Cloture Motion

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I am so grateful we had the opportunity to be on the floor this week and to have a discussion about our Nation's security and how we protect and preserve freedom. I have just a couple of thoughts that I wanted to bring forward as we begin to think about July 4th and Independence Day and how we commemorate that day and do honor to the heritage and the tradition of that day and of the freedoms that we enjoy.

I came across something this week that I think is just so pertinent to our discussions of this week as we focus on freedom. In 1826, a very feeble and old John Adams received a group of Quincy, MA, town leaders. They were seeking his help in planning an anniversary celebration of the Declaration of Independence. They wanted the former President to pen a toast that would be read at the event. Imagine their surprise when what they got from John Adams was two words. The toast that he penned for them was simply this: ``Independence forever.'' It is what we had fought for, what had been won, what people had desired, and their passion--independence.

Keeping that independence is indeed the task. I am certain they wanted something much more ambitious and eloquent, but they simply got the nugget of what centered him and what should center us.

In the Declaration, our Founding Fathers recognized that ``Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes,'' but that true liberty could not thrive in the grasp of tyranny.

Today, freedom reveals itself in the lives and actions of every American, and it is our responsibility to preserve it on the battlefield and through our actions each and every single day.

With every confirmation of a district or a circuit court judge, we preserve an essential right guaranteed by the First Amendment--the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Earlier this month, I introduced a resolution supporting free speech on college campuses because it is beyond distressing to hear students and their professors argue that encouraging the open exchange of ideas amounts to an act of violence. Our Founding Fathers probably never dreamed they would hear of such a thing. This proud hostility toward diversity of thought should serve as a reminder that questions of freedom rarely remain settled.

Last week, famed economist Dr. Art Laffer, who is a beloved Tennessean, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The ``father of supply-side economics'' only became so because he was free to learn and apply the knowledge that he gained to his own groundbreaking work that led to the Laffer curve.

Looking beyond Washington, it is easy to see many more examples of freedom in action each and every day.

Every Tuesday, my friend and fellow Senator, Lamar Alexander, hosts ``Tennessee Tuesday.'' This gives us an opportunity to meet with Tennesseans who have come to Washington. They are students, small businessmen, writers, and teachers. They have a host of talents that they share, and they have been allowed to invest in those talents.

Back home in Nashville, we enjoy the artistry of some of the world's most talented songwriters, singers, and producers. Guess what. In the United States of America, they do not have to go seek permission from any government official to write a song about a broken heart or any other act of injustice that they want to write that song about, sing that song about, or write that screenplay about.

The connections we form with each other--whether it be through art, song, or a conversation at a cash register--all run deep. The thoughts and emotions we experience when confronted with provocative ideas are just as much a celebration of freedom as is a flag-raising ceremony or a fireworks display. This is why the very idea of censorship or a global standard of speech and association rouses immediate dissent.

We know that these collective understandings regarding a particular type of speech or behavior inevitably lead to collective insistence that the problems of the world could be resolved if only we could agree to compromise on the finer points of freedom. Those understandings assume that the intellectual comfort of the many simply must, just this once, override the ideas of the vocal minority.

As we prepare to leave Washington in anticipation of Independence Day, I would encourage my friends in Congress to challenge their own ideas of what freedom looks like. How do they exercise it and enjoy it every day?

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