Barbara Boxer: “I had tried to get time earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I was tied up in a markup. I want to express myself briefly…”

“I had tried to get time earlier in the day. Unfortunately, I was tied up in a markup. I want to express myself briefly on the constitutional amendment. I opposed it, even though clearly it was far more popular in the country to support it. I did so because of my love of our country, our Constitution, and our freedoms. The love of country runs deep in my veins, as I know it does in those of every Senator. My family came here in the early years of the 20th century to be safe from the Holocaust in Europe, the nightmare that took the lives of our relatives and so many innocent people. To my family and to me, America was not only a land of strength and courage but a land of compassion and acceptance. My father, who was a CPA, always said to me: Kiss the ground when you pay your taxes to America because you are helping to build our military, our schools, our roads, and our infrastructure. My mother said that being an American meant being free to live your dreams, and only in this country, she would say, in America, where she was brought as a baby by her family, would that be possible. I was taught not to be afraid of disagreement, not to fear words and not to shrink from an argument in this, the greatest country on Earth. In a great country like the United States of America, you don't fear dissent. In a great country you allow dissent, even if it is ugly, even if it makes you sick to your stomach, even if it disgusts you.…”