David French on Fatherhood

David French:

“When I was 7 years old, my father resigned from his job as a college professor. It was a critical moment in his career and created real financial risk for his young family. But he felt that he was being asked to violate his principles–and nothing was more important to him than a strong moral code.

That bold decision was a model of my father’s approach to raising his kids. Walk your talk. Live your values. Provide for and protect your family. He told me to be kind to women, sure, but I watched him love and honor my mother. He exhorted me to work hard, but the lesson stuck because I saw him grind night after night as he went back to school to get another degree and took on side jobs to help pay the bills. …

With good reason, many of the most harmful attributes associated with traditional masculinity are being re-examined. But as we reckon with the damage of these freighted expectations, we can’t lose sight of the essential role fathers play in shaping sons into men of character. . .

As a father, I constantly ask myself the question, “What can I do to show my son the way?” That’s one reason I joined the military later in life and deployed to Iraq. I did not want to pressure any of my children to follow my literal lead and enlist, but rather to demonstrate to them as best as I could what it looked like to be more committed to your country and to your family than to yourself. …”

David French wanted to show his son how to be a man. He wanted to be a living example of manliness. So he allowed his wife to adopt a black kid from Ethiopia and joined the military to be deployed to Iraq. It takes a real man to kill Mohammad in Anbar province.

I suppose that is why he has this gig preening as a conservative in Time and The Atlantic. The political establishment needs conservatives like David French who are deracinated and indifferent to the future racial and cultural composition of the United States, but also dumb enough to encourage their sons to go fight wars for Israel in sandboxes like Iraq. He is a useful idiot to them.

Note: Suppose the political establishment actually plunges us into a devastating war with Iran which is 3x the size of Iraq and 90% to 95% Shia and destabilizes the Shia Crescent all the way to Lebanon. What would be the consequences of that for mainstream conservatism?