Shots Fired: Sam Francis on America's Culture War

"The late Sam Francis (1947-2005) was a lion of what he called the real Right--those who, besides advocating limited government, states' rights, separation of powers, popular traditions, and the Bill of Rights, believe the U.S. is an organic product of Western European culture, not an artifice founded on some airy proposition (e.g., "All men are created equal"). Accordingly, he deplored massive immigration, multiculturalism, and minority special pleading. If he'd ever been an ardent Republican, the party's uncritical free-trade globalism, inattention to conservative issues, and relentless expansion of government made him one of its most furious critics. He came to see Republican conservatism as ignorant and unprincipled, and its cooption by contemporary neoconservatives as so much liberal subversion. He cogently and wittily held forth on all this in a syndicated column as well as carefully argued, informative, and impressively erudite speeches and journal articles. The examples of the latter included here afford eye-opening perspectives on civil disobedience, the Religious Right, the Second Amendment, egalitarianism, cultural symbols, cultural elites, and more. Invaluable political cogitation." Ray Olson