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David French

@DavidAFrench

6 Oct

https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1445758241141444612

Quick thread. Cut through all Dinesh's mockery (which is not an argument), and he makes my point for me. He exaggerates the national divide and ignores the empirical, well-documented evidence that Americans do have deeply mistaken beliefs about each other. /1

https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/1445758241141444612

He also doubles down on his Tiananmen Square/January 6th analogy (though conceding that not as many people died on 1/6) and decries a government crackdown and "mass censorship," even as he tweets, unironically, to almost two million followers. /2

My core point in my piece was that people like Dinesh use hyperbole to exaggerate divisions, which increases American anxiety and anger. He in fact does precisely that in this clip. But my point that Americans hold mistaken beliefs about each other is documented and true. /3

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David French

@DavidAFrench

10 Sep

I'm not seeing a lot of threads diving into the constitutionality of the proposed Biden OSHA vaccine mandate. So here's a general overview (it's Twitter, so it will be basic-more details upcoming in podcasts and in print). /1

Vaccine mandates are both common and constitutional, when implemented by proper authorities. There is SCOTUS authority on this dating back more than 100 years, and that same authority has been cited to support COVID restrictions during this pandemic. /2

However, the authority issue is key. As we've seen from the start of the pandemic, governors/state legislatures possess far more power to order lockdowns/masking/vaccines than the federal government. I explained why all the way back in March 2020 /3 thedispatch.com/p/the-police-p…

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David French

@DavidAFrench

9 Jul

@kmele

You want more discussion of CRT laws? Well, you'll get more discussion of CRT laws. My oped Sunday with @kmele, @thomaschattwill, and @jasonintrator generated a lot of critique, but then I noticed something. See if you notice it also /1 frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/even-the-def…

In his thoughtful critique of the oped, Stanley Kurtz says this about the TX law: "This phrasing could potentially prevent even discussion of the various concepts, which would indeed run afoul of our culture of free expression, despite being legally permissible." /2

In his critique, my friend Rich Lowry also says the same Texas law is allegedly “going to get a scrub in the Texas special session” and says “it’s totally legitimate to worry about the wording of the laws." /3

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David French

@DavidAFrench

13 Jun

It’s wrong to frame the Baptist battle as a fight between “true conservatives” versus the “woke.” The battle isn’t left versus right. Instead, it’s over much more elemental concerns, including truth, transparency, corruption, and—ultimately—character. frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/character-is…

For example, there are good-faith arguments to be had about the best institutional methods of dealing with sex abuse. Calling victims “whores” or “crazy” is not among those methods. Nor is describing victim advocates as instruments of a “Satanic scheme.”

When leaders lament, however, that the wrong side won the Civil War or claim that only armed citizens will save cities from “black people,” they do not assure America that the nation’s largest, most powerful denomination has decisively rejected a shameful past.

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David French

@DavidAFrench

11 Jun

A thread on the folly of the anti-CRT bills and the danger of banning ideas. First, let's get one thing perfectly straight. Not one of the anti-CRT bills I've read bans Critical Race Theory. Not one. So right from the start the public is sold a bill of goods. /1

The bills are typically crafted in such a way that they're both over-inclusive and under-inclusive. For example, is this TN provision "banning CRT"? Nope. It's prohibition would sweep up even a teacher critiquing communism (a "creed"). /2

Moreover, because the language of the statutes is so broad and vague, it will leave teachers, parents, and students deeply confused about their scope. Prepare for complaints whenever parents/students simply feel offended or uncomfortable. /3

Read 10 tweets

David French

@DavidAFrench

15 May

Quick law of war thread: The use of an otherwise-civilian building for military purposes converts it into a military target. This is a basic aspect of the law of war. The blame for the attack on the target thus rests with the entity that converted it into a military target. /1

This was a constant problem for us in Iraq—particularly the use of mosques for military purposes. Al Qaeda would use the mosques to plan ops, they’d sometimes place snipers in mosques. Sometimes they’d trigger ambushes from mosques. /2

The goal was to create a win/win. If we used restraint, they had a safe haven. If we raided the location, they’d claim we were persecuting Islam and would try to use it as a recruiting tool. In response we’d often let Iraqi troops take the lead in mosque operations. /3

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