Threats Facing Conservative Speech

Floor Speech

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Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Ken Buck, a leading voice on demanding accountability from Big Tech and big media, for bringing us together tonight.

I am here to speak against the censorship of conservative outlets by AT&T and DIRECTV.

On April 16, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., was confined in a Birmingham, Alabama, jail. His crime? Fighting Jim Crow segregation and showing the injustice to the American people through peaceful, nonviolent protest.

He shared his thoughts through a letter titled: ``Letter from Birmingham Jail.'' He gave millions of Americans the opportunity to read the thoughts of reason and one of faith in the Judeo-Christian values upon which our Nation was founded. Dr. King was someone who believed in the innate goodness of American's justice-seeking heart.

He stated in that letter: ``Injustice anywhere in this country is injustice everywhere.''

We see injustice in the canceling of conservative voices by board members and executives who cowardly hide in secret behind closed doors, using the power granted to them through the corporate name built by other American-loving business leaders. AT&T and DIRECTV have in the last 2 years deplatformed two very prominent and successful conservative platforms, OAN and Newsmax.

The cancel culture is driven by the insecure, the weak, and the intellectually lazy who work in the shadows to control the American heart. This is because they feel inept and unable through meritocracy to compete and change the American heart.

We are standing in Congress today to fight against injustice. It is an injustice that literally threatens our freedom. The power brokers of the early 1900s focused on controlling the marketplace of property, wealth, and industry. Today's power brokers are focused on controlling the marketplace of thoughts, ideas, and communication. In doing so, they steal the American people's opportunity for unity.

There will never be American unity without the freedom of speech, to be heard, and our thoughts to be judged by one another.

Ignorant and free can never be. Those who seek to keep us ignorant, regardless of how powerful and popular they are, are not the friends of freedom. They are not friends of the American way.

I call on all Americans to join us in this fight against censorship and preserve our freedom.

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