A Synopsis of some of my observations at the August 10th, 2019 Florida League of the South State Conference in Lake City.
Approximately half of the members of the Panhandle Chapter of the FLS attended the conference, so we ourselves were well-represented. Several of our chapter members spent quite some time distributing literature announcing this conference, and there were many announcements in social media as well. Surely members in other chapters were also doing those things. How effective our distribution methods were is difficult to tell, but it was not apparent that any of the attendees had heard about the conference through pamphlet distributions.
So certain local Florida newspapers picked up the news and created a narrative that the “racists” who were at Charlottesville were meeting in Lake City. This attracted local Antifa and Black Lives Matter degenerates to come and protest our presence, as if our conference had anything to do with them in the first place. They pasted notices all over the windows of local businesses, and the building we had procured for the conference was also vandalized the night before, as well as the vehicle which belonged to the building’s property manage.
As it turned out, the property manager was Hispanic, so evidently the vandals must be racists. The vandals cut the lines to the air conditioning, but they cut the wrong lines as there are two different zones in the building, so conference attendees sat in comfort throughout the next day. There is very little that Leftists can do right, otherwise they might be gainfully employed.
The Florida League of the South had invited a speaker from outside, a lawyer and former prosecutor who calls herself a “Constitutional Educator” and teaches groups who want to hear her on the Constitution. Her name is KrisAnne Hall, she has delivered her message rather indiscriminately to political groups, churches, legislators, lawyers, law enforcement and other groups, and she also has a website and a podcast where she lectures almost daily. While Ms. Hall seems to be willing to bring her message to any group, the local newspapers branded her as a racist simply for talking to ours. This compelled Ms. Hall to make an address refuting the charge, where she admitted that her husband was a Negro, and she has an adopted child that is Mexican. One of her bodyguards was Asian in appearance and I later learned that he was Samoan. No matter what we may think of Krisanne Hall, she is anything but a racist, and it seems that the local newspapers, which are also biased towards the Leftists, make claims without any prior investigation.
As we arrived at the conference location around 8:40 AM, there was already a collection of degenerates stationed across the street protesting our presence, and making as much noise as they could. Quite fortunately, they could not be heard within the building, and across the broad roadway their screams and chants were indistinguishable. So to us their presence was virtually meaningless, except that our organization had to provide its own security. Police presence was minimal. The Florida League of the South has convened often in Lake City and has never caused its citizens any harm or trouble.
After an excellent commencement by FLS charman Michael Tubbs, who acted as the event host, the first speaker was Krisanne Hall. Ms. Hall spoke for nearly an hour and a half, and everything she said about the Constitution was fine, but sadly it was not far beyond what most Americans should have learned in a high school history or civics class, yet do not seem to be aware of as adults. The Florida League of the South had hoped that she would advocate more strongly in favor of secession, or at least raise awareness of the right of secession, however she did not even mention the possibility. She also omitted from her lecture any mention of the Preamble to the Constitution, which is the most important part of the document.
Even at Wikipedia we read that “A preamble is an introductory and expressionary statement in a document that explains the document’s purpose and underlying philosophy.” The Constitution itself says that it is meant to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”, which would exclude many of the so-called citizens of the current United States, and all non-Whites. Ms. Hall, being married to a Negro and having a Mexican child, evidently cannot teach the meaning of the preamble without denying her own family.
Ms. Hall professes the concept that if Americans held the government to the Constitution, that they would have liberty. She does well to explain that liberty is not only freedom, but freedom accompanied by morality, and we as Christians would certainly agree. She also correctly professes the fact that each State that is a party to the Constitution is a sovereign State and an independent nation in its own right, and that the Constitution does not change that fact, but rather maintains it.
But there she misses, or perhaps ignores, the fact that in 1860 the Southern States were exercising their rights as sovereign States, and for that they were invaded, defeated and conquered at gunpoint by the States of the North under the guise of the federal government. Therefore, merely asserting our Constitutional rights, even at a Statewide level across eleven States at once, or perhaps thirteen, is not going to liberate us from the tyranny of federalism that was created under the Constitution, regardless of whether or not federalism is constitutional. The fears of 18th century anti-federalists had all materialized into reality within 70 years of the ratification of the document.
The Florida League of the South had hoped that residents of our State would be drawn to hear Ms. Hall’s message and realize the possibility of our goal, which is liberty from federal tyranny for Florida and for all of the States of the South. If there is anything good in Ms. Hall’s message, it is perhaps that she may awaken some of her listeners to the concept that each State is indeed a sovereign nation, and that realization is a necessary first step in the process to secession. But as it was in 1860, the path to liberty may not be trodden without bloodshed.
Following Ms. Hall were speeches by League of the South Chief of Operations Ike Baker and President Michael Hill. Both men asserted the right of the Southern people to self-determination, to maintain their distinct ethnic identity and the customs of their ancestors, and both also upheld other ideals espoused by the League as well as providing background into past League activities and experiences. I need not discuss the details of their speeches here, but Ike Baker’s speech is below. Hopefully Dr. Hill’s will be available on League websites soon, and once they are I will include them here.
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The conference ended at 2 PM while League members returned for a Florida League of the South business meeting after dinner. As we left, the motley group of protestors across the street were still shouting at us, but they also left a short time later. Throughout the day, we sat in comfort and hardly noticed their presence, while they carried on foolishly, sweating in the hot Florida sun. The details of the business meeting will not be published here, except for what follows.
The Panhandle Chapter would like to express its gratitude to the Florida League of the South for recognizing our efforts by rewarding us with its Madison Starke Perry Award of Excellence “For active and aggressive promotion of the cause of Southern independence in the State of Florida”. Now I can only exhort our chapter members to live up to that ideal which the award expresses.
William Finck,
Chairman, Panhandle Chapter of the Florida League of the South
The opinions expressed here are my own as chairman of this chapter, and are not necessarily held by the Florida League of the South or by the National organization.