Lawrence Auster, R. I. P.

Lawrence Auster was buried yesterday, Tuesday April 2nd, 2013, in Philadelphia, having passed away peacefully on Good Friday morning in a hospice in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Mercifully, his death brought an end to a long, painful, struggle against the pancreatic cancer that killed him. Alas, it also brought an end to his even longer struggle against the liberalism and progressivism that have been killing the things he loved the most – his country, the United States of America, the Christian faith, and white Western civilization. Other traditionalists will continue the struggle and keep his memory alive but our side is weaker for his loss.


Mr. Auster was a right-wing pioneer in more ways than one. He was one of the earliest voices in the revival of the American immigration restriction movement. In 1965, the American government had passed an Immigration Act which introduced an open door, mass immigration policy, similar to those being introduced by liberal governments throughout the Western world. Public debate of these policies was actively discouraged by liberal media and academic elites, who insisted that the only possible grounds for opposition to such policies was an irrational prejudice against people of other ethnicities and races and branded as “racist” anyone who questioned liberal immigration and the cult of diversity. In the 1990s the opposition to this heavy-handed imposition of manufactured diversity began to organize itself. In 1992, political commentator and former Presidential aide Patrick J. Buchanan sought the Republican nomination in the first of three presidential campaigns in which he ran on a platform of immigration reform. In 1995-1996, major mainstream publishers like Random House, W. W. Norton, and Basic Books put out books by authors like Peter Brimelow, Roy Beck, and Chilton Williamson Jr. which presented intelligent arguments against the liberal position and in favour of a more restrictive immigration policy. Before all of that, however, The Path to National Suicide: An Essay on Immigration and Multiculturalism had appeared, published in 1990 by the American Immigration Control Foundation. The author was Lawrence Auster.

While Mr. Auster’s book was quite short, being a booklet really, of only ninety pages, it was also lucid, intelligent, and straightforward. He directly addressed the central problem with liberal immigration – its corrosive effect upon a nation’s identity and cohesiveness. He followed up The Path To National Suicide with a few other short booklets on immigration, also published by the AICF, and for a short time was allowed to present the case for immigration reform in mainstream conservative publications like National Review, Newsmax, and FrontPageMag. This was not to last, unfortunately, and, like so many other of the most interesting and intelligent voices of the late twentieth century American right, he found that the official organs of movement conservatism were no longer interested in listening to, much less printing, what he had to say.

By that time, however, he had his own outlet for his writings. This was A View From the Right, a weblog founded in April 2002 by James Kalb, who turned it over to Mr. Auster later that year. At VFR, he continued to defy the spirit of the age, speaking tabooed truths about immigration, race, sex, and morality. Yet his work was more than just an expression of unpopular views on controversial topics. He also sought to articulate a traditionalist, conservative, philosophy that was not just a repackaging of an earlier version of liberalism, that did not rest upon a foundation of liberal ideas.

He believed in his country and its political and cultural traditions and in the Christian tradition of Western civilization. Christianity was more to him, however, than just the religion of the civilization he identified with. It was his personal faith as well. Jewish by birth and ethnicity, he recognized his Messiah and was a Christian by faith and practice. He was converted, baptized, and confirmed in the Episcopalian Church and in the last week of his life, was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

He and his insightful commentary on the events of the day will be missed.

Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon him.