Michael Shellenberger: The Political Left Needs to Renounce Violence

Michael Shellenberger, at Public:

"Why did they engage in so much dehumanization for so long? In large part, the reason is because Kirk challenged left wing mythology on gender, race and modern feminism. One cannot change one's sex through drugs, surgery or magical thinking. Kirk and other conservatives noted. There is no epidemic of police officers killing black men. In fact, the numbers declined dramatically from the 1970s to the birth of black lives matter. Black Americans commit crimes at numbers clearly disproportionate to their share of the population, and some research does, in fact, suggests that liberal, secular women report more mental health issues and lower life satisfaction than conservative, religious women who are more likely to be married and to have children.

The left cannot tolerate these challenges to its worldview, and so it resorts to censorship and silencing. The share of college students who support using violence to stop a campus speech rose from 24% to 34% between 2021 and 2025 poignantly, in April, Kirk himself posted on x about rising support for violence on the left. Assassination culture is spreading on the left. He noted, 48% of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. 55% said the same thing about Donald Trump.

In California. It's simply not good enough now for Democratic politicians like Newsom and news media outlets like the New York Times, who spent the last decade dehumanizing millions of their fellow citizens, including Trump and Kirk, to simply say that they shouldn't be killed. If they truly oppose political violence, they should apologize for their relentless false accusations of racism and bigotry, and they should try to make amends by humanizing conservatives.

The media Democrats and the wider left must stop portraying MAGA supporters who have Christian nationalist and conservative views as equivalent to Nazis and fascists through the use of loaded terms like "Far Right."

Let us all come together and condemn violence of any kind. Said former MSNBC commentator Dowd, in his apology. Well, if he really means that, then he and others at MSNBC, The New York Times, the Democratic Party, must go further and renounce their own demonization of Kirk, Trump and other conservatives, We have little confidence that the Left will apologize or change its behavior for many of the same reasons the Left dehumanized Kirk in the first place. The mainstream view of the left today, as represented by everyone from Democrats in Congress to the New York Times to NPR and PBS, is that Western civilization itself is corrupt and evil. The Democratic Party of the last roughly 12 years has lost any semblance of being a Liberal Party and has become an overtly illiberal radical Left one

From the Left's reaction to the assassination, more Americans and people around the world will see that the Left hated and still hates Kirk precisely because he loved Western civilization and fought to conserve it. If any Democrats and progressives really want to end political violence, they would stop encouraging fanaticism and instead embrace dialog and debate. They would go beyond simply writing articles, and instead go to colleges and universities and start having honest conversations about race, sex, gender and other issues essential to discussing it openly, if we were to move forward as a country.

They would stop accusing their political opponents of spreading hate or misinformation and instead listen to what they actually have to say. That's what is so important to our country, is to find our disagreements respectfully because when people stop talking, said, Kirk. That's when violence happens. Thanks for listening."

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J.K. Rowling’s Individual Points Regarding Gender Ideology

Speaking of assassinations, J.K. Rowling occasionally posts some of the many death threats she receives. They are shocking in their intensity and details. What has she done to deserve these threats? She recently took the time to spell out her positions on gender ideology. I follow these issues closely and I largely agree with her on these issues (though I have other opinions too and some of my view are more nuanced). This makes me wonder. Instead of framing the issue broadly as one of "gender ideology," I wonder how people would respond to the individual points that Rowling raises below? Or, at least, how would they respond if they could vote by secret ballot, without any fear that someone would harm or kill them? I assume that almost all people would agree with many or most of her positions. I would like to see the data.

Here is Rowling's Sept 1, 2025 post:

Here is Rowling's Sept 1, 2025 post:

As another man who once worked with me declares himself saddened by my beliefs on gender and sex, I thought it might be useful to compile a list for handy reference. Which of the following do you imagine makes actors and directors who aren’t involved with the HBO reboot of Harry Potter so miserable?

Is it my belief that women and girls should have their own public changing rooms and bathrooms?

That women should retain female-only rape crisis centres?

That men don’t belong in women’s sport?

That female prisoners shouldn’t be incarcerated with violent men and male sex offenders?

That women should remain a protected class in law, because they have sex-specific needs and issues?

That language should reflect reality rather than ideological jargon, especially in a medical context?

That women shouldn’t be harassed, persecuted or fired for refusing to pretend humans can change sex?

That women should not be threatened with violence and rape when they assert their rights?

That freedom of speech and belief are essential to a pluralistic democratic society?

That troubled minors, especially those who are gay, autistic and trauma-experienced, should be given mental health support instead of irreversible surgeries and drug treatments on non-existent evidence of benefit?

That gay people shouldn’t be pressured to include the opposite sex in their dating pools, nor should they be smeared as ‘genital fetishists’ when they don’t?

That cross-dressing heterosexual male fetishists aren’t actually oppressed, but having the time of their lives piggybacking off gender identity ideology?

That said ideology, and the privileged, blinkered fools pushing it because they suffer zero consequences themselves, have done more damage to the political left’s credibility than Trump and Farage could have achieved in a century?

Let me have your thoughts.

Here's a good way to end this post, with Rowlings' post from yesterday:

If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal.

If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist.

If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian.

If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist.

Continue ReadingJ.K. Rowling’s Individual Points Regarding Gender Ideology

The Elaborate Machinery Behind the 2020 Banning of Charlie Kirk

People don't simply get banned from social media. There's always a back story and we rarely know the details. And since at least 2020, that back story has typically involved the elaborate machinery of the censorship-industrial complex, including corporate media, NGOs and the U.S Government.

Charlie Kirk has now been assassinated, but the story of his banning in 2020 is instructive. Matt Taibbi has investigated the 2020 banning of Charlie Kirk in "Twitter Files: The Muzzling of Charlie KirkAt a crucial juncture in the 2020 presidential election, the Washington Post used a tried-and-true method to pressure Twitter to remove Kirk." Here's an excerpt:

Kirk was banned once, then finally actioned again, and again, with groups like the DFRLabs and New Knowledge working with the Washington Post and other outlets to advertise the action.

Efforts to remove Kirk aren’t urgent background to his assassination, but the episodes do play a part in the overall story. Unquestionably, antagonists of Kirk and Donald Trump recognized that he was an important Internet voice, and the repeated actions sent a signal that he needed to be removed — either for spreading “disinformation” or for more dubious claims of “inauthentic” activity. That there were repeated efforts to go after the same person before the 2020 election also speaks volumes. No other figure in Trump’s orbit had the kind of reach with young people and the same Internet savvy.

It's always the same story. People being censored/banned/shadow-banned and it takes a hell of a lot of work by uniquely stilled, motivated and rare people like Matt Taibbi to get to the bottom of it. Therefore, we rarely every know what really happened. How elaborate is this censorship machinery? In this post, Camus summarizes a video by Robert Malone explaining the Fifth Generation PysOp that we are up against:

Dr. Robert Malone unveils the unsettling architecture of modern control.

In true 5th generation warfare, you never see your opponent. The question isn't "who," but "what." What is the puppet master behind the globally harmonized COVID crisis? Klaus Schwab? Biden? Fauci? These are but surrogates. The true managers of the message remain hidden.

Over the last three years, a silent coalition formed. Western governments, NGOs, transnational organizations, Big Pharma, media conglomerates, and financial corporations merged into public/private partnerships—a euphemism for the new fascism.

Their mission: To execute the most massive, globally coordinated psychological operation in the history of the Western world.

Their weapon: The very same military-grade PsyOps strategies, tactics, and technologies developed for modern combat theaters.

Their target: Their own citizens.

We have been subjected to a perpetual, calculated campaign designed not to inform, but to direct. To manipulate. To control.

The world we believed existed is gone. It's time to see the battlefield for what it is.

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FIRE Survey: College Violence is On The Upswing

Nico Perrino, the Executive VP of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has authored "Charlie Kirk's assassinationViolence must never be a response to speech."

Unfortunately, since 2021, we’ve seen a steady rise in support for violence in response to speech on campus. Earlier this week, we released our finding that one in three students express some support for the use of violence to stop a campus speech. That’s up from 20 percent only three years ago. While we do not know the identity of the gunman, what happened yesterday is indicative of a broader cancer in our body politic that we must address.

But it must not be addressed with censorship.

For more than 25 years, FIRE has challenged colleges that use speculative and amorphous security rationales to justify censoring controversial speakers. Through public records requests and other means, we’ve often found these rationales serve as a pretext to shut down debate and capitulate to demands for censorship. Indeed, according to our Deplatforming Database, Kirk was the subject of at least 14 attempts to stop him from speaking on campuses since 2021. Over the years, FIRE has repeatedly written to colleges that sought to silence Kirk’s organization and supporters.

The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead once observed: “The purpose of thinking is to let the ideas die instead of us dying.”

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Preprint Warning of mRNA Risks is Censored

People need to be protected from preprint warning of mRNA risks. The article:

"BREAKING: MDPI Censors One of the World’s Most-Read Preprints Showing mRNA Shots Disrupt Thousands of Genes: With over 34,000 views and 8,600 downloads, our study discovered long-lasting genetic disruption from mRNA shots—only to be unethically censored by the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex."

Nicolas Hulscher:

The sheer reach of this work made it impossible for the Bio-Pharmaceutical Complex and its online enforcers at PubPeer to ignore. So they pressured Preprints.org into doing something unprecedented: retracting a preprint, an act almost never seen in science.

Infographic from the censored article:

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