David French: The Cruelty Is The Point

David French set off a firestorm by writing a column yesterday about social media censorship and complaining that conservatives are who are angry about it are a bunch of grossly entitled whiners.

There’s something grossly entitled about claiming you should have government-mandated access to a social media platform you didn’t create, maintained by people you oppose, and that you should have that access for free. Against government intervention: https://t.co/rmmkJPs8XU

— David French (@DavidAFrench) June 6, 2019

French knew exactly what he was doing.

He knew how upset thousands of independent content creators were on YouTube about being demonetized and having their content arbitrarily purged in the latest round of corporate censorship. While Steven Crowder was on Twitter and Tucker Carlson was on FOX News last night trying to rally the internet against the censorship, French deliberately inserted himself into the fray to take the side of Silicon Valley oligarchs on behalf of the “eternal principles” of True Conservatism.

David French:

“But they’re not — not by a long shot. Donald Trump’s personal pugilism has been adopted, refined, and magnified by a legion of his supporters, and these individuals live to inflict misery. They don’t care to win an argument. They don’t care to persuade. They want to harass and swarm and mock in a carnival fun-house imitation of the online mobs generated by the woke social-justice left.

I experienced this reality (again) over the course of the last week. When Sohrab Ahmari wrote his now-famous (at least in conservative circles) essay called “Against David French-ism,” he made three core points. Politics is “war and enmity,” “civility and decency are secondary values,” and the right should fight the culture war “with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.” After reading his essay, a number of people asked, “But what does that look like. What do you mean when you make the case for enmity and against civility?” …

It’s for this reason that writers miss something fundamental when they begin their own discussion of the issues by “setting aside the personal attacks.” In this brave new political world, personal attacks are indispensable. A discussion of only ideas represents exactly the kind of politics the pugilists now abhor. It’s a time of “enmity,” remember? This is the illiberal right in action, and if you think it’s kinder, gentler, or better than the illiberal left, I’d suggest you spend a few days in its crosshairs.

But it’s all for the sake of the “Highest Good,” right? And if they have to create a straw man so that a real man can serve (again) as a hate object for the gutter right, then so be it. But when does the cruelty end? After all, they’ve mapped out a goal for the culture war that they cannot possibly achieve. Thus, the commitment to enmity is indefinite, and its indecency is perpetual. The illiberal right will snarl its way into oblivion. Let’s pray that the collateral damage from their inevitable demise is not too great.”

Now, look at him: curled up into a ball and wrist flapping to the media about how he is the true victim of the snarling “gutter right” in all this. It is so unfair that all of these angry people are just being “cruel” to him again for no reason at all. Why don’t the peasants just kindly and gently allow themselves to get f***ed for the sake of French’s “eternal principles”?