Richard K. Armey: “this debate has been a good debate and I want to thank the committee for bringing it to the floor. The debate is about…”

“this debate has been a good debate and I want to thank the committee for bringing it to the floor. The debate is about H. Con. Res. 285, expressing the sense of Congress that the President of the United States should reconsider his decision to be formally received in Tiananmen Square by the government of the People's Republic of China. It is unusual. I think we have acknowledged that. It is an unusual thing to bring such a resolution to the floor. It is probably even more unusual for the resolution to have been brought to the floor by me or to have been submitted by me. I listened to the debate, and good points were made on both sides of the debate, and I want to thank everybody who participated in the debate. Why would I do this? It is not my usual posture to suggest that I should describe for the President how and where he should travel, where he should be received when he travels. What would compel me to do this? What compels me is the love of freedom and the scene of that love of freedom that I saw 9 years ago on this day, the young students in China gathered together on Tiananmen Square. They gathered for the purpose of celebrating freedom and democracy. They gathered for the purpose of hoping and dreaming, wishing, praying and, no doubt, demanding freedom and democracy for themselves. They gathered around them on that square the symbols of freedom that they knew, even from their relatively closed society, they knew symbols of freedom from around the globe.…”