, if I had challenged them. They were looking at the sides of the walls where their teachers were standing along the wall in this auditorium, and looking at them, and it was a very peculiar situation. It was uncomfortable for them.
I do not know how uncomfortable it was for most of the teachers, and I did not even notice whether they raised their hands. I do not think any of them did. But maybe they did not think the question was addressed to them. I am not sure.
But it was nonetheless fascinating to me. And what I believe has happened, and what I would love to test, I mean, I would love every Member, Mr. Speaker, next time they go and speak to a high school in their district, at the appropriate time, ask that question and see what happens. It is illuminating. It is illustrative. It is a fascinating thing to watch. Because what you see are people who are intellectually unarmed to defend the proposition that they live in the best country in the world, because they have been taught over and over and over again by all kinds of textbooks and all kinds of teachers that they cannot ever say a thing like that, because it would indicate some actual existence of, you know, good and evil; better and best; good and bad.
We do not have that, and we cannot have it, and we cannot think of it. We cannot think of ourselves as being special, and no matter what other cultures might do and what they might think about the human condition, we cannot condemn them, we cannot say anything bad about them, for fear of offending the multi-culturist police that haunt our schools and our lives in many ways.
I fear this is the most dangerous thing. The answer to the question those kids asked me then is this is what I believe is the most severe problem we face in America, this abandonment of the ideas and ideals of western civilization that actually came together to create this incredible country.
There are things about which we can be so proud. There are things that are uniquely western and that we have every reason to be proud of. We are the instigator. We brought the concept of the rule of law to the world. Western civilization provided that. It was an outgrowth of the Greeks, the Romans and eventually through the English, the Magna Carta and our own Constitution.
It is a wonderful, wonderful tour of history to see how that string is drawn through the pages of history and how we come to this position and how we were started as a Nation, unique among all nations of the Earth. We were started on the basis of ideas. Ideas. Not because a potentate, a king or anybody else drew some lines and called it a country. We started because of ideas, ideas of great value and ideas that we must transmit to our children and to immigrants coming to this country.
There must be something, some set of ideas around which we can all gather, something that means we are different and special and holds us together, because there is nothing really other than that. We are people from all kinds of different backgrounds and cultures and countries and histories and languages and all of that sort of thing.
So the one thing that we should try to have to bring all of these disparate factions together is a set of ideas. And yes, they are ideas promulgated out of western civilization, and we should never, ever, ever be ashamed of it. We should extol those ideas to ourselves, to our children, and to immigrants, because it will determine the fate of the Nation.
END
