Eric Burlison: “I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck) for yielding. I am from Missouri, the Show Me State, and the home of Harry…”

“I thank my friend from Colorado (Mr. Buck) for yielding. I am from Missouri, the Show Me State, and the home of Harry Truman, who said: ``Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.'' This sounds like a nation that we see with China or Russia. Sadly, it is something that could happen in the United States if we are not vigilant here. The First Amendment is this country's foundation. The diverse and competitive marketplace of ideas is the heartbeat that keeps this Republic alive. People need to be able to debate and to be able to challenge one another. Yes, free speech means that people have the right to sometimes be wrong. Yet, over the last few years, we in the United States have ceded power as a Federal Government to Big Tech and Big Tech entities. We have executives from San Francisco to New York who have crowned themselves the free speech police for the rest of our Nation. When Elon Musk purchased Twitter last year, he took a great step in the right direction by allowing an independent journalist to review the company's records, and their findings are now what we call the Twitter files.…”