Expressing Sense of House Regarding Arizona Shooting

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Our energetic and talented colleague Gabby Giffords was doing what she does so well, the core responsibility of every Member: listening to her constituents in an open public forum. Young and old, Americans of all political philosophies gathered to meet with her.

This is the very type of neighborhood office hours that so many of us hold. I have held many of them throughout central Texas. And this is the very type of accessibility and openness that is fundamental to our democracy and critical to a society that recognizes that change is achieved through ballots, not bullets.

Less than a year ago, another disturbed individual expressed his anger by crashing his airplane into a building in Austin, Texas, that housed IRS employees, causing great death and destruction. Incredibly, a Facebook page was erected quickly in his honor. What I said then I would reemphasize today: We must turn down the volume on hate to discourage more such horrors.

Debate, vigorous debate, is at the very heart of our democracy. Sometimes it is heated and strongly worded. Such strong discourse helps us to set America's course. But violence is not discourse. It debases our democracy. Violence can kill a human being, but it cannot kill the truth. In a free and open market of ideas, truth will ultimately prevail.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life and work we celebrate this very month, ``I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.'' We pray for those lost and the many who still suffer from this great tragedy.

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