Litigation Works! Patriot Conference Going Ahead!
01/23/2020
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If you want to donate to  the American Renaissance legal fund, send a check, money order (or cash!) made out to “American Renaissance” Box 527, Oakton, VA 22124.

American Renaissance is pleased to announce our 18th national conference to be held on the weekend of May 29/31. We have a top-flight lineup of speakers and—thanks to a protracted and bitterly fought legal victory—we will be able to meet in our now-traditional Tennessee location in complete security.

Our roster of exciting speakers includes two Europeans: Renaud Camus (above) and Dries Van Langenhove. Mr. Camus is famous as the Frenchman who coined the phrase “The Great Replacement” to describe what is happening to white populations all around the world. He was an influential author and political writer long before he started writing about immigration, and is a winner of both the Prix Fénéon and the French Academy’s Prix Amic. You can imagine the consternation of French elites when this distinguished man of letters began to write forcefully against the replacement of Europeans.

Mr. Camus lives in Occitanie in southern France in a castle built in 1340. Mr. Camus speaks marvelous English; he wrote his latest book You Will Not Replace Us! in English.

Dries Van Langenhoven is the founder of Belgium’s largest political youth movement, Schild & Vrienden. Here is a short video of the kind of activism his group does.

Last year, Mr. Van Langenhove was elected to the Belgian parliament as its youngest member—as an openly identitarian activist. He is an independent parliamentarian but works closely with the Vlaams Belang, which has been well represented at previous American Renaissance conferences. His participation in our meeting has already provoked outraged news articles in Belgium.

We are, of course, delighted to be welcoming back Peter Brimelow of VDARE.com for his fourth conference appearance for a talk entitled “Trump: Tragedy or Triumph?” The 2020 campaign will be in full swing by then, and we look forward with keen interest to hearing Mr. Brimelow’s views.

Vincent James will be speaking at his first AmRen conference. In the face of stiff anti-identitarian headwinds, Mr. James has built up a following of nearly 300,000 for his Red Elephants YouTube channel and is an increasingly inspiring and influential voice for our people.

Colin Flaherty, noted expert on black crime, will also be joining us for the first time. Mr. Flaherty is best known for hard-hitting titles such as White Girl Bleed a Lot, and Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry. Mr. Flaherty has been relentlessly deplatformed but keeps bouncing back in various formats and at websites.

As host of the conference, I will be speaking on “The Way Forward.” After 30 years of race-realist activism, I believe we are entering a decisive decade, in which white advocacy has the potential to become a serious force in American society and politics—but it all depends on us!

The always popular Sam Dickson is one of the most eloquent and insightful spokesmen for our people. He has more than earned his place as the voice that closes every American Renaissance conference—all the way back to 1994.

We are still filling out our lineup, so you can look forward to several more dynamic speakers.

As I noted earlier, we can meet at the beautiful, state-owned Montgomery Bell conference center—but only because we fought a protracted suit against the state of Tennessee (which has, let the record show, a GOP Governor, Bill Lee, and a GOP-controlled legislature—both houses).

Before every one of our nine conferences there, the Leftist vigilante group Antifa have made wild claims that they would shut us down or “hold the state accountable” for hosting “Nazis.” Every year, bands of scruffies march and holler.

If they could, Antifa would certainly barge into the conference hall and make trouble, but state law enforcement does a wonderful job protecting us. As a police officer dressed in riot gear said to me one year, “Right now, this is probably the safest place in the entire state of Tennessee.”

However, security is expensive, so after eight years of paying for it, the state apparently felt empowered to charge us for part. The park service estimated our share would be $30-$40,000 dollars every year.

Obviously, that’s a price we can’t pay. We explained that if the state tried to make us pay, we would sue. There is clear Supreme Court precedent on this: To charge a group crippling security fees because of the behavior of opponents is called a “hecklers’ veto,” and is unconstitutional.

(Plus, of course, law enforcement has the option of actually punishing those who make this security necessary—some of whom are arrested for misbehavior each year but merely slapped on the wrist—especially when they organize across state lines, as they do. Where is the FBI?).

To our surprise, the state refused to back down. So we sued in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. The case came before Judge Aleta Trauger—let the record show again, a Bill Clinton appointee, who has served on the court since 1998. Kyle Bristow handled our suit with the assistance of Van Irion as local counsel in Tennessee; both men proved to be skillful, reliable litigators.

The state fought to have our case dismissed but Judge Trauger recognized its importance, and ordered discovery.

This is a time-consuming process in which each side can demand documents from the other and take sworn testimony in advance of trial. Of course we got a protective order that barred public disclosure of the names of people who attended the conference. But we went even further: We removed identifying information about attendees from documents we turned over, so the state of Tennessee never even saw their names.

Last September, Judge Trauger issued a summary judgment in our favor, declaring that

assessment of a security fee based on the cost of ensuring the safety of . . . [the conference] and park staff . . . that admittedly takes into account the expected response by protesters in formulating the security plan . . . constitutes an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech.

Judge Trauger even awarded us recovery of most of our attorney’s fees.

We live in terrible times. But (recently a major VDARE.com theme) justice in the courts is still possible—though at a cost of countless staff hours and many thousands of dollars of non-reimbursed legal and travel expenses.

This does, however, mean that we can look forward to using the Tennessee State Park system and, on the basis of this federal precedent, any other government-owned conference venue.

It was a long, exhausting, but vitally necessary, fight.

Come to the conference in May and celebrate this crucial victory with us.

Now, more than ever, we must be able to meet and discuss the challenges we face and how to overcome them.

This will be an unforgettable weekend of inspiration, commitment, and fellowship.

Click here now to join us!

Jared Taylor [Email him] is the editor of American Renaissance. You can follow him on Parler and Gab.

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