On the recordMarch 25, 2019
I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) taking the lead this evening and talking about this important issue. Look, one of the things we always need to do is learn the lessons of history, so we simply do not repeat them. In the late 1800-1900s, communism was the new government concept that excited the elites of that particular era to the point that it was such an expansive idea, that part of the reason that Woodrow Wilson wrote his 14 points was to intellectually challenge communism and restate the significance of democracy and republican forms of government. When communism did obviously take root in the Soviet Union and China, it was not a philosophical statement, it was simply an excuse for the good, old-fashioned dictators to tell people how to live their lives. So as Lenin called it, it was important to have the vanguard of the proletariat, so the government would tell people how to think until people realized that the government was right in the first place. Those are some of the parts of history that we never want to repeat again.…
