David Thomas: “I do want to compliment everyone involved in this process. When the democratically-elected representative legislative…”

“I do want to compliment everyone involved in this process. When the democratically-elected representative legislative system functions, it is a wonder to behold, and we are in the process of doing that today. I do hear these concerns. I am not going to talk about trade, although I am on the Subcommittee on Trade. Just go back and read the history on Smoot-Hawley. No one should argue that this is not going to benefit all concerned, especially the United States. I do want to address my colleagues who are concerned about the progress that has been made in China with this Communist regime that has been in for about 50 years. We inherited a lot of concepts of Western Civilization. Probably the most important, coming from the Greeks, is the inherent worth of the individual, the concept that one is worth something simply because one is alive. We have institutions structured on that basis. The institutions are here to further the individual, not the other way around. But if we go back to 1776 when we declared our independence and we said all men are created equal, it was 12 years later, in 1788, that we wrote the Constitution. There was not religious freedom as we know it in the first amendment in 1788. It was not until 1791, when the Bill of Rights was ratified. And as a matter of fact, the Bill of Rights was not ratified in Massachusetts, Georgia, or Connecticut until 1939.”