Date: 1995-07-18
Speaker: BILL PAXON (republican)
Chamber: H

of the Republican fundraising committee. It is respectable to be a Republican. There are many good ones who seek only good for all people. There are others who feel that it is not respectable or to be respected to be racist or sexist. It is truly disgusting what some people would do. Mr. Speaker. to raise political money. Why. in this period of fear and discontent. uncertainty and danger. when the country is still reeling from the Oklahoma City bombing. the unabolished threats and lawless. paranoid. violent people who can only express themselves by killing other people of defaming other people are inflicting pain and suffering? Why in this unsettled and unsettling climate. Mr. Speaker. would someone put another persons picture on a wanted poster that looks like something the FBI would put in a post office? This kind of thing can bring fear. particularly to a womans heart who has to walk many times in dark places and dark corners of this country. The reason why? The National Republican Congressional Committee. under Mr. PAXON. tells us it is to raise money. I do not think that is a good reason. Mr. Speaker. I guess he has concluded that hate sells. Hate does not sell in this country. particularly when they are trying to separate Gods people. those who are black. those who are white. those who are Jewish. those who are female. That is not the way that our Maker would have us go. So hate does not sell. If that is the case. then I feel sorry for those who feel that that is so. These people feel that it is OK to feed hate and hysteria. They do not mind advancing their cause by making enemies of those who have honest disagreements with them. Yes. I did not vote for the Contract With America. I did not feel that I wanted to vote for many of the concepts of the contract. Therefore. I voted against it. I was told that was the reason why I was placed on the poster. That could not be further from the truth. in that there were 70 or 80 other people who voted the same way as I did. Yet their faces did not appear on the contract. What seemed to be the target on the contract. on the poster. were people of AfricanAmerican descent. people of Jewish faith. and white women. Those are the people who appeared on this poster. But I want to say that the Republican Party should repudiate the likes of the kinds of ethics and techniques that Mr. PAXON has used. He has not set a great example for this party. This was the party of Lincoln. This was the party that freed the slaves. So certainly this is not a good way to depict what their party stands for. I have been in the public a long time. I have been through the lynching period. I have been through the civil rights period. I have been through all of these periods of racial hate. But I had to come to the great Congress of the United States to have the kind of hate poster and the hate mail which I have received here. Do you know why? This kind of thing. coming from the top of the party. sets a climate of lawlessness and hate. and it provides the atmosphere and the climate for people who want to divide this country. to be able to write us here in Congress the kinds of hate mail and to give us the hate kinds of calls. using our ethnicity as a cloak to form their hate. This wanted poster is not a healthy sign. It is a sick sign. It is as much a reflection of our times as it is a product of people who think in a sick way. I have got my own wanted poster. Mr. Speaker. I want decent schools for the people in this country. both black and white and otherwise. and I want better education and training for young people. I want a way the senior citizens can get help in their old age and get longterm care. I want that. Mr. Speaker. I want to make sure that parents who buy food for their children. that the meat will have the proper inspection so they can have good health. I want good health for all people of America. I do not want to think this is a colorblind society. I know it is not. But I want everything good for everybody. I want to assure these older Americans that they will not go bankrupt if they get sick. My wanted poster is out there. Mr. Speaker. My voting record attests to that. It is composed of goals that all of us should work for. not people to search. target. and destroy. because of hateful literature. I thought that the Republican Party had come much further than Mr. PAXON has taken them. but I guess he wants to revive the old Nixon enemies hit list. I call on the Republicans of good faith to repudiate what Mr. PAXON has done. I have all kinds of hate mail. It is so much of it that I just make one or two excerpts from it to show you the kind of things that come from the kinds of things that are happening in the party now. and it is throwing a very bad light on all the rest of us. "Sit down and shut up." as if I were not elected by the people of Florida. They use the "b" word throughout much of this stuff. I cannot mention it in the hallowed hall of this House. They are saying. We are taking our Nation. We took it with force of arms. defended it with force of arms. and we will take it back with force of arms. You and your filthy species are nothing. I say to them. my father and my forefathers helped to build this country. I will not take a back seat to anyone. I will continue to voice my opinion on this floor of this House. They continue to say: "You are primitive. childish. selfish. petulant. demanding. dependent. arrogant. evil. treacherous creatures regressing to your natural state. Rwanda. Biafra. Somalia. Liberia. South Africa. Mozambique. Ethiopia. Los Angeles. New York. Washington. Atlanta. New Orleans. Miami. that is your legacy. You will pay for what you have done. We are enemies forever. No way around this fact. We cannot and will not coexist with you animals. I want to say to you. Mr. Speaker. and the rest of this House and the rest of this country. we are Gods children like everyone else. We do not have to tolerate this kind of bad literature that comes because it is stirred by the hatred from that poster.