I’m gonna blow your mind so be sure to sit down for this one. David French is scolding Republicans again.

Whereas French spent last weekend spreading an atheist-created conspiracy theory about Evangelical Trump supporters, he decided to keep things simple today by just wagging his finger at you rubes who don’t want to wear masks unto eternity.

It’s honestly one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. We’ll never know how many lives anti-mask sentiment cost. Again, it’s such a small thing, and masking always was a way to make re-opening safer and faster.

— David French (@DavidAFrench) March 5, 2021

There’s so much nonsense here. Of course we’ll never know how many lives “anti-mask sentiment” cost, but given the actual data behind mask wearing and spread, the answer is likely not many. Besides, unfalsifiable appeals aren’t all that convincing in the first place. If mask-wearing is so scientifically proven to reduce spread, it should actually be fairly easy to ballpark matters.

But again, the data just isn’t there, no matter how inconvenient that it is to the presiding narrative. Let’s take Florida and California as an example. One state has a strictly enforced mask mandate. The other does not. They both have a high population density, but Florida has a much older population, making the task of protecting the most vulnerable that much tougher.  What were the results?

Well, if you look at the numbers, what you’ll find is that California saw a larger fall/winter spike than Florida and now leads the nation in total COVID deaths. If masks were a difference maker, the opposite should have happened. At the very least, the mask-wearing should have shown some correlation to spread. It simply didn’t.

We can see that same dynamic in Ohio as well, where they mandated masks early last summer only to see an enormous spike later in 2020.

These charts are repeated in state after state, yet the "experts" still demand that masks be treated as a sacrosanct, proven method of mitigation. Does real world evidence not matter at all anymore? https://t.co/FixQXr7gxc

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) March 4, 2021

Why did the masks not limit spread? That’s a question no one seems to want to answer, though it seems rather prudent in my mind.

Regardless, factual disputes aside, the way French tries to tie mask-wearing into being pro-life is just manipulative garbage. It’s the kind of thing that allows anyone to claim any standard they want when it comes to being pro-life, which in reality centers on the issue of abortion. For example, while one may disagree with the death penalty, making that a pro-life litmus test means you quite literally have to concede that God himself is not pro-life.

But to boil the pro-life movement down to mask wearing is even worse. Doing such completely trivializes the pro-life movement and opens the door for the left to assert any number of non-sensical requirements to be considered pro-life. It’s the kind of assertion of convenience that conservatives are supposed to be above propagating. Further, given the lack of evidence that mask-wearing does much of anything, claiming that one can not love their neighbor if they don’t put on a face diaper is just an egregious misuse of Christian principle.

Let’s also note that French essentially supported Joe Biden. I’m not sure if he voted for the man, but it’s clear he was rooting for the current president throughout 2020 while vehemently opposing Trump. So we have a guy who pushed for the installation of the most pro-abortion administration in history lecturing others on being pro-life. The lack of self-awareness is just astonishing. Never mind that one could make a very good case that French’s foreign policy wants, past and present, are far from being pro-life as well.

In short, French’s argument is absurd. It’s not based in any real data and was likely formulated simply because Donald Trump once questioned mask-wearing. Lastly, if one wants to wear a mask, wear a mask. I have no issue with that, but scolding others over it even as the vaccine is now in widespread distribution is idiocy. Doing so in the name of some quasi-mix of Christianity and unsupported secular politics is even more untenable.