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While barely stopping to catch his breath, Iowa Rep. Steve King took to the floor of the House on Thursday to present his understanding of Western civilization, in the hopes that he might convince his colleagues to embrace rationalism and a willingness to admit error. More specifically, it was about how he was right when he said that cantaloupe-calved drug smugglers are generally representative of the Mexican people. If King's goal was to offset critique from House Speaker John Boehner that his comments on immigration were "ignorant," today's overview of history and international migration probably wasn't a good counterpoint.

Again, here is what King said to Newsmax in a recent interview: "For [every Mexican immigrant] who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

And here is how he summarized his point on the House floor today:

"No nation like the United States of America can continue to grow and be a strong nation if we are going to judge people because they disagree with our agenda rather than the content of their statements. We have to be critical thinkers. We have to be analytical. We should understand facts from emotion."

In order to prove that America is founded on the sort of rationality that King embraces, he spent about 10 minutes walking through the History of Western Civilization (As Recalled By Steve King).