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David French Profile picture
David French
@DavidAFrench
New York Times columnist, visiting professor @lipscomb, Chautauqua Perry Fellow in Democracy, Iraq vet, married to @NancyAFrench.
32 subscribers
Oct 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I'm leaving Twitter, for the indefinite future. The reason is simple: this site is becoming more like Gab every day. It's a font of hatred, lies, and harassment. And while it's never been great, at least it had its uses. No longer. At least not for me. /1 The constant hatred and malice on this site is bad for the soul. The tsunami of lies and misinformation is bad for the mind. There was a time when Twitter still gave me some value. It helped me find some of the smartest and wisest voices in public life. /2
May 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I’m in Kyiv with an outstanding group, organized by my friends at @Renew_Democracy, and the attack last night was a jolting reminder of two realities. First, the Russians fight gloves-off, while we restrict weapons to Ukraine to keep their gloves on /1 nytimes.com/live/2023/05/1… Think of the international hand-wringing over the mysterious, small, drone attack in Moscow, yet Russians bombard Kyiv with their most potent conventional weapons routinely. But our limits on supplying Ukraine helps Russia preserve its territory as a giant safe haven. /2
Apr 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This is a question I get quite a lot from folks outside the church--why the extreme emphasis on some biblical commands in the public square and an almost total disregard of others?

I propose that we're much more eager to talk about "they" problems than "we" problems. /1 The problems that are rife in the church--porn, adultery, gluttony, and even abuse are often discussed in terms of "struggle" or "brokenness."

Other sins, including lying and cruelty, are excused or overlooked for the sake of an alleged greater good or higher cause. /2
Mar 13, 2023 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Liberty 101, a thread.

Lots of folks on this site don't understand how individual liberty generally works in American law and how it protects dissenters from majoritarian sentiment, including on matters of speech, faith, parents' rights, etc. /1 The common mistake is they take a general proposition like, "No right is unlimited," and then look at existing narrow, recognized limits to liberty and then try to expand them until the exceptions start to swallow the rule. Let's take free speech, for example. /2
Mar 10, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
This is very much worth pondering, from JVL. I've got a few quick thoughts in response. Thread /1 thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/maybe-dont-l… I am 100 percent on-board with much-delayed introduction to the smart phone for teens, but there's also a major collective action problem. As we witnessed with our youngest, there is a social isolation component when you're the last friend without the phone. /2
Feb 18, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Thread: This excellent piece by @asymmetricinfo raises a vitally important point--basic civil liberties cannot be casualties of our culture war. Free speech and parents' rights are bedrock elements of our civil society. Tossing them aside is wrong and dangerous /1 In the absence of actual evidence of abuse, parents are far better equipped to raise their kids than the state. Let's begin, for example, with this basic fact--parents love their children more than the state (and its agents) ever will. /2
Feb 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"While many men demand respect, what they need is purpose, and the quest for respect can sometimes undermine the sense of purpose that will help make them whole." My latest column: nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opi… "Finding happiness in another person’s regard is elusive and contingent. After all, we have little true control over how others perceive or treat us, yet when we’re denied what we demand, we’re often filled with helpless rage." nytimes.com/2023/02/12/opi…
Feb 11, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A thread on why so many Christian voices on this website will absolutely obsess over everything strange or scandalous they see from the left and then turn quite strategically silent (or outright defensive) when scandal is exposed within Evangelicalism. /1 The most powerful reason is simple--pure human nature. All of us instinctively recoil against the ugliness on our own side. We don't want to look at it. We're desperate to see it as isolated as opposed to systemic. I wrote about that tendency here: /2 nytimes.com/2023/02/05/opi…
Feb 3, 2023 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
One thing I've been thinking a lot about since the murder of Tyre Nichols (and since multiple other terrible incidents)--what does it mean to "support" an institution, to be "pro-police" or "pro-military"? I consider myself both pro-police and pro-military, but.../1 if you support institutions, especially essential institutions like the police and military, your job isn't to reflexively defend them but to build them in healthy ways. That includes supporting systems that establish accountability and reinforce integrity. /2
Dec 28, 2022 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
It's apparent from the responses to this tweet that lots of folks are completely unaware of the government speech doctrine--the notion that the government has its own rights as a speaker. (But as I explain in the thread, its rights to speak don't include a right to coerce). /1 I like the way Cornell Law's Legal Information Institute defines the doctrine: "Although the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause limits government regulation of private speech, it does not restrict the government when the government speaks for itself." /2 law.cornell.edu/wex/government…
Dec 27, 2022 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
The Twitter files discussion contains so little nuance because it hasn't distinguished different forms of government power. Lots of folks don't know this, but government actors have their own 1A rights even as they're constrained from violating the 1A rights of others. /1 The government clearly has an interest in correcting misinformation that, for example, led to 300,000+ excess deaths due to vaccine refusal, or misinformation that led to the storming of the Capitol on 1/6. Thus, it makes sense that it would take action in response. /2
Dec 19, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Thread: I really hate to give attention to complete nonsense, but this piece from The Federalist is wildly dishonest. I'll briefly show you how. /1 thefederalist.com/2022/12/19/dav… Here's the key false claim: "David French ... publicly confirmed last week that he’s personally advised Big Tech platforms on how to suppress the speech of people who disagree with leftists." The author is referring to this piece, from last Sunday /2: thedispatch.com/newsletter/fre…
Nov 22, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
So I finally got to closely read this Al Mohler "Parable of David French" (piece link here wng.org/opinions/the-p…), and I'll respond more fully later (to this and a number of other critiques), but I'm weary of straw man attacks. Mohler actually writes this: /1 Image Really? Does he really believe my civil libertarian views undermine *any* stable public morality based on *any* objective moral truths? This is just bizarre stuff. I can point to countless examples of my work that outline "allowable boundaries." /2
Nov 18, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Please read this excellent, comprehensive report by @kateshellnutt about a new lawsuit filed against Kanakuk Kamps. A survivor of sex abuse his challenging his settlement agreement claiming fraud--He says the camp lied to gain his agreement: /1 christianitytoday.com/news/2022/nove… When a sex predator was discovered at the camp, the director allegedly told a victim's dad, "I had no idea. I had never seen anything that caused me concern. I am just as shocked as anyone." But he'd received repeated reports of misconduct, including nudity with young boys. /2
Nov 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Thread. Lots of folks have dunked on this exchange already, but it's a helpful illustration of the complexity of "cancel culture" arguments.

The private companies/individuals who are doing the canceling are engaging in their *own* protected speech and expression. /1 Image That doesn't mean they're right to boycott/cancel, but it does mean they have a right to do it. Indeed, depending on the nature of the speech they're protesting, sometimes they both have a right to cancel and they're right to cancel (see, e.g. Ye's gross anti-Semitism). /2
Oct 31, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is an excellent piece from someone who was, in fact, quite right about many aspects of COVID policy (including opening schools, for example). Critics are forgetting the focus of this piece is that period when we knew so little. There *should* be grace. And if you doubt Emily's credibility on these points, consider a few pieces. Here she is in May 2020: theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Oct 18, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Warning: This is a spoiler-laden extreme nerd thread.

It's about Rings of Power, and the short version is, "All you haters and losers need to get over timeline and story compression and understand the core fidelity to the Tolkien story and ethos."

The longer version is this: /1 The main critiques center around Galadriel and Sauron. "Why is she so different from Galadriel in LOTR? She's impulsive. She's hot-headed. But she's a Noldor, and remember the Silmarillion? She didn't participate in the Kinslaying, but ... /2
Oct 4, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
You lied about my wife, saying she "screwed around with her preacher when she was a teen." She was a 12 year-old victim of pastoral sex abuse. You never apologized.

I did not try to get you fired. I called out your lies.

And I did not call that person's boss. Total fabrication For those who care and want chapter and verse on Kelly's malicious falsehood. This thread has the details:
Sep 15, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
"Another former employee said staffers were also told to avoid referring to incoming President Joe Biden as the 'president-elect' until electoral votes were certified on January 6, 2021, to avoid lending implicit legitimacy to the 2020 election." thedispatch.com/p/partisanship… There are so many damaging details about the Heritage Foundation's descent in this outstanding report by @lawsonreports and @AudreyFahlberg, including this, regarding Tucker Carlson's influence at Heritage: Image
Aug 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Lots of right-leaning folks on this site are very mad about extended school closings in blue cities and lockdowns that extended for too long. I agree! It was too much, and it had real costs. Will those same folks also join in being angry about this? scientificamerican.com/article/people… Or this? One of those 319,000 is a friend I met my first weekend of college. He bought all the right-wing conspiracies about the vaccines. He left behind two kids. It was horrible. I miss him. He was such a good man.
Aug 19, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
The fact that Rufo asks this question demonstrates that he doesn't quite yet understand the interaction between the First Amendment and nondiscrimination law. Here's a short explanation. First, the CRA is aimed at discriminatory conduct, not speech /1 This includes things like prohibiting discriminatory hiring, quid-pro-quo sexual harassment, and the like. But it also includes "hostile environment harassment," but not because of the *viewpoint* of the harassing behavior, but rather because courts recognize . . . /2