Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I consider him a great friend. As he spoke, I was thinking about the statement that Alexis de Tocqueville made that, I think, truly hits at the heart of this experiment that has persisted as the greatest beacon of liberty in all the land and, I mean, in all the globe, and that is America is great because America is good. And part of our goodness is civil discourse and debate. Mr. Speaker, I am going to introduce another classmate and colleague of ours, Jim Banks; and he was part of our class that came in and said from the outset we need civil discourse. We have strong convictions. We have deeply held beliefs, and we will fight for the traditional American values that we believe have made America great. But we can do that right here, without tearing a single person down, and contributing to the swampiness of this place and being a great example to generations of Americans. The gentleman represents that. He is a great statesman, a great American. I thank him for his time. The next colleague of mine, from the Hoosier State, who is, no doubt, a freedom fighter, and who I am terribly honored to serve with, and to know his beautiful family, his wife, Amanda, and his three children. I thank Representative Banks for joining us and taking part in this discussion about defending America's values. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Banks).”