Chris Smith: “Madam Speaker, we stand at a historic moment. In the stream of history, it is oftentimes overlooked as we circumnavigate…”

“Madam Speaker, we stand at a historic moment. In the stream of history, it is oftentimes overlooked as we circumnavigate around time, fate and circumstance the momentous era and the momentous deeds which must be undertaken. This is one of them. I thank the Speaker for bringing this resolution. I thank her for bringing with it the moral weight of her opposition to Communist China's abysmal human rights record throughout her career in this Congress, and for uniting Republicans and Democrats behind it. But at this moment, I am also reminded of someone who is no longer with us, someone from whom I learned very much. That man is the late Chairman Tom Lantos, a man who embodied the human spirit in its ability to triumph over evil. How many people in this Congress understood the moment when the tanks rolled into Budapest and the Soviets went into Hungary, that that was a seminal moment in the Cold War, that the desire to breathe free, of the Hungarian people, could not be quelled by tanks and could only be quenched by freedom? And throughout the history of the Cold War, their example was emulated by others, including the Czechs in 1968, and of course the Poles, and that eventually brought down the Soviet Union. Today, what may appear a resolution of the moment for a specific incident is not that. It is our generation's Budapest.”