Byron Donalds: “I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado for hosting the Special Order. I will also tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is…”

“I want to thank the gentleman from Colorado for hosting the Special Order. I will also tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is actually good to be able to talk in this Chamber without that thing on my face. It is messing up the enunciations. Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have talked at length about all of the examples and all of the damaging aspects of cancel culture, and I don't want to go through and reiterate those points. I think the purpose--what I want to take this time to do, Mr. Speaker, is to actually have a pleading with the people of our country. You see, if you look at the history of world governments, even go before our own Government, the ability to speak has been sacrosanct in order for the ability to be free. You see, there was a time, under the brutality of European kings, where you could dare not speak a word against the Crown. If you did, you were slaughtered, you were maimed, you were put into chains, you were put into slavery. The very idea of freedom of speech canonized in our Constitution just wasn't created by our Framers; it is something our Framers understood and they studied from their view of world history. And that very protection is the one thing, the most paramount thing, that the Members of this body, whether they be in our House, the Senate, or the person who occupies the White House at any point in time in American history, can never abridge or infringe.…”