Response to Mark Vogl

Texas

Here’s the link to the SNN podcast with Mark Vogl about how the Southern movement ought to be based on anti-slavery and anti-racism.

My thoughts:

Slavery

1.) Slavery is the only reason a single African-American was ever brought to the South. That’s because slave labor was the only compelling argument that ever justified their presence here.

2.) The average single black woman in 2012 has a net worth of $5 dollars. That’s over a 99 percent depreciation since 1861.

3.) After 147 years of free society, the average negro household has a net worth of $2,100. That’s also over a 95 percent decline since 1861.

4.) With the stroke of a pen, the Emancipation Proclamation transformed America’s black population from an economic asset worth more than all of its banks, railroads, and factories combined into its single biggest economic albatross.

5.) The Mississippi Valley used to be one of the richest parts of America. Now it is the poorest region in America thanks to the abolition of slavery.

6.) Economically speaking, abolition was an unmitigated catastrophe that plunged the South – slaveholders and non-slaveholders alike – into generations of poverty that only began to subside almost a century later due to war related military spending.

7.) Seeing as how no one is calling for the restoration of slavery (2 percent of the population works in agriculture today, 98 percent of them are White), there is no rational argument for the continued presence (now that the slavery argument is gone) of such a large population of free negroes on our soil.

Ethnicity

1.) The idea that African-Americans and White Southerners are the same people is a romantic fantasy that has utterly no basis in fact.

56 percent of blacks live in the South. 46 percent of them live in the North and West. Blacks are a distinct ethnic group with a strong racial identity who nurse historical grievances against White Southerners.

2.) The Southern movement appeals exclusively to a handful of black eccentrics. There are outliers in every community. These people will always be regarded as race traitors in the black community.

3.) Blacks have made their hostile attitude toward the Confederacy plainly clear on numerous occasions.

4.) Paying H.K. Edgerton thousands of dollars to speak and sing at Southern heritage events accomplished nothing other than projecting an image of weakness that invited further aggression against Southern heritage.

5.) Fantasies of “Black Confederates” aside, the only people who have a stake in preserving Confederate heritage are the descendants of real Confederates, which is to say, the traditional White Anglo-Celtic population of the South.

6.) Far from being the same people, there is probably no greater example of racial and ethnic polarization in America than the gulf between White Southerners and African-Americans.

White Southerners have far more in common with White Northerners than with African-Americans. Even the Whites of Vermont are objectively less polarized against us!

7.) As a matter of fact, the only people who actually do take an interest in preserving Southern heritage are our own people – not counting the smattering of black eccentrics who are used as props to “prove” the South is not racist.

8.) Vogl is right that his generation has presided over the delegitimization of the South on the grounds of “anti-racism” and “anti-slavery” – and affirming those counterculture values will only further delegitimize the South and make the situation worse than it is now.

9.) African-Americans won’t even support the GOP. Isn’t it a stretch to say they would ever take an interest in Southern nationalism?

10.) White Southerners are a distinct European people of predominantly British descent – a sub-nation with a shared history, culture, and ancestry – and we will survive or perish on that basis.

Racism

1.) The term “racism” made its debut in America in an anti-fascist pamphlet in the 1930s. It was unknown to the ancients whether Christian or otherwise.

2.) “Racism” is a cockamamie sin created by European leftists. Other examples include homophobia, nativism, and sexism.

3.) Jesus himself said nothing about “racism.” The church fathers and the writers of the gospels said nothing about “racism.” The idea that racial prejudice is immoral isn’t found anywhere in the Bible or in the Christian tradition until well into the twentieth century.

4.) Needless to say, “anti-racism” couldn’t be more opposed to the traditions of the Old South which was violently opposed to social equality.

5.) Neither Greeks or Romans or their Medieval successors or even most modern philosophers up to the twentieth century associated “racism” with immorality.

6.) It is fairly clear that the crusade against “racism” has its origins among Christian heretics like the Quakers and Unitarians, radical leftwing Jewry, and international communism.

7.) The idea that “racism” is synonymous with immorality is about as old as Rock ‘n Roll. It was gaining currency around the time that Elvis was becoming popular.

8.) A much more plausible theory is that anti-racism is just another stupid fad like disco or hip hop propagated by television in twentieth century America.

9.) Racial differences exist. Blacks are not equal to Whites. Vogl would have us believe that God himself created the humans races, but considers it a “sin” to acknowledge their existence, even though the idea was unknown to Jesus and the church fathers.

10.) In the podcast, Vogl compares “racism” to adultery – hey, that’s revising the Ten Commandments. Are modern American Baby Boomers smarter than God?

11.) The people who want to participate in the struggle against “racism” can join the Democratic Party or send a contribution to the SPLC. Better yet, they can join the Republican Party and continue trying to “prove” they are not racist.

12.) There seems to be a pretty strong correlation between “anti-racism” and hating the South and hating Confederate heritage – so obviously, the South’s own advocates should embrace this cultural disease in the vain hope that it will cease to be a life threatening condition.

13.) Nasty old racists like Thomas Dixon, Margaret Mitchell, and Pitchfork Ben Tillman succeeded in preserving Confederate heritage whereas their anti-racist successors like Connie Chastain completely failed.

History

1.) The Confederacy really was based on the defense of slavery and white supremacy.

2.) The myth of Black Confederates has been debunked by historians and its perpetuation brings the Southern movement into disrepute.

3.) The U.S. Colored Troops were very real. What percentage of the black population fought for the Union?

4.) If slavery was so popular among blacks, why don’t they clamor for its restoration?

5.) Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens both described slavery as the immediate cause of disunion.

6.) The South was a “racist” society for three centuries. Is it really wise for defenders of the South to argue that our whole civilization was based on sin and immorality?

7.) Vogl is arguing from a position to the left of Andrew Johnson and even the most extreme scalawags.

Christianity

1.) Michael has already pointed out that Jesus and the church fathers were familiar with slavery and never felt compelled to condemn the institution.

2.) If anything is true, the Bible seems to affirm slavery. Much of Greco-Roman philosophy also explicitly affirms slavery. As far as our ancestors knew, slavery was morally legitimate

3.) “Racism” wasn’t an issue during Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The term “racism” didn’t exist until the twentieth century. The majority of White Americans didn’t consider “racism” or “racial prejudice” morally problematic until after the Second World War.

4.) As for Adam and Eve, I seem to recall the story of the “fall” being in there somewhere. It is central to the story.

5.) In the 1990s, the Southern Baptist Convention discovered that “racism” was a sin. If this was always so obvious, why did it take so long? Maybe Christians are just trying to accommodate fashionable secular trends in American popular culture.

Practical Politics

1.) The internet is a free market of opinion: the anti-racist faction of the Southern movement is free to make its case on the basis of anti-racism and anti-slavery, but the racialist and pro-slavery faction is also free to compete with that position – I predict the latter will win the contest in the long run.

2.) Why would anyone want to secede from the Union who supports BRA? Why go through all the trouble?

3.) The anti-racist faction of Southern nationalism pitched their tent a long time ago. What do they have to show for all those H.K. Edgerton rallies? What do they have to show for parading around with black eccentrics to “prove” they are not racists? What do they have to show for all their Black Confederate research?

4.) I suppose the idea was to gain “mainstream credibility” or “respectability” … well, if that was the case, then the “mainstream” must not have been paying attention because they are just as marginalized as ever before.

5.) The NAACP continues to attack them. The media hasn’t stopped attacking them. These “Southern heritage activists” continue to lose battles like Lexington or Caddo Parish in spite of their full throated embrace of BRA.

6.) According to the MSM, the Tea Party is racist. The Republican Party is racist. Rush Limbaugh is a racist. Guess what? If you disagree with progressives, then you will be labeled and smeared as a racist.

7.) Isn’t it strange how the Baby Boomers who embraced anti-racism are the only generation who has failed to preserve our heritage? Why should we follow their failed example?

8.) What this really all boils down to is pandering to fashionable nonsense about race (the SN equivalent of churches embracing gay marriage and female clergy) in the hope that it will marginally improve the receptivity of the public to Southern nationalism.

It doesn’t. The result is more like deafening silence because it offers no compelling reason for anyone to abandon the dominant, safe, race blind “mainstream” conservatism and voting for the GOP.

9.) Because of the errors of the previous generation who bet the house on “mainstream” conservatism, we have lost control of our culture. Accommodating the dominant American culture will expedite the demise of Southern culture.

10.) The public knows a weak horse when they see it. They will back the strong horse.