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Self in Society Roundup 62
Kirk Murder, Trump, fascism, immigration, abortion, precambrian life, house sharing, and more.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2025
Charlie Kirk Murder Updates
Federal Speech Clamp-Down: Donald Trump promised to use the full weight of the federal government to clamp down on mean speech against conservatives. Now, it seems, the federal government already is following through. Fox News reports, "American Airlines and Delta Air Lines confirmed that employees have been removed from duty after making celebratory or mocking remarks online about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk." If private businesses want to make this move, fine. No business wants to alienate a substantial fraction of its customer base. But here are the next lines: "U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced Saturday that American Airlines pilots involved had been 'immediately grounded' and urged their permanent removal. 'This behavior is disgusting and they should be fired,' Duffy wrote on X. 'Any company responsible for the safety of the traveling public cannot tolerate that behavior.'" This seems remarkably like federal agents using their regulatory power to clamp down on Constitutionally protected speech. Apparently conservatives now agree with the hard left that "hate speech" is the equivalent of violence and should be censored, so long as it involves their political opponents. The Fox story did not include any of the language in question, but I'm assuming here that it didn't cross the line into criminal incitement.
The Perp: Charlie Kirk was murdered in Utah on September 10. By September 11, the Wall Street Journal was claiming, "Investigators found ammunition engraved with expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology inside the rifle that authorities believe was used in the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk." But that narrative was substantially misleading, and the Journal offered a more qualified story by end of day. (I've written about this.) Then, on September 12, a lot of people were talking about how the perpetrator might actually be a far-right "groyper" inspired by Nick Fuentes. Robert Downen did not comment on the murderer but pointed out that Fuentes had a long-running feud with Kirk. By the afternoon of September 13, Fox News was leading on its web page the headline, "Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin lived with trans partner who is now cooperating with FBI: officials." And the Hill quoted Spencer Cox as saying the perpetrator was "deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology." On September 14 Cox confirmed that the suspect's "roommate" was transgender "transitioning from male to female." I regard Cox as pretty trustworthy, and he is privy to details of the investigation. This (stipulated) fact should not be used to demonize transgender people, but obviously many conservatives already have expressed their intent to do just that. Cox also indicated that charges will be filed Tuesday.
Divine Providence? Charlie Kirk claimed that "only by the grace of God" did Donald Trump survive an assassination attempt against him. Kirk seemed to agree with an interviewer who called the situation "divine providence" and "divine intervention." Kirk said "that's the only explanation; God is not done with Donald Trump." God's plan for America "goes through Donald Trump," Kirk added. Kirk backtracked a bit: "Even if you don't believe that God [has] a plan for Donald Trump" (the brackets indicate his clearly intended meaning), "maybe God has a plan for not having a second American Civil War." Either way, Kirk clearly said that God played a role in saving Trump. Here is the problem with theological claims such as that: You are thereby committed to saying that, when Christians or good people die, God lets that happen. In other words, God chose to save Trump but not Kirk. A lot of Christians do believe something like that, and say something like, "God's plan for Kirk was for him to come home that day." This lays every event, good or bad, at God's feet. Here is my non-theological view: Trump surviving was extremely good luck following failed security measures, and Kirk dying was the fault of the perpetrator aided by inadequate security and some bad luck. In my worldview, it just doesn't make sense to ask, "Why did God allow Kirk to die?"
Trump Updates
Road to Fascism: Nikos Sotirakopoulos of the Ayn Rand Institute has a good talk, "The Road to Fascism (and Are We on It?)." He argues that we are on that road. He says that fascism is marked by invocation of fear of a perpetual crisis; the raising up of a powerful, charismatic leader whose word is never doubted; and the authoritarian centralization of power in the hands of this leader for the purpose of resolving the crisis and restoring national greatness. Sotirakopoulos says he was fooled three times by Trump but then saw the light regarding the threat he poses. I, on the other hand, always saw Trump for exactly what he was. Sotirakopoulos says that Trump is not a fascist because he is not ideologically committed enough to fascism to be considered a fascist. I addressed this point in my October article: "Trump is a fascist in the sense that he would act like a fascist to the extent that circumstances allowed. . . . The most plausible argument that Trump is not a fascist is that he's too shallow, narcissistic, and intellectually unserious to be much of anything in terms of ideology. I will concede that he is not a consistent fascist and rarely burns with dogmatic passion. However, to the extent that Trump does articulate an ideology, it is a fascist one." Still, I recommend Sotirakopoulos's talk, and I say to him, better late than never, brother. I hope. See also Onkar Ghate's, 2022 essay, "One Small Step for Dictatorship."
Trump's Threats to Freedom of Speech: Robert Tacinski: "Trump's anger is also directed, not against the perpetrators of violence, but against those who engage in anti-conservative rhetoric. It is 'hateful rhetoric' from the 'political left' that is 'directly responsible' for 'terrorism.'" Directly. I think you can see where this is going." I made the same point.
Nonobjective Objectivists: Stewart Margolis: "Something has seriously gone amiss in your psyche if you can watch an American president literally roll out a red carpet for a mass-murdering dictator, seize control of private companies, issue capricious tariff edicts that greatly increase the tax burden on Americans, or send an innocent man to a hellhole in El Salvador without a trial, and your response is Best President Ever."
FDR as Precursor: Tyler Cowen: "As for FDR, he tried to pack the Supreme Court and sought a significant expansion of executive power, making his administrations a methodological precursor of Trump."
Attack on North Korea: New York Times: In 2019 Trump ordered a small-scale military assault on North Korea, a nuclear power, to "intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un." The result was a failed mission and the killing of the civilians aboard a North Korean boat. Obviously the rulers of North Korea are horrible. Still, this assault strikes me as breathtakingly irresponsible. If another country had done the same to us we'd call it an act of war.
But Don't Call Them Fascists . . . Atlantic: "The MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler." New York Times: "Nick Fuentes: A White Nationalist Problem for the Right."
Immigration Updates
Police State: Sonia Sotomayor: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job."
Destroying Alliances: Daily Politicus: "South Korean media have united against U.S. President Donald Trump's 'duplicitous' 'show off' raid and arrests of South Koreans in a Georgia Hyundai plant with 'betrayal, outrage, national humiliation' as well as seeing in it a 'fundamental breach of US-ROK alliance.' They questioned why any rational business would invest in the U.S. under these circumstances."
Betraying Asylum Seekers: Guardian: "US immigration authorities have deported dozens of Russian asylum seekers to Moscow, including a serviceman wanted for desertion who has since been detained." One such man detained by ICE "described overcrowded, unsanitary conditions and a rapid decline in his health," and he said, "I called my relatives, telling them: I'm probably going to die." Mother Jones: "In May, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protection from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans living in the United States. Overnight [two such people] found themselves without status—despite following all the rules." Utterly shameful. Trump does not merely want to eject "illegal immigrants"; he wants to turn as many legal immigrants as possible into "illegal immigrants."
Immigration Authoritarianism: Ayn Rand Institute: "Americans have been turning a blind eye to this lawless, even authoritarian treatment. . . . While the Trump administration's immigration crackdown has made the headlines recently, Vergara Cid shows that the same lawlessness has spanned decades. . . . Trump's crackdowns threaten to further erode due process, which Vergara Cid identifies as the crucial legal safeguard which 'stands between you and authoritarianism.' Today's victims are peaceful immigrants; tomorrow, the target could be any American who dares to challenge the state."
Immigration Nihilism: Federal immigration policy now is about as absolutely shameful as it possibly could be. Kicking out a young woman studying to become a nurse, who has lived in the U.S. since age 8, is a lot of things, but "Making America Great Again" is not remotely among them. This is cruelty for the sake of cruelty, the destruction of lives for the sake of destruction.
Abolish ICE: Ilya Somin: "The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has become notorious for its cruelty, abuses of civil liberties and racial profiling. . . . Abolish ICE and give the money to state and local cops."
Economics of Immigration: AEI via Cowen: "Immigrants have an overall positive fiscal impact on the US—an effect driven by high-skilled immigrants. Low-skilled immigrants, like their US-born counterparts, impose a net fiscal cost. However, recent studies show that the indirect fiscal effects of low-skilled immigration are positive, partly offsetting the negative direct fiscal impact. Moreover, immigrants will help bear the cost of future policy changes required to address the growing national debt. Smaller immigration inflows might reduce fiscal pressure on state and local governments but would increase fiscal pressure on the federal government and slow economic growth." As Bryan Caplan would point out, if we look at total wealth gains rather than just gains or losses to U.S. governments, immigration constitutes an extraordinary net-positive. And, as Caplan also would concede, U.S. government could just accept the low-skilled immigrants and stop subsidizing them (at all or as much).
Short Takes
Georgia Pregnancy Case: NPR: A woman nine weeks pregnant developed severe clotting in her brain and was declared brain-dead. The hospital kept her body on life support to keep the fetus alive. The mother of the woman said she should have had a choice about whether to keep the woman on life support. My take: Once the woman was brain-dead, she was no longer a person with the normal set of rights. We can say people have residual rights in death; for example, if you say you want to be cremated, that's what should happen to your body after you die. If this were a fetus close to birth, it would be a clear-cut case: The developed capacity of the fetus gives it some rights that would outweigh the concerns of the mother of the woman and even the prior preferences of the pregnant woman. Since the fetus in this case is too young to have developed a capacity for consciousness, I'd say there's no direct rights-violation in ending its life, but I'd also say that, if someone wants to pay to keep the pregnant woman on life support to develop the fetus, presuming that's feasible, they should be allowed to do so. A potential human life has some moral status. See my article on abortion.
Zizians: Allegations discussed by the New York Times (via Cowen): "Ziz, 34, was not just any inmate but the leader of an extremist group tied to a series of murders across the country. . . . Ziz had been a minor celebrity within a slice of the Bay Area tech scene known as the Rationalists—a highly cerebral, extremely online group of tech and philosophy nerds dedicated to improving the world through logical thinking and deeply concerned with whether artificial intelligence will overtake the world and destroy humanity. . . . Ziz, who is transgender, started as a typical Rationalist . . . but turned toward an ultraradical strain of the philosophy. She wrote favorably of violence. . . . Now six people are dead, landing her and several friends and allies, known as the 'Zizians,' in jail, awaiting trial." Remember, just because you call something "rational" doesn't make it so!
Cancer: CPR: "Respiratory viruses can reignite the flames of cancer."
Drinking Down: NPR: "Percentage of Americans who say they drink alcohol hits record low, Gallup says." As Reason points out, that might not be an unalloyed good thing if it means people are socializing less. I reply, it's possible to socialize without drinking alcohol.
Slower Air Travel: Tabarrok: "Airlines are trying to hide the delays by 'padding' the flight times—adding, on average, 20 extra minutes to schedules so a flight that hasn't gotten any faster still counts as 'on time.' Thus, on paper, the on-time performance metrics have improved since 1987, even as actual travel times have gotten longer."
Cash: NPR: "Infants born to people who received $1,000, no-strings-attached, were nearly half as likely to die as infants born to people who got no cash." This was a program in Kenya by GiveDirectly.
Bolivia: Reason: "Socialism just imploded." Let's hope what comes next is better.
UnPopulist: The people behind UnPopulist recently held a conference, "Liberalism in the 21st Century." Videos from that conference now are online.
Precambrian Explosion? Geology on 545 million-year-old trace fossils (via Cowen): "The trace-makers probably had relatively rigid bodies with robust hydrostatic nerve-muscle systems enhancing directional sensation and movement, enabling them to thrive in dynamically complex, heterogeneous, and shifting habitats. These adaptations likely drove niche partitioning and cascading diversification, underpinning the evolutionary roots of the Cambrian Explosion and more familiar animals of the Phanerozoic." This seems like a lot to glean from some traces in the hardened mud, but it's indicative at least.
Roblox: Kids can get into some really nasty stuff inside the game. (I'm not saying that's the typical experience. My kid doesn't play it.)
House Sharing: As Alex Tabarrok asks, "Why is sharing a house illegal?" He quotes a Pew report, "Low-cost micro-units, often called single-room occupancies, or SROs, were once a reliable form of housing for the United States' poorest residents of, and newcomers to, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and many other major U.S. cities. Well into the 20th century, SROs were the least expensive option on the housing market, providing a small room with a shared bathroom and sometimes a shared kitchen for a price that is unimaginable today—as little as $100 to $300 a month (in 2025 dollars)."
A Christian China? Alex Tabarrock reviews the Taiping Rebellion in mid-1800s China. Although "the Heavenly Kingdom fell to the Qing . . . it is entirely plausible that with only a few turns of history, China might now be the world's most populous Christian nation."
Life on Mars? Washington Post: "NASA's Perseverance rover came upon some rocks with peculiar green, blue, black and white dots. . . . They might be evidence of past life on the dusty planet."
Smallpox: Neil Halloran has a great 25-minute film on how world health organizations eradicated smallpox, one of the greatest human achievements of all time.
March of the NIMBYs: Many New York politicians are actively against more housing. In Texas, in response to YIMBY-friendly state legislation, various cities are passing ridiculous building mandates, such as the inclusion of pools and saunas, to block housing. Such blatantly screw-the-poor policies are morally disgusting. But, as Alex Tabarrok points out, Texas cities including Dallas and Austin, as well as New York, put up a strong showing for new apartments, relative to cities including Los Angeles, Orlando, Seattle, and San Antonio. Tabarrok notes, "MR readers will not be surprised to learn that apartment prices are falling in Austin."
Equity Homes: I was expecting another anti-corporate housing rant from NPR but Alex Mayyasi's report is super-interesting. First, he shows that U.S. "housing starts" were down in the 2010s, which points to the basic problem of NIMBY and anti-growth policies (which Mayyasi does not mention). Here is the interesting line: "These investors can and do make homeownership harder to attain, just as their critics claim. But by providing rentals, they also make neighborhoods more affordable and more diverse. They are diversifying the suburbs." Again, the bad guys are city politicians who enact NIMBY restrictions, not the people and businesses buying the available houses.
Avoidable Crime: Maya Sulkin: "Iryna Zarutska’s killer had at least 14 previous arrests, including robbery and assault." Government's most-fundamental job is to protect people from criminal violence.
Muslim Stagnation: Mixed in with a bit of religion-inspired anti-LGBTQ bigotry is Abdullah Yousef's diagnosis of the economic stagnation gripping much of the Islamic world (via Cowen). The problems: A make-work, bureaucratic culture, particularly in government; pervasive time-wasting with many people being "mindlessly unhelpful (even antagonistic) to everyone around them"; a pervasive zero-sum mentality; and a rigid economy that fails to reward innovation and young talent.
Nepal: I don't pretend to understand the dynamics at play in the violence in Nepal, but BBC notes (September 9), "The unrest was sparked by a social media ban, which has now been reversed by the government. It has now grown into a wider anti-corruption movement."
AI Jesus: I was tickled that Cowen linked to a story I pointed to about AI-generated videos of Biblical scenes, perhaps not entirely accurate (we wouldn't want any Making Stuff Up when it comes to the Bible!).
Twenge on Social Media: Jean Twenge argues that parents should impose relatively tight controls of smart phones and social media. See also her interview with Shermer.
Effective Altruism: Read stories of people involved in the movement.
Spiky Dino: A super-spiky ankylosaur was discovered.
Sparks: They have a new song with Gorillaz (very strange), about a dictator.