[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 13, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5140-H5142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1715
                  ESTABLISHING A FEDERATION OF FREEDOM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Russell) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. RUSSELL. Mr. Speaker, this week, we saw major world leaders 
interfacing with the United States on topics covering the economy, 
diplomacy, and security engulfing the major hemispheres of the globe. 
Worldwide and domestic reaction suggests that no clear outcomes are 
perceivable. An uncertain and perhaps less secure future seems to loom.
  Consequently, Americans today are faced with many questions, some 
formulated by ourselves and some offered by our world neighbors.
  They ask: What is the role of the United States in the world?
  We ask: ``What right do we have to take on that role? What 
responsibility would we shed if we took no leadership in global 
affairs?
  Our allies and even our enemies may be asking: What can we expect 
from the United States in the future?
  My own question would be this: How can the United States continue to 
be a force for good in the world?
  To answer these questions, we need to look no further than how we 
govern ourselves and what we even believe is the purpose of any 
government.
  What is the purpose of government? Simply put, it is to protect 
against evil, to execute justice against those committing wrong to 
others, to promote what benefits society, and to deter what harms it.

[[Page H5141]]

  When the United States was established, we held some basic truths to 
be self-evident, namely, all of us are created equal, and we have been 
endowed with certain inalienable rights. Among them are the right to 
life, the right to live free, and the right to pursue one's happiness. 
We believe that governments are instituted to secure those rights, not 
take them away, and that the best form of government to do that would 
therefore be one that could only draw its power from the consent of the 
people, not by the people's coercion or coercing them.
  Therein lies the insight that the world seeks on U.S. motivations, 
that the consistent role of the United States in foreign policy in the 
last century found our Nation in conflict with those that would use 
coercion, not only abusing their own people, but extending that abuse 
to others.
  In looking to the future, no single week of diplomacy, no statements 
of mixed signal, no amount or shift or heft can erase the fundamental 
nature of how Americans view our relations with each other and other 
nations. It is in our DNA, whether clouded by temporary setback or 
assertive advance.
  After World War I, when the entire system of governance of the most 
dominating power shifted from monarchies, nations struggled to find 
some form of governance for their own self-determination.
  The competition between self-rule and authoritarianism saw the rise 
of Imperial Japan and their violation of human rights and the 
sovereignty of China, and that set the United States on a policy of 
economics, trade, and military defense that ultimately would place us 
in horrific conflict in the Pacific Coast.
  The rise of European dictators that swept the rights of man off the 
map of Europe compelled us to energize our entire industrial might and 
willpower to ensure their complete destruction.
  The realignment of governments of dominant nations into two spheres 
of thought after World War II meant that those that would govern 
themselves and enjoy the fruits of their labor and pursue happiness 
would come into direct conflict with those that would coerce their own 
people into centralized, socialist servitude in exchange for their 
security, for some respect, and a place on the world stage. 
Consequently, the United States found itself in conflict along these 
lines on the Korean Peninsula, in Southeast Asia, and in the Middle 
East.
  Upon examination of our policies in the last century, many have been 
hypercritical, suggesting that the United States somehow used its 
position and power to promote its own brand of coercion rather than to 
be a force for good in the world. Whether one holds a bias towards one 
view or the other, the answer can be found with these questions:
  Would the world have been better or worse economically and 
politically without our intervention into the defense of South Korea in 
1950?
  Would the world be better off economically and politically without 
our collective security efforts in Europe and the formulation of NATO?
  Would the world be better off without our securing of the planet's 
oceans for all the world to use in free trade and commerce?
  Would the world be better or worse economically and politically 
without our policy of the right of Taiwanese defense?
  Would the world be better or worse without our support to Columbia, 
our intervention in Kuwait and the Balkans as we closed the last 
century?
  These are questions to ponder, but as we examine what our economic 
and political map of the last century might look like if all of these 
nations were tipped in favor of coercive governments vice those of 
self-determination, one thing is clear: the actors promoting coercion 
rather than liberty appear much the same as we enter a new era.
  Our lines of conflict today are much as they have always been with 
nations that lack democratic rule, that show disregard for the rule of 
law, that fail to respect basic human rights, that violate intellectual 
and private property, that manipulate their economies, that restrict 
commerce, and that close their doors to cultural and educational 
exchange.
  So we find ourselves with old enemies in a new era, not always 
defined by particular nations, as governments shift and what were once 
bitter enemies 50 or 100 years ago are now vital partners and friends 
with us. But the old enemies will always be those against life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  While our enemies ideologically may be consistent, we would not 
always know it when examining our foreign policy and economic efforts 
in this century. For much of this century, under bipartisan 
administrations, we have experimented with the notion that we can 
somehow embrace those with a diametrically opposed form of governance 
and view of liberty and that our goodwill will somehow be reciprocated 
with their conversion to good behavior.
  So far, that path has led us to political and economic imbalance with 
lasting consequence. Worse, it may be placing us on a path of 
monumental conflict as enemies of liberty and self-determination use 
newfound resources to coerce global spheres beyond what the world 
ultimately will be willing to bear.
  The path to that conflict, though, is not inevitable, but it will 
take a strategic vision that is severely lacking in our Nation today. 
Rather than focus on sovereign states or regions of the globe to 
maintain our security, we need to embrace the idea of curbing enemies 
of liberty and their ability to extend their reach wherever they may be 
found.
  The task is not impossible. In fact, the ingredients of it are all 
around us, already identified by our practices rather than by our 
politics. What is needed is to articulate a long-range strategic 
vision, something rare in Washington, to promote life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness.
  And here it is. Here is the vision: The answer lies in the collective 
efforts of the nations who have democratic, free, stable governance.
  What if the vast bulk of our trade were exclusively with those 
nations? What if the economic systems, to our mutual benefit, were 
intertwined exclusively with those nations? What if our information and 
innovation sharing were only with those countries? What if our 
militaries partnered in mutual security with these countries?
  Now, I know what you are thinking: Don't we already have some of 
this? Ingredients, yes; a baked cake, no. We find ourselves still 
embracing those that would use their power to coerce rather than to 
promote, to thieve, to steal, to manipulate, and use our openness to 
advance their power, and we worry that our individual effort may not be 
enough to contain the dangers that lie ahead economically, 
diplomatically, or, worse, even militarily.
  And yet, if our discourse with other nations were to place the bad 
actors on the outside rather than on the inside, there is no collective 
effort that they could muster to withstand our combination.
  If we were to form a federation of freedom among the no-kidding 
democratic nations of the world, we could simply do what our own 
individual governments do, but on a mutually benefitting scale: protect 
against evil, uphold justice against those committing wrong to others, 
promote what benefits society, and deter what harms it. Those standing 
against these principles would find themselves on the outside of trade, 
on the outside of diplomacy, on the outside of military security, and 
they would be unable to leverage our freedoms and use them against us.
  Ask yourself these questions:
  Is a superior economy better in the hands of those that would protect 
intellectual and physical property or with those who do not?
  Are diplomatic alliances better made with those that respect the rule 
of law and national sovereignty or with those who do not?
  Is the sharing of information better exchanged with those who use 
knowledge to promote good, empower, and entrust their own citizens with 
the free-flowing press or with those who use it to take away those 
things?
  Is superior military might better in the hands of those that promote 
the value of life and individual liberty, or is it better in the hands 
of those who do not?
  Is the existence of a collective superior strength better in the 
hands of partners using their force for good or in the hands of those 
who will use it to usurp, suppress, and oppress?
  The ingredients of a federation for freedom are all around us. Like 
it or

[[Page H5142]]

not, the United States may be the only nation with the resources to 
lead such an effort as it accidently found itself in the last century.
  For those rejecting such a notion that America must lead, I am 
reminded of Obadiah 11, where it says: ``On the day you stood aloof . . 
. you became as one of them.''
  We can no more abrogate our mantle of leadership of the free world 
than the free world can wish for a global construct absent American 
security and economy. What remains is to ditch the notion that the 
United States is somehow a force for bad in the world and that we need 
to recede our position.
  We must ditch the notion that the United States violates human rights 
rather than is foremost in securing human rights globally, and we must 
abandon the premise that we have no right to lead on the ideals with 
which we have governed ourselves since 1789. We know no other path. It 
is in our DNA.
  If the United States were to lead and form a federation of freedom, 
we would have the commercial development to create competitive markets 
and unite in mutually beneficial innovative advancements. We would have 
the diplomatic strength to unite on human rights. We would have the 
ability to promote underdeveloped nations with the skills and structure 
necessary through our cultural exchanges and our institutions of higher 
learning, while exchanging the same through our partners.
  We would have the collective strength to protect shipping lanes and 
ward off those wishing to usurp free trade or pirate the commerce as it 
passes by, and we would have the collective strength to withstand the 
most active of coercive actors. We would be a beacon for those wishing 
to find their way into such a federation rather than falling subject to 
coercive friends and neighbors wishing to enslave others into an 
authoritarian future.

                              {time}  1730

  What of the federation? What would these nations look like. How about 
this: 7 of the G7; 16 of the G20, and 75 nations, whose democratic 
index places them high enough on the list to maintain a government 
ruled by their own people as they secure their liberty.
  A federation of freedom nations would have this in common: free 
elections, respect for the rule of law, basic human rights, stable 
economics, a free economy united in free trade among federation 
members, protections for intellectual and private property, and open 
arms for cultural and educational exchange. The good news is much of 
this exists, it is just not organized and it is not led.
  To our authoritarian competitors, or worse, the pariah states of the 
globe, here is a simple truth: History has shown that our historical 
enemies do not have to be our future enemies. However, one thing is 
certain: Our future enemies will continue to be those that are opposite 
of the ideals that formed our American mindset for freedom and liberty, 
whether we want to recognize that as the American people or not.
  So to the American people, I urge you to call on this Congress to 
support such a federation.
  To the President, I say, Mr. President, this could not only be your 
moment, but it could be what the freedom-loving people of the world 
hope you would be in a leader. Organize and lead such a federation.
  The concept is simple; its execution most difficult. Its reward: 
prosperity and security on a grand scale.
  And let the world be assured, despite mixed signals, spurtive 
advancements or setbacks, the habits of the American people still offer 
hope because of how we govern ourselves. To our enemies, that hope 
should also offer warning.
  Let us, therefore, embark with such democratic like-minded nations to 
secure such a federation.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________