Alachua County Commission Votes To Remove “Old Joe” Confederate Monument

The Alachua County Commission voted this evening to remove the “Old Joe” Confederate monument and donate it to the United Daughters of the Confederacy:

“The Confederate statue in downtown Gainesville commonly known as “Old Joe” will have a chance to become the property of the group that installed it more than 100 years ago.

The Alachua County Commission voted 4-1 Tuesday, with Commissioner Lee Pinkoson voting no, to donate the statue to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the group that had the statue built in 1904. The commission also voted to replace the statue with a piece of art that “represents the shared values” of Alachua County residents.

The commission will give the United Daughters of the Confederacy 60 days to decide if it wants the statue, and the group would have to pay for its removal. …”

This doesn’t come as a surprise. The Alachua County Commission voted to remove the monument in September 2015. The issue has been in limbo ever since due to the cost of moving the monument to a new location. Last month, it sparked a “Rally Against Racism.”

Yesterday, there was a big rally in Gainesville about the “Old Joe” Confederate monument because the Alachua County Commission was voting on issue:

I didn’t know this was an SCV rally. I was invited to this event by some League of the South members. We held a rally to support that monument in 2015 after the initial calls to take it down. Since there was no way I could be there on a Tuesday, I promoted the event on Twitter.

Here is a brief rundown of who showed up in Gainesville:

Gainesville Antifa

Antifa are ideologically motivated communists and anarchists. Among other things, they are anti-White, anti-Southern and anti-Christian. They are anti-state, anti-police and anti-capitalism. Antifa believe in using violence to negate the constitutional rights of their enemies.

I’m not sure how many of them actually showed up, but there were a few there in Gainesville. Obviously, they didn’t feel confident enough about their numbers to form a Black Bloc and attempt to shut the event down. I saw one antifa flag and a Wobblie flag in the livestreams of the crowd. I’ve seen reports that antifa spent the day harassing and spitting on several female Rainbows.

Phillip Dalton, who was reportedly wearing some kind of antifa fight club t-shirt, was arrested for spitting. He claims to be a prep cook at The TOP which is a restaurant in Gainesville.

Black Lives Matter

We know that Black Lives Matter was there. Feel free to read through their official platform. They are explicitly a black power group. They talk about black colleges and universities, black media and black political activity all as a means to black self-determination, etc.

Alachua County Peace Coalition

This is the local SJW group that has spearheaded the effort to remove “Old Joe” from downtown Gainesville. They are militant champions of political correctness. According to this crowd, Confederate monuments represent the shameful legacy of racism, slavery, white supremacy and treason. They are “participation trophies” for losers and taking them down is “progress.”

These people have an interesting worldview. They claim to be against “hate,” but notice that they have no problem dropping racial and ethnic slurs like redneck, white trash, hillbilly, etc. They are happy to stand beside their antifa allies who are so hateful that they spit on women. They stand beside antifa and Black Lives Matter activists who openly say they hate police officers.

SJWs are against “hate,” racism, bigotry, violence and so forth as long as the targets are certain protected classes like blacks and LGBTs. When these things are directed at our community, it is social justice. It is “woke” to vandalize a Confederate monument, but a “hate crime” to vandalize a MLK monument. Black Lives Matter can riot and burn down cities and it is nothing to get upset about.

Rainbows

The Rainbows are Southern heritage activists. At the same time, they identify as modern Americans. They are civic nationalists who believe that the contemporary United States, as well as the historical Confederacy, was a multiracial and multicultural rainbow of ethnicities. For the Rainbows, the Confederate monuments are “American history” and should be preserved for that reason.

Rainbows are eager to tell you about Black Confederates, Hispanic Confederates, Jewish Confederates, Asian Confederates, etc. They aren’t racists or white supremacists. The historical Confederacy wasn’t about those things either. They are eager to prove to you that they are tolerant and multicultural Americans. Basically, they are people who like the trappings of the Confederacy like the Confederate monuments, the Confederate uniforms, plantations and other aspects of their “heritage,” but who are either ignorant or uncomfortable with the substance of their Southern heritage.

Patriots

The Patriots were well represented in Gainesville.

I watched their livestreams and listened to what they had to say. It seems like we are seeing them all the time now. American Warrior Revolution was in New Orleans, Hot Springs and Orlando. They are showing up at all of the Southern heritage events now and doing Facebook livestreams.

The Patriots are American civic nationalists. They claim to be neutral peacekeepers who are there to support the constitutional rights of free assembly and free speech. The Patriots agree with the Rainbows that the Confederate monuments should be preserved because they are “American history.” They are also in agreement with the Rainbows about the need for “unity.”

As I watched the Patriot livestreams, I kept hearing the word “unity” over and over again. They were covering a spectacle which is “coming to your community.” The Patriots repeatedly engaged with the antifas, Black Lives Matter and SJW crowd and attempted to sell them on “unity.”

Southern Nationalists

From the perspective of the Rainbows and Patriots, I suppose we are “the real racists.”

Southern Nationalists agree with the Rainbows and Patriots that the Confederate monuments ought to be preserved, but for very different reasons. We are identitarian ethnonationalists who believe that the South was right to secede from the United States and ought to do so again.

As ethnonationalists, we believe that White Southerners are a distinct ethnic group within the United States who share a common ancestry, culture, religion, history and interests. These Confederate monuments were erected to honor our forefathers who fought and died for the cause of Southern independence. The people who are attacking these monuments are attacking our identity which is part of a broader genocidal campaign to wipe us as a people in our homeland.

Whereas the Patriots are motivated by constitutionalism, Southern Nationalists are motivated by a sense of honor. This isn’t about “free speech” to us. It is about our “fellow Americans” who are vandalizing our monuments and disrespecting and dishonoring our dead ancestors. We don’t believe in “unity” with these people who we have nothing in common with and who are the scum of the earth.

Rainbows and Patriots are proud Americans. They want to believe that all races, all ethnic groups, all cultures can get along in this multiracial and multicultural Babylon called the United States. Southern Nationalists look at America and see nothing but interminable ethnic conflict under the umbrella of a rapidly fraying civic nationalism. We don’t see the United States as something to be patriotic about or the Constitution as something under which we can unite, but rather as something that we fear because we are rapidly becoming a minority in a liberal democracy populated by total aliens.

In Charlottesville and Gainesville, we see Democratic-leaning college towns trying to remove Confederate monuments. In New Orleans, St. Louis and Orlando, we see Democratic-leaning urban centers removing Confederate monuments. The common denominator in all of these cases is 1.) liberal democracy and 2.) non-White or non-Southern transplant political majorities.

The fact that this is even happening is proof of three things:

1.) As Southern Nationalists have argued, it turns out racial, ethnic and cultural identity matters a great deal. It is almost always the decisive factor.

2.) As Southern Nationalists have argued, it turns outs racial, ethnic and cultural diversity is a source of conflict rather than strength or harmony.

3.) As Southern Nationalists have argued, it turns out that constitutionalism is vacuous and simply expedites the removal of Confederate monuments.

The recent passage of a monuments protection bill in Alabama is instructive for a number of reasons. In Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina, Confederate monuments can only be removed locally with statewide approval. This is further proof that racial, ethnic and cultural demography is the decisive issue. The Rainbows and Patriots hanging their hopes on appealing to state legislatures to pass monument protection bills are appealing to statewide majorities of ethnic White Southerners.

These Confederate monuments were erected by our ancestors in the late 19th/early 20th century. They were erected at a time of unparalleled political and cultural solidarity among the Southern people. Back then, we shared a common ancestry, language, culture, religion, history and memory. The men and women who erected those monuments had a strong sense of racial, cultural and ethnic identity. After the ordeal of the War Between the States and Reconstruction, that generation was acutely aware of who was “us” and who was “them” and was determined to rule themselves in their own lands.

We lost that sense of ourselves in the last generation after the Civil Rights Movement. We can’t lose our culture and identity and expect to preserve our heritage with appeals to constitutionalism and kumbaya multiculturalism. As we saw in Manchester, civic nationalism and multiculturalism are no substitute for the points of solidarity that made us one people in the past.

Is that racism? Is that white supremacy? I honestly don’t care. I think of it as realism. Gainesville is the latest proof that liberal democracy and constitutionalism are simply the means to destroy our heritage. It is the latest proof demographics, identity and social cohesion are of decisive importance. We’re not going to live in peace and harmony with Black Lives Matter, SJWs and Antifas.