The Prometheus League
Breaking News and Updates
- Abolition Of Work
- Ai
- Alt-right
- Alternative Medicine
- Antifa
- Artificial General Intelligence
- Artificial Intelligence
- Artificial Super Intelligence
- Ascension
- Astronomy
- Atheism
- Atheist
- Atlas Shrugged
- Automation
- Ayn Rand
- Bahamas
- Bankruptcy
- Basic Income Guarantee
- Big Tech
- Bitcoin
- Black Lives Matter
- Blackjack
- Boca Chica Texas
- Brexit
- Caribbean
- Casino
- Casino Affiliate
- Cbd Oil
- Censorship
- Cf
- Chess Engines
- Childfree
- Cloning
- Cloud Computing
- Conscious Evolution
- Corona Virus
- Cosmic Heaven
- Covid-19
- Cryonics
- Cryptocurrency
- Cyberpunk
- Darwinism
- Democrat
- Designer Babies
- DNA
- Donald Trump
- Eczema
- Elon Musk
- Entheogens
- Ethical Egoism
- Eugenic Concepts
- Eugenics
- Euthanasia
- Evolution
- Extropian
- Extropianism
- Extropy
- Fake News
- Federalism
- Federalist
- Fifth Amendment
- Fifth Amendment
- Financial Independence
- First Amendment
- Fiscal Freedom
- Food Supplements
- Fourth Amendment
- Fourth Amendment
- Free Speech
- Freedom
- Freedom of Speech
- Futurism
- Futurist
- Gambling
- Gene Medicine
- Genetic Engineering
- Genome
- Germ Warfare
- Golden Rule
- Government Oppression
- Hedonism
- High Seas
- History
- Hubble Telescope
- Human Genetic Engineering
- Human Genetics
- Human Immortality
- Human Longevity
- Illuminati
- Immortality
- Immortality Medicine
- Intentional Communities
- Jacinda Ardern
- Jitsi
- Jordan Peterson
- Las Vegas
- Liberal
- Libertarian
- Libertarianism
- Liberty
- Life Extension
- Macau
- Marie Byrd Land
- Mars
- Mars Colonization
- Mars Colony
- Memetics
- Micronations
- Mind Uploading
- Minerva Reefs
- Modern Satanism
- Moon Colonization
- Nanotech
- National Vanguard
- NATO
- Neo-eugenics
- Neurohacking
- Neurotechnology
- New Utopia
- New Zealand
- Nihilism
- Nootropics
- NSA
- Oceania
- Offshore
- Olympics
- Online Casino
- Online Gambling
- Pantheism
- Personal Empowerment
- Poker
- Political Correctness
- Politically Incorrect
- Polygamy
- Populism
- Post Human
- Post Humanism
- Posthuman
- Posthumanism
- Private Islands
- Progress
- Proud Boys
- Psoriasis
- Psychedelics
- Putin
- Quantum Computing
- Quantum Physics
- Rationalism
- Republican
- Resource Based Economy
- Robotics
- Rockall
- Ron Paul
- Roulette
- Russia
- Sealand
- Seasteading
- Second Amendment
- Second Amendment
- Seychelles
- Singularitarianism
- Singularity
- Socio-economic Collapse
- Space Exploration
- Space Station
- Space Travel
- Spacex
- Sports Betting
- Sportsbook
- Superintelligence
- Survivalism
- Talmud
- Technology
- Teilhard De Charden
- Terraforming Mars
- The Singularity
- Tms
- Tor Browser
- Trance
- Transhuman
- Transhuman News
- Transhumanism
- Transhumanist
- Transtopian
- Transtopianism
- Ukraine
- Uncategorized
- Vaping
- Victimless Crimes
- Virtual Reality
- Wage Slavery
- War On Drugs
- Waveland
- Ww3
- Yahoo
- Zeitgeist Movement
-
Prometheism
-
Forbidden Fruit
-
The Evolutionary Perspective
Daily Archives: December 21, 2022
Ascension to end labor, delivery services at South Milwaukee hospital by end of the week – TMJ4 News
Posted: December 21, 2022 at 3:05 am
Ascension to end labor, delivery services at South Milwaukee hospital by end of the week TMJ4 News
Originally posted here:
Ascension to end labor, delivery services at South Milwaukee hospital by end of the week - TMJ4 News
Posted in Ascension
Comments Off on Ascension to end labor, delivery services at South Milwaukee hospital by end of the week – TMJ4 News
Darby Island – The Exumas, Bahamas , Caribbean – Private Islands
Posted: at 3:03 am
This island is a very special one: it lies in one of the most beautiful parts of the Bahamas and boasts white sandy beaches and the potential for an airstrip. It has all the basic essentials for development. It is situated very near well-known island resorts and existing airstrips.
Big Darby Island is located about 95 miles from Nassau, 14 miles from Great Exuma and 250 miles from Miami. It lies almost in the centre of the chain of ...
This island is a very special one: it lies in one of the most beautiful parts of the Bahamas and boasts white sandy beaches and the potential for an airstrip. It has all the basic essentials for development. It is situated very near well-known island resorts and existing airstrips.
Big Darby Island is located about 95 miles from Nassau, 14 miles from Great Exuma and 250 miles from Miami. It lies almost in the centre of the chain of some 360 islands known as the Exuma Cays -the yachting, sailing and fishing paradise of the Bahamas. The nearest islands are Rudder Cut Cay (with airstrip) and Musha Cay, both owned by illusionist David Copperfield.
This island is surrounded by crystal clear turquoise waters and features several white sandy beaches -in all approx. 21,650 ft. of water frontage. The highest elevation is approx. 80 ft. which is exceptionally high for the Bahamas.
The island can support a 3,000 ft. to 5,000 ft. runway and is adjacent to a deep protected natural harbour.
An imposing 7,000-square-foot castle built by an Englishman, Sir Baxter, in 1938 is located on the island. The castle could be rebuilt into a spectacular home or clubhouse. A survey of a proposed development plan is available.
A network of paths and walkways extends in southerly and westerly directions for a distance of 1.8 miles.
This is a great opportunity to own a large island island in The Exuma Cays.
This island is a very special one: it lies in one of the most beautiful parts of the Bahamas and boasts white sandy beaches and the potential for an airstrip. It has all the basic essentials for development. It is situated very near well-known island resorts and existing airstrips.
Big Darby Island is located about 95 miles from Nassau, 14 miles from Great Exuma and 250 miles from Miami. It lies almost in the centre of the chain of some 360 islands known as the Exuma Cays -the yachting, sailing and fishing paradise of the Bahamas. The nearest islands are Rudder Cut Cay (with airstrip) and Musha Cay, both owned by illusionist David Copperfield.
This island is surrounded by crystal clear turquoise waters and features several white sandy beaches -in all approx. 21,650 ft. of water frontage. The highest elevation is approx. 80 ft. which is exceptionally high for the Bahamas.
The island can support a 3,000 ft. to 5,000 ft. runway and is adjacent to a deep protected natural harbour.
An imposing 7,000-square-foot castle built by an Englishman, Sir Baxter, in 1938 is located on the island. The castle could be rebuilt into a spectacular home or clubhouse. A survey of a proposed development plan is available.
A network of paths and walkways extends in southerly and westerly directions for a distance of 1.8 miles.
This is a great opportunity to own a large island island in The Exuma Cays.
Go here to read the rest:
Darby Island - The Exumas, Bahamas , Caribbean - Private Islands
Posted in Private Islands
Comments Off on Darby Island – The Exumas, Bahamas , Caribbean – Private Islands
Russell Kirk – Wikipedia
Posted: at 3:02 am
American political theorist and writer (19181994)
Russell Amos Kirk (October 19, 1918 April 29, 1994)[1] was an American political theorist, moralist, historian, social critic, and literary critic, known for his influence on 20th-century American conservatism. His 1953 book The Conservative Mind gave shape to the postwar conservative movement in the U.S. It traced the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, giving special importance to the ideas of Edmund Burke. Kirk was considered the chief proponent of traditionalist conservatism. He was also an accomplished author of Gothic and ghost story fiction.
Russell Kirk was born in Plymouth, Michigan. He was the son of Russell Andrew Kirk, a railroad engineer, and Marjorie Pierce Kirk. Kirk obtained his B.A. at Michigan State University and a M.A. at Duke University. During World War II, he served in the American armed forces and corresponded with a libertarian writer, Isabel Paterson, who helped to shape his early political thought. After reading Albert Jay Nock's book, Our Enemy, the State, he engaged in a similar correspondence with him. After the war, he attended the University of St Andrews in Scotland. In 1953, he became the only American to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters by that university.[2]
Kirk "laid out a post-World War II program for conservatives by warning them, 'A handful of individuals, some of them quite unused to moral responsibilities on such a scale, made it their business to extirpate the populations of Nagasaki and Hiroshima; we must make it our business to curtail the possibility of such snap decisions.'"[3]
Upon completing his studies, Kirk took up an academic position at his alma mater, Michigan State. He resigned in 1959, after having become disenchanted with the rapid growth in student number and emphasis on intercollegiate athletics and technical training at the expense of the traditional liberal arts. Thereafter he referred to Michigan State as "Cow College" or "Behemoth University." He later wrote that academic political scientists and sociologists were "as a breeddull dogs".[4] Late in life, he taught one semester a year at Hillsdale College, where he was distinguished visiting professor of humanities.[5]
Kirk frequently published in two American conservative journals he helped found, National Review in 1955 and Modern Age in 1957. He was the founding editor of the latter, 195759. Later he was made a Distinguished Fellow of the Heritage Foundation, where he gave a number of lectures.[6]
After leaving Michigan State, Kirk returned to his ancestral home in Mecosta, Michigan, where he wrote the many books, academic articles, lectures, and the syndicated newspaper column (which ran for 13 years) by which he exerted his influence on American politics and intellectual life. In 1963, Kirk converted to Catholicism and married Annette Courtemanche;[7] they had four daughters. She and Kirk became known for their hospitality, welcoming many political, philosophical, and literary figures in their Mecosta house (known as "Piety Hill"), and giving shelter to political refugees, hoboes, and others.[8] Their home became the site of a sort of seminar on conservative thought for university students. Piety Hill now houses the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. After his conversion to Catholicism Kirk was a founding board member of Una Voce America.[9]
Kirk declined to drive, calling cars "mechanical Jacobins",[10] and would have nothing to do with television and what he called "electronic computers".[11]
Kirk did not always maintain a stereotypically "conservative" voting record. "Faced with the non-choice between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey in 1944, Kirk said no to empire and voted for Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate."[12] In the 1976 presidential election, he voted for Eugene McCarthy.[13] In 1992 he supported Pat Buchanan's primary challenge to incumbent George H. W. Bush, serving as state chair of the Buchanan campaign in Michigan.[14]
Kirk was a contributor to Chronicles. In 1989, he was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President Ronald Reagan.[15]
The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot,[16] the published version of Kirk's doctoral dissertation, contributed materially to the 20th century Burke revival. It also drew attention to:
The Portable Conservative Reader (1982), which Kirk edited, contains sample writings by most of the above.
Biographer Bradley J. Birzer argues that for all his importance in inspiring the modern conservative movement, not many of his followers agreed with his unusual approach to the history of conservatism. As summarized by reviewer Drew Maciag:
Harry Jaffa (a student of Leo Strauss) wrote: "Kirk was a poor Burke scholar. Burke's attack on metaphysical reasoning related only to modern philosophy's attempt to eliminate skeptical doubt from its premises and hence from its conclusions."[18]
Russello (2004) argues that Kirk adapted what 19th-century American Catholic thinker Orestes Brownson called "territorial democracy" to articulate a version of federalism that was based on premises that differ in part from those of the founders and other conservatives. Kirk further believed that territorial democracy could reconcile the tension between treating the states as mere provinces of the central government, and as autonomous political units independent of Washington. Finally, territorial democracy allowed Kirk to set out a theory of individual rights grounded in the particular historical circumstances of the United States, while rejecting a universal conception of such rights.
In addition to bringing public attention to Anglo-American conservative principles, Kirk described his perception of liberal ideals in the first chapter. Kirk identified these ideals as the perfectibility of man, hostility towards tradition, rapid change in economic and political systems, and the secularization of government.[19]
Kirk developed six "canons" of conservatism, which Russello (2004) described as follows:
Kirk said that Christianity and Western Civilization are "unimaginable apart from one another"[20] and that "all culture arises out of religion. When religious faith decays, culture must decline, though often seeming to flourish for a space after the religion which has nourished it has sunk into disbelief."[21][failed verification]
Kirk grounded his Burkean conservatism in tradition, political philosophy, belles lettres, and the strong religious faith of his later years, rather than libertarianism and free market economic reasoning. The Conservative Mind hardly mentions economics at all.
In a polemic, Kirk, quoting T. S. Eliot's expression, called libertarians "chirping sectaries," adding that conservatives and libertarians share opposition to "collectivism," "the totalist state," and "bureaucracy," but otherwise have "nothing" in common. He called the libertarian movement "an ideological clique forever splitting into sects still smaller and odder, but rarely conjugating." He said a line of division exists between believers in "some sort of transcendent moral order" and "utilitarians admitting no transcendent sanctions for conduct." He included libertarians in the latter category.[22] Kirk, therefore, questioned the "fusionism" between libertarians and traditional conservatives that marked much of post-World War II conservatism in the United States.[23] Kirk also argued that libertarians "bear no authority, temporal or spiritual" and do not "venerate ancient beliefs and customs, or the natural world, or [their] country, or the immortal spark in [their] fellow men."[24]
However, Kirk's view of classical liberals is positive. He agrees with them on "ordered liberty" as they make "common cause with regular conservatives against the menace of democratic despotism and economic collectivism."[25]
Tibor R. Machan defended libertarianism in response to Kirk's original Heritage Lecture. Machan argued that the right of individual sovereignty is perhaps most worthy of conserving from the American political heritage, and that when conservatives themselves talk about preserving some tradition, they cannot at the same time claim a disrespectful distrust of the individual human mind, of rationalism itself.[26]
Jacob G. Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation also responded to Kirk.[27]
In a column in The National Review on 9 March 1965 entitled "'One Man, One Vote' in South Africa," Kirk wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court's jurisprudence on voting "will work mischiefmuch injuring, rather than fulfilling, the responsible democracy for which Tocqueville hoped," but in the case of South Africa "this degradation of the democratic dogma, if applied, would bring anarchy and the collapse of civilization."[28] Kirk wrote that "the 'European' element [makes] South Africa the only 'modern' and prosperous African country." He added that "Bantu political domination [of South Africa] would be domination by witch doctors (still numerous and powerful) and reckless demagogues" and that "Bantu and Coloreds and Indians must feel that they have some political voice in the South African commonwealth."
Late in life, Kirk grew disenchanted with American neoconservatives as well.[29] As Chronicles editor Scott Richert describes it:
[One line] helped define the emerging struggle between neoconservatives and paleoconservatives. "Not seldom has it seemed," Kirk declared, "as if some eminent Neoconservatives mistook Tel Aviv for the capital of the United States." A few years later, in another Heritage Foundation speech, Kirk repeated that line verbatim. In the wake of the Gulf War, which he had opposed, he clearly understood that those words carried even greater meaning.[30]
He also commented the neoconservatives were "often clever, never wise."[citation needed]
Midge Decter, Jewish director of the Committee for the Free World, called Kirk's remark "a bloody outrage, a piece of anti-Semitism by Kirk that impugns the loyalty of neoconservatives."[31] She told The New Republic, "It's this notion of a Christian civilization. You have to be part of it or you're not really fit to conserve anything. That's an old line and it's very ignorant."[32]
Samuel T. Francis called Kirk's "Tel Aviv" remark "a wisecrack about the slavishly pro-Israel sympathies among neoconservatives."[32] He described Decter's response as untrue, "reckless" and "vitriolic." Furthermore, he argued that such a denunciation "always plays into the hands of the left, which is then able to repeat the charges and claim conservative endorsement of them.[32]
Toward the end of his life, Russell Kirk was highly critical of Republican militarism. President Bush, Kirk said, had embarked upon "a radical course of intervention in the region of the Persian Gulf".[33][34]
Excerpts from Russell Kirk's lectures at the Heritage Foundation (1992):[35]
Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson were enthusiasts for American domination of the world. Now George Bush appears to be emulating those eminent Democrats. When the Republicans, once upon a time, nominated for the presidency a "One World" candidate, Wendell Willkie, they were sadly trounced. In general, Republicans throughout the twentieth century have been advocates of prudence and restraint in the conduct of foreign affairs.[36]
Unless the Bush Administration abruptly reverses its fiscal and military course, I suggest, the Republican Party must lose its former good repute for frugality, and become the party of profligate expenditure, "butter and guns." And public opinion would not long abide that. Nor would America's world influence and America's remaining prosperity.[36]
Yet presidents of the United States must not be encouraged to make Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, nor to fancy that they can establish a New World Order through eliminating dissenters. In the second century before Christ, the Romans generously liberated the Greek city-states from the yoke of Macedonia. But it was not long before the Romans felt it necessary to impose upon those quarrelsome Greeks a domination more stifling to Hellenic freedom and culture than ever Macedon had been. It is a duty of the Congress of the United States to see that great American Caesars do not act likewise.[36]
Kirk's other important books include Eliot and his Age: T. S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century (1972), The Roots of American Order (1974), and the autobiographical Sword of the Imagination: Memoirs of a Half Century of Literary Conflict (1995). As was the case with his hero Edmund Burke, Kirk became renowned for the prose style of his intellectual and polemical writings.[37]
Beyond his scholarly achievements, Kirk was talented both as an oral storyteller and as an author of genre fiction, most notably in his telling of consummate ghost stories in the classic tradition of Sheridan Le Fanu, M. R. James, Oliver Onions, and H. Russell Wakefield. He also wrote other admired and much-anthologized works that are variously classified as horror, fantasy, science fiction, and political satire. These earned him plaudits from fellow creative writers as varied and distinguished as T. S. Eliot, Robert Aickman, Madeleine L'Engle, and Ray Bradbury.
Though modest in quantityit encompasses three novels and 22 short storiesKirk's body of fiction was written amid a busy career as prolific nonfiction writer, editor, and speaker. As with such other speculative fiction authors as G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien (all of whom likewise wrote only nonfiction for their "day jobs"), there are conservative undercurrentssocial, cultural, religious, and politicalto Kirk's fiction. Kirk stated in 1984 that the purpose of his stories as:
"The political ferocity of our age is sufficiently dismaying: men of letters need not conjure up horrors worse than those suffered during the past decade by the Cambodians and Ugandans, Afghans and Ethiopians. What I have attempted, rather, are experiments in the moral imagination. Readers will encounter elements of parable and fable...some clear premise is about the character of human existence...a healthy concept of the character of evil..."
His first novel, Old House of Fear (1961, 1965), as with so many of his short stories, was written in a self-consciously Gothic vein. Here the plot is concerned with an American assigned by his employer to a bleak locale in rural Scotlandthe same country where Kirk had attended graduate school. This was Kirk's most commercially successful and critically acclaimed fictional work, doing much to sustain him financially in subsequent years. Old House of Fear was inspired by the novels of John Buchan and Kirk's own Scottish heritage. The story of Old House of Fear concerns an young American, Hugh Logan, a World War II veteran who is both brave and sensitive, sent to buy Carnglass, a remote island in the Hebrides. Upon reaching the island, he discovers that the island's owner, Lady MacAskival and her beautiful adopted daughter Mary are being held hostage by foreign spies, who are presumably working for the Soviet Union, out to sabotage a nearby NATO base. The leader of the spies is Dr. Jackman, an evil genius and nihilist intent upon wrecking a world that failed to acknowledge his greatness and whom reviewers noted was a much more vividly drawn character than the hero Logan. Dr. Jackman appears to be a prototype of Kirk's best known character, Mandred Arcane, with the only difference being the former has no values while the latter does.
Later novels were A Creature of the Twilight (1966), a dark comedy satirizing postcolonial African politics; and Lord of the Hollow Dark (1979, 1989), set in Scotland, which explores the great evil inhabiting a haunted house. A Creature of the Twilight concerns the adventures in Africa of a reactionary, romantic mercenary Mandred Arcane, a self-proclaimed mixture of Machiavelli and Sir Lancelot, who is an anachronistic survival of the Victorian Age who does not belong in the modern world and yet defiantly still exists, making him the "creature of the twilight". Kirk has Arcane write his pseudo-memoir in a consciously Victorian style to underline that he does not belong in the 1960s. Arcane is both a dapper intellectual and a hardened man of action, an elderly man full of an unnatural vigor, who is hired by the son of the assassinated Sultan to put down a Communist rebellion in the fictional African nation of Hamnegri, which he does despite overwhelming odds. In 1967, Kirk published a short story "Belgrummo's Hell" about a clever art thief who unwisely tries to rob the estate of the ancient Scottish warlock, Lord Belgrummo, who is later revealed to be Arcane's father. In another short story published in the same collection, "The Peculiar Demesne of Archvicar Gerontion" concerned a wizard, Archvicar Gerontion, who tries to kill Arcane by casting deadly spells.
The Lord of the Hollow Dark is set at the same Belgrummo estate first encountered in "Belgrummo's Hell" where an evil cult led by the Aleister Crowley-like character Apollinax have assembled to secure for themselves the "Timeless Moment" of eternal sexual pleasure by sacrificing two innocents, an young woman named Marina and her infant daughter in an ancient warren called the Weem under the Belgrummo Estate. Assisting Apollinax is Archvicar Gerontion, who is really Arcane in disguise. Inspired by the novels of H.P. Lovecraft, Kirk in the Lord of the Hollow Dark has Arcane survive a "horrid chthonian pilgrimage" as he faces dark supernatural forces, confront his own family's history of evil, and refuse the appeal of a "seductive, hubristic immorality". The novel concludes with Arcane's own definition of a true "Timeless Moment" which he states: "it comes from faith, from hope, from charity; from having your work in the world; from the happiness of the people you love; or simply as a gift of grace". During his lifetime, Kirk also oversaw the publication of three collections which together encompassed all his short stories. (Three more such collections have been published posthumously, but those only reprint stories found in the earlier volumes. One such posthumous collection, Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales, was edited by his student, friend, and collaborator Vigen Guroian, and includes both an essay by Kirk on 'ghostly tales' and Guroian's own analysis of the stories as well as Kirk's motives in writing them.) Many of Kirk's short stories, especially the ghost stories, were set in either Scotland or in the rural parts of his home state of Michigan.
Among his novels and stories, certain characters tend to recur, enriching the already considerable unity and resonance of his fictional canon. Thoughthrough their themes and prose-styleKirk's fiction and nonfiction works are complementary, many readers of the one have not known of his work in the other.
Having begun to write fiction fairly early in his career, Kirk appears to have stopped after the early 1980s, while continuing his nonfiction writing and research through his last year of life. For a comprehensive bibliography of his fiction, see the fiction section of his bibliography.
Read the original post:
Russell Kirk - Wikipedia
Posted in Libertarianism
Comments Off on Russell Kirk – Wikipedia
Memetics – Wikipedia
Posted: at 2:56 am
Study of self-replicating units of culture
Memetics is a study of information and culture. While memetics originated as an analogy with Darwinian evolution, digital communication, media, and sociology scholars have also adopted the term "memetics" to describe an established empirical study and theory described as Internet Memetics.[1] Proponents of memetics, as evolutionary culture, describe it as an approach of cultural information transfer. Those arguing for the Darwinian theoretical account tend to begin from theoretical arguments of existing evolutionary models. Those arguing for Internet Memetics, by contrast, tend to avoid reduction to Darwinian evolutionary accounts. Instead some of these suggest distinct evolutionary approaches.[2][3][4][5] Memetics describes how ideas or cultural information can propagate, but doesn't necessarily imply a meme's concept is factual.[6]
Critics contend the theory is "untested, unsupported or incorrect".[7] It has failed to become a mainstream approach to cultural evolution as the research community has favored models that exclude the concept of a cultural replicator (called "meme"), opting mostly for gene-culture co-evolution[8] or dual inheritance theory[9] instead. Lesser critical arguments suggest memetics is still valid, but analytically holds a smaller academic space in cultural evolutionary theory.[10] Alternatively, Internet Memetics has yet to provide a tested theory of evolution, having sparse empirical studies.[11] As such, it also struggles to be tested or adopted as an agreeable theory of evolution in a digital context.
The term meme was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the resulting field of study.[12] Analogous to a gene, the meme was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behavior, etc.) which is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme's success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. However, contemporary to Dawkins, reduction of a meme to an immaterial idea was contested during memetics' early theoretical developments.[13] Daniel Dennett went as far as to say "a meme's existence depends on a physical embodiment," [14] rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, contemporary memetics tends to refer to these early memetic arguments as reducible to "mentalism".[15]
In his book The Selfish Gene (1976), the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins used the term meme to describe a unit of human cultural transmission analogous to the gene, arguing that replication also happens in culture, albeit in a different sense. While cultural evolution itself is a much older topic, with a history that dates back at least as far as Darwin's era, Dawkins (1976) proposed that the meme is a unit of culture residing in the brain and is the mutating replicator in human cultural evolution. After Dawkins, many discussed this unit of culture as evolutionary "information" which replicates with metaphysically analogous rules to Darwinian selection.[16] A replicator is a pattern that can influence its surroundings that is, it has causal agency and can propagate. This proposal resulted in debate among anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, and scientists of other disciplines. Dawkins himself did not provide a sufficient explanation of how the replication of units of information in the brain controls human behaviour and ultimately culture, and the principal topic of the book was genetics. Dawkins apparently did not intend to present a comprehensive theory of memetics in The Selfish Gene, but rather coined the term meme in a speculative spirit. Accordingly, different researchers came to define the term "unit of information" in different ways.
The evolutionary model of cultural information transfer is based on the concept that units of information, or "memes", have an independent existence, are self-replicating, and are subject to selective evolution through environmental forces.[7] Starting from a proposition put forward in the writings of Richard Dawkins, this model has formed the basis of a new area of study, one that looks at the self-replicating units of culture. It has been proposed that just as memes are analogous to genes, memetics is analogous to genetics.
The modern memetics movement dates from the mid-1980s. A January 1983 "Metamagical Themas" column[17] by Douglas Hofstadter, in Scientific American, was influential as was his 1985 book of the same name. "Memeticist" was coined as analogous to "geneticist" originally in The Selfish Gene. Later Arel Lucas suggested that the discipline that studies memes and their connections to human and other carriers of them be known as "memetics" by analogy with "genetics".[18] Dawkins' The Selfish Gene has been a factor in attracting the attention of people of disparate intellectual backgrounds. Another stimulus was the publication in 1991 of Consciousness Explained by Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett, which incorporated the meme concept into a theory of the mind. In his 1991 essay "Viruses of the Mind", Richard Dawkins used memetics to explain the phenomenon of religious belief and the various characteristics of organised religions. By then, memetics had also become a theme appearing in fiction (e.g. Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash).
The idea of language as a virus had already been introduced by William S. Burroughs as early as 1962 in his fictional book The Ticket That Exploded, and continued in The Electronic Revolution, published in 1970 in The Job.
The foundation of memetics in its full modern incarnation was launched by Douglas Rushkoff's Media Virus: Hidden Agendas in Popular Culture in 1995,[19] and was accelerated with the publication in 1996 of two more books by authors outside the academic mainstream: Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme by former Microsoft executive turned motivational speaker and professional poker-player Richard Brodie, and Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society by Aaron Lynch, a mathematician and philosopher who worked for many years as an engineer at Fermilab. Lynch claimed to have conceived his theory totally independently of any contact with academics in the cultural evolutionary sphere, and apparently was not aware of The Selfish Gene until his book was very close to publication.[citation needed]
Around the same time as the publication of the books by Lynch and Brodie the e-journal Journal of Memetics Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission[20] (published electronically from 1997 to 2005[21]) first appeared. It was first hosted by the Centre for Policy Modelling at Manchester Metropolitan University. The e-journal soon became the central point for publication and debate within the nascent memeticist community. (There had been a short-lived paper-based memetics publication starting in 1990, the Journal of Ideas edited by Elan Moritz.[22]) In 1999, Susan Blackmore, a psychologist at the University of the West of England, published The Meme Machine, which more fully worked out the ideas of Dennett, Lynch, and Brodie and attempted to compare and contrast them with various approaches from the cultural evolutionary mainstream, as well as providing novel, and controversial, memetics-based theories for the evolution of language and the human sense of individual selfhood.
The term meme derives from the Ancient Greek (mimts), meaning "imitator, pretender". The similar term mneme was used in 1904, by the German evolutionary biologist Richard Semon, best known for his development of the engram theory of memory, in his work Die mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen, translated into English in 1921 as The Mneme.[23] Until Daniel Schacter published Forgotten Ideas, Neglected Pioneers: Richard Semon and the Story of Memory in 2000, Semon's work had little influence, though it was quoted extensively in Erwin Schrdingers 1956 Tarner Lecture Mind and Matter. Richard Dawkins (1976) apparently coined the word meme independently of Semon, writing this:
"'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word mme."[24]
David Hull (2001) pointed out Dawkins's oversight of Semon's work. Hull suggests this early work as an alternative origin to memetics by which Dawkins's memetic theory and classicist connection to the concept can be negotiated.
"Why not date the beginnings of memetics (or mnemetics) as 1904 or at the very least 1914? If [Semon's] two publications are taken as the beginnings of memetics, then the development of memetics [...] has been around for almost a hundred years without much in the way of conceptual or empirical advance!"[13]
Despite this, Semon's work remains mostly understood as distinct to memetic origins even with the overt similarities accounted for by Hull.
The memetics movement split almost immediately into two. The first group were those who wanted to stick to Dawkins' definition of a meme as "a unit of cultural transmission". Gibron Burchett, another memeticist responsible for helping to research and co-coin the term memetic engineering, along with Leveious Rolando and Larry Lottman, has stated that a meme can be defined, more precisely, as "a unit of cultural information that can be copied, located in the brain". This thinking is more in line with Dawkins' second definition of the meme in his book The Extended Phenotype. The second group wants to redefine memes as observable cultural artifacts and behaviors. However, in contrast to those two positions, Blackmore does not reject either concept of external or internal memes.[25]
These two schools became known as the "internalists" and the "externalists." Prominent internalists included both Lynch and Brodie; the most vocal externalists included Derek Gatherer, a geneticist from Liverpool John Moores University, and William Benzon, a writer on cultural evolution and music. The main rationale for externalism was that internal brain entities are not observable, and memetics cannot advance as a science, especially a quantitative science, unless it moves its emphasis onto the directly quantifiable aspects of culture. Internalists countered with various arguments: that brain states will eventually be directly observable with advanced technology, that most cultural anthropologists agree that culture is about beliefs and not artifacts, or that artifacts cannot be replicators in the same sense as mental entities (or DNA) are replicators. The debate became so heated that a 1998 Symposium on Memetics, organised as part of the 15th International Conference on Cybernetics, passed a motion calling for an end to definitional debates. McNamara demonstrated in 2011 that functional connectivity profiling using neuroimaging tools enables the observation of the processing of internal memes, "i-memes", in response to external "e-memes".[26]This was developed further in a paper "Memetics and Neural Models of Conspiracy Theories" by Duch, where a model of memes as a quasi-stable neural associative memory attractor network is proposed, and a formation of Memeplex leading to conspiracy theories illustrated with simulation of self-organizing network.[27]
An advanced statement of the internalist school came in 2002 with the publication of The Electric Meme, by Robert Aunger, an anthropologist from the University of Cambridge. Aunger also organised a conference in Cambridge in 1999, at which prominent sociologists and anthropologists were able to give their assessment of the progress made in memetics to that date. This resulted in the publication of Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science, edited by Aunger and with a foreword by Dennett, in 2001.[28]
In 2005, the Journal of Memetics ceased publication and published a set of articles on the future of memetics. The website states that although "there was to be a relaunch... after several years nothing has happened".[29] Susan Blackmore has left the University of the West of England to become a freelance science-writer and now concentrates more on the field of consciousness and cognitive science. Derek Gatherer moved to work as a computer programmer in the pharmaceutical industry, although he still occasionally publishes on memetics-related matters. Richard Brodie is now climbing the world professional poker rankings. Aaron Lynch disowned the memetics community and the words "meme" and "memetics" (without disowning the ideas in his book), adopting the self-description "thought contagionist". He died in 2005.
Susan Blackmore (2002) re-stated the definition of meme as: whatever is copied from one person to another person, whether habits, skills, songs, stories, or any other kind of information. Further she said that memes, like genes, are replicators in the sense as defined by Dawkins.[30]That is, they are information that is copied. Memes are copied by imitation, teaching and other methods. The copies are not perfect: memes are copied with variation; moreover, they compete for space in our memories and for the chance to be copied again. Only some of the variants can survive. The combination of these three elements (copies; variation; competition for survival) forms precisely the condition for Darwinian evolution, and so memes (and hence human cultures) evolve. Large groups of memes that are copied and passed on together are called co-adapted meme complexes, or memeplexes. In Blackmore's definition, the way that a meme replicates is through imitation. This requires brain capacity to generally imitate a model or selectively imitate the model. Since the process of social learning varies from one person to another, the imitation process cannot be said to be completely imitated. The sameness of an idea may be expressed with different memes supporting it. This is to say that the mutation rate in memetic evolution is extremely high, and mutations are even possible within each and every iteration of the imitation process. It becomes very interesting when we see that a social system composed of a complex network of microinteractions exists, but at the macro level an order emerges to create culture.[citation needed]
Many researchers of cultural evolution regard memetic theory of this time a failed paradigm superseded by dual inheritance theory.[31] Others instead suggest it is not superseded but rather holds a small but distinct intellectual space in cultural evolutionary theory.[10]
A new framework of Internet Memetics initially borrowed Blackmore's conceptual developments but is effectively a data-driven approach, focusing on digital artifacts. This was lead primarily by conceptual developments Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel (2006) [32] and Limor Shifman and Mike Thelwall (2009).[33] Shiman, in particular, followed Susan Blackmore in rejecting the internalist and externalist debate, however did not offer a clear connection to prior evolutionary frameworks. Later in 2014, she rejected the historical relevance of "information" to memetics. Instead of memes being a unit of cultural information, she argued information is exclusively delegated to be "the ways in which addressers position themselves in relation to [a meme instance's] text, its linguistic codes, the addressees, and other potential speakers."[15] This is what she called stance, which is analytically distinguished from the content and form of her meme. As such, Shifman's developments can both can be seen as critical to Dawkins's meme, but also a somewhat distinct conceptualization of meme as a communicative system dependent on the internet and social media platforms. By introducing memetics as an internet study there has been the rise in empirical research owed to Internet research methods and extensive digital data. That is, memetics in this conceptualization has been notably testable with the application of social science methodologies. It has been popular enough that following Lankshear and Knobel's (2019) review of empirical trends, they warn those interested in memetics that theoretical development should not be ignored, concluding that,
"[R]ight now would be a good time for anyone seriously interested in memes to revisit Dawkins work in light of how internet memes have evolved over the past three decades and reflect on what most merits careful and conscientious research attention."[34]
As Lankshear and Knobel show, the Internet Memetic reconceptualization is limited in addressing long-standing memetic theory concerns. It is not clear that existing Internet Memetic theory's departure from conceptual dichotomies between internalist and externalist debate are compatible with most earlier concerns of memetics. Internet Memetics might be understood as a study without an agreed upon theory, as present research tends to focus on empirical developments answering theories of other areas of cultural research. It exists more as a set of distributed studies than a methodology, theory, field, or discipline, with a few exceptions such as Shifman and those closely following her motivating framework.
Critics contend that some proponents' assertions are "untested, unsupported or incorrect."[7] Most of the history of memetic criticism has been directed at Dawkins' earlier theory of memetics framed in The Selfish Gene. There have been some serious criticisms of memetics. Namely, there are a few key points on which most criticisms focus: mentalism, cultural determinism, Darwinian reduction, without academic novelty, and a lack of empirical evidence of memetic mechanisms.
Luis Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of memetic mechanisms. He refers to the lack of a code script for memes which would suggest a genuine analogy to DNA in genes. He also suggests he meme mutation mechanism is too unstable which would render the evolutionary process chaotic. That is to say that the "unit of information" which traverses across minds is perhaps too flexible in meaning to be a realistic unit.[35] As such, he calls memetics "a pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution" among other things.
Another criticism points to memetic triviality. That is, some have argued memetics is derivative of more rich areas of study. One of these cases comes from Peircian semiotics, (e.g., Deacon,[36] Kull[37]) stating that the concept of meme is a lesser developed Sign. Meme is thus described in memetics as a sign without its triadic nature. Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic theory involves a triadic structure: a sign (a reference to an object), an object (the thing being referred to), and an interpretant (the interpreting actor of a sign). For Deacon and Kull, the meme is a degenerate sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.
Others have pointed to the fact that memetics reduces genuine social and communicative activity to genetic arguments, and this cannot adequately describe cultural participation of people. For example, Henry Jenkins, Joshua Green, and Sam Ford, in their book Spreadable Media (2013), criticize Dawkins' idea of the meme, writing that "while the idea of the meme is a compelling one, it may not adequately account for how content circulates through participatory culture." The three authors also criticize other interpretations of memetics, especially those which describe memes as "self-replicating", because they ignore the fact that "culture is a human product and replicates through human agency."[38] In doing so, they align more closely with Shifman's notion of Internet Memetics and her addition of the human agency of stance to describe participatory structure.
Mary Midgley criticizes memetics for at least two reasons:[39]
Like other critics, Maria Kronfeldner has criticized memetics for being based on an allegedly inaccurate analogy with the gene; alternately, she claims it is "heuristically trivial", being a mere redescription of what is already known without offering any useful novelty.[41]
Research methodologies that apply memetics go by many names: Viral marketing, cultural evolution, the history of ideas, social analytics, and more. Many of these applications do not make reference to the literature on memes directly but are built upon the evolutionary lens of idea propagation that treats semantic units of culture as self-replicating and mutating patterns of information that are assumed to be relevant for scientific study. For example, the field of public relations is filled with attempts to introduce new ideas and alter social discourse. One means of doing this is to design a meme and deploy it through various media channels. One historic example of applied memetics is the PR campaign conducted in 1991 as part of the build-up to the first Gulf War in the United States.[48]
The application of memetics to a difficult complex social system problem, environmental sustainability, has recently been attempted at thwink.org[49] Using meme types and memetic infection in several stock and flow simulation models, Jack Harich has demonstrated several interesting phenomena that are best, and perhaps only, explained by memes. One model, The Dueling Loops of the Political Powerplace,[50] argues that the fundamental reason corruption is the norm in politics is due to an inherent structural advantage of one feedback loop pitted against another. Another model, The Memetic Evolution of Solutions to Difficult Problems,[51] uses memes, the evolutionary algorithm, and the scientific method to show how complex solutions evolve over time and how that process can be improved. The insights gained from these models are being used to engineer memetic solution elements to the sustainability problem.
Another application of memetics in the sustainability space is the crowdfunded Climate Meme Project[52] conducted by Joe Brewer and Balazs Laszlo Karafiath in the spring of 2013. This study was based on a collection of 1000 unique text-based expressions gathered from Twitter, Facebook, and structured interviews with climate activists. The major finding was that the global warming meme is not effective at spreading because it causes emotional duress in the minds of people who learn about it. Five central tensions were revealed in the discourse about [climate change], each of which represents a resonance point through which dialogue can be engaged. The tensions were Harmony/Disharmony (whether or not humans are part of the natural world), Survival/Extinction (envisioning the future as either apocalyptic collapse of civilization or total extinction of the human race), Cooperation/Conflict (regarding whether or not humanity can come together to solve global problems), Momentum/Hesitation (about whether or not we are making progress at the collective scale to address climate change), and Elitism/Heretic (a general sentiment that each side of the debate considers the experts of its opposition to be untrustworthy).[53]
Ben Cullen, in his book Contagious Ideas,[54] brought the idea of the meme into the discipline of archaeology. He coined the term "Cultural Virus Theory", and used it to try to anchor archaeological theory in a neo-Darwinian paradigm. Archaeological memetics could assist the application of the meme concept to material culture in particular.
Francis Heylighen of the Center Leo Apostel for Interdisciplinary Studies has postulated what he calls "memetic selection criteria". These criteria opened the way to a specialized field of applied memetics to find out if these selection criteria could stand the test of quantitative analyses. In 2003 Klaas Chielens carried out these tests in a Masters thesis project on the testability of the selection criteria.
In Selfish Sounds and Linguistic Evolution,[55] Austrian linguist Nikolaus Ritt has attempted to operationalise memetic concepts and use them for the explanation of long term sound changes and change conspiracies in early English. It is argued that a generalised Darwinian framework for handling cultural change can provide explanations where established, speaker centred approaches fail to do so. The book makes comparatively concrete suggestions about the possible material structure of memes, and provides two empirically rich case studies.
Australian academic S.J. Whitty has argued that project management is a memeplex with the language and stories of its practitioners at its core.[56] This radical approach sees a project and its management as an illusion; a human construct about a collection of feelings, expectations, and sensations, which are created, fashioned, and labeled by the human brain. Whitty's approach requires project managers to consider that the reasons for using project management are not consciously driven to maximize profit, and are encouraged to consider project management as naturally occurring, self-serving, evolving process which shapes organizations for its own purpose.
Swedish political scientist Mikael Sandberg argues against "Lamarckian" interpretations of institutional and technological evolution and studies creative innovation of information technologies in governmental and private organizations in Sweden in the 1990s from a memetic perspective.[57] Comparing the effects of active ("Lamarckian") IT strategy versus userproducer interactivity (Darwinian co-evolution), evidence from Swedish organizations shows that co-evolutionary interactivity is almost four times as strong a factor behind IT creativity as the "Lamarckian" IT strategy.
Originally posted here:
Posted in Memetics
Comments Off on Memetics – Wikipedia
Difference Between Monogamy and Polygamy
Posted: at 2:54 am
January 10, 2016 Posted by Admin
Across the globe, there are many forms of marriages that are being practiced by people that come from different backgrounds. These forms are monogamy and polygamy. Monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time. On the other hand, Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time. The key difference between monogamy and polygamy is that while in monogamy the individual has only one spouse, in polygamy there are more than one spouses at a time. Through this article let us examine the differences between these two practices with some examples.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time. This is the most familiar pattern of marriage for most of us. If we look at our day today society, monogamy seems to be the popular and more accepted form of marriage. In monogamy after choosing a partner, the individual lives with a single spouse throughout his lifetime. However, there is another concept known as serial monogamy. In this case, an individual lives with a single spouse at a time.
When we examine the concept of family, most sociological definitions take the idea of monogamy as the norm. To be more explicit, definitions of family highlight the existence of two adults who are in a monogamous relationship. For example, even in Murdocks definitions, it is clear that the various social, economical, sexual roles are performed by the two spouses. This is why we can state that monogamy is very well established in the present society. Further many societies have laws to uphold this practice.
Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time. In the past polygamy was quite common in most societies. For examples, many kings had a number of queens during the ancient days, and this practice was considered as normal although now it is made illegal in most countries. When speaking of polygamy, there are two main types. They are,
Polygyny is when a man is married to more than one wife. Polyandry is when a woman is married to more than one husband. Although polygamy is practiced in certain parts of the world, there are different organizational bodies that are against this practice. When looking at this concept from a religious perspective, most religions do not approve of polygamy. Although it must be highlighted that Muslims are allowed to have more than one spouse.
Monogamy: Monogamy refers to the practice of having only one husband or wife at a time.
Polygamy: Polygamy refers to the practice of having more than one husband or wife at a time.
Monogamy: In monogamy there is only one spouse at a time.
Polygamy: In polygamy there is more than one spouse at a time.
Monogamy: Monogamy is now considered as the legal form of marriage.
Polygamy: Polygamy is considered to be illegal in most societies, although there are exceptions to this.
Monogamy: Monogamy is the popular practice of marriage.
Polygamy: Although polygamy was quite common in the past now it is only tolerated.
Image Courtesy:
1.Old marriage at Plac Kaszubski by Starscream Own work. [CC BY-SA 3.0] via Commons
2.Mormon Family (Russells Polygamy in Low Life) by Charles Roscoe Savage [Public Domain] via Commons
The rest is here:
Posted in Polygamy
Comments Off on Difference Between Monogamy and Polygamy
Donald Trump had to be told a pool of reporters would no longer follow …
Posted: at 2:51 am
PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump wanted reporters to cover a private event he was hosting.
Advisers then had to explain why he could no longer call on a press pool for his events.
Advisers found reporters who happened to be working near the area for his event, the Washington Post reported.
Aides and advisers to former President Donald Trump said he had a difficult time transitioning from the White House to life as a private citizen, according to a new report from the Washington Post.
According to the Post, one example of this was when Trump wanted his team to call on a press pool reporters who travel with presidents for an event at Mar-a-Lago. Advisers had to break the news to Trump that this was no longer a possibility.
"We had to explain to him that he didn't have a group standing around waiting for him anymore," an unnamed former aide told the Washington Post.
The advisers ended up pulling reporters who were near Mar-a-Lago for other reasons, two sources told the Post.
Once Trump left office, he was frustrated at his downsized life, which included a smaller number of Secret Service, no access to Air Force One, and little press coverage compared to when he was president, four unnamed advisers to Trump told the Post.
Trump has spent most of his post-presidency in isolation at Mar-a-Lago, playing golf six days a week and using dinner at the club as an opportunity to revel in the attention of admiring fans who applaud his entrances and exits from the dining room.
The praise he receives from guests at his Palm Beach, Florida, and Bedminster, New Jersey, clubs is how he gets the attention he became used to as president, an aide told the Post.
"The appetite for attention hasn't waned, but that's where he gets it now," an unnamed Trump confidant told the Washington Post."The networks don't carry his rallies. He doesn't get interviews anymore. He can't stand under the wing of Air Force One and gaggle [with reporters] for an hour."
He has also spent less time being challenged by aides and listening to opposition from political opponents, colleagues, and independent journalists, the Post reported.
Story continues
Trump is now seeking a second term in theWhite House. On November 24, he announced his bid for president in 2024. Meanwhile, he continues to face mounting legal and political challenges.
The January 6 committee investigating Trump's role during the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol is expected to recommend at least three criminal charges insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to defraud the US government against the former president to the Department of Justice.
Although the recommendations hold nolegal weight, the committee hopes the action will influence Attorney General Merrick Garland to take action against the former president, Politico reported.
Trump is also still facing an investigation from the Department of Justice after the FBI, executing a search warrant, found classified documents that the former president took with him from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago home.
A representative for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Originally posted here:
Donald Trump had to be told a pool of reporters would no longer follow ...
Posted in Donald Trump
Comments Off on Donald Trump had to be told a pool of reporters would no longer follow …
Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four …
Posted: at 2:51 am
House panel: Trump criminal referral a 'roadmap to justice'
The House panel investigating Donald Trumps efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat has referred the former president for four criminal charges, including engaging in an insurrection, in what the committees chair says is a roadmap to justice.
The stunning, unprecedented referral of an ex-president came at the final meeting of the bipartisan panel on Monday afternoon. The nine members also voted unanimously to approve the final report of the 18-month investigation, which will be released on Wednesday.
The committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the January riot and during his efforts to remain in power after his defeat by Joe Biden.
The panel is also referring four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas.
The Trump referrals are for influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government, conspiring to defraud the US, unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government, and assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States.
Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the panel chair, said the referrals will be transmitted to the justice department in very short order.
They are largely symbolic, as attorney general Merrick Garland will make his own decision on charges at the conclusion of the justice departments own investigations, headed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
But, speaking to CNN after the session, Thompson said:
Im convinced the justice department will charge former president Trump. No-one, including the former president, is above the law.
In his opening remarks to the meeting, Thompson said: We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.
John Eastman, Trumps attorney, whom the panel said had helped Trump in his conspiracy to stay in power, was also referred. Unnamed others are also likely to face referrals, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trumps personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former department of justice official Jeffrey Clark.
Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin announced the referrals. Ours is not a system where foot soldiers go to jail, and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass, Raskin said:
The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.
Updated at 16.51EST
Key events
Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature
Were wrapping up our live US politics coverage for the day, after a historic announcement from the January 6 committee that they had voted unanimously to refer former president Donald Trump to the justice department for criminal prosecution on four counts. Heres a recap of todays key events:
The four counts of the Trump referrals are for influencing or impeding an official proceeding of the US government, conspiring to defraud the US, unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government, and assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States.
The referrals are largely symbolic, as attorney general Merrick Garland will make his own decision on charges at the conclusion of the justice departments own investigations, headed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
The panel is also referring four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas, including Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader who is expected to run for speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber next year.
The January 6 committees full report is expected to be released on Wednesday.
In other high-stakes news, the supreme courts chief justice, John Roberts, has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from later this week ending a pandemic-era policy of rapidly expelling migrants caught at the US-Mexico border, at the request of Republican officials in 19 states.
Updated at 18.23EST
Whats next for the Jan 6 committee?
Though the committee has released an executive summary of its findings, a full report is expected to be made public on Wednesday.
Broader documentation of the committees interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses are also expected to be made public in the coming days, CNN reported, satisfying the demands from Trumps allies to see not just the committees clips from interviews with Trumps confidantes, but the full context.
The committee itself will dissolve, with Republicans holding a majority in Congress next year. Four members of the committee will not be returning to Congress, having lost or chosen not to run for reelection in the midterms. Despite its historic work, the committee is unlikely to serve as a political steppingstone for many of its members, the New York Times wrote.
Its unclear how the committees recommendation that Trump should face criminal justice will affect the justice departments ongoing criminal investigations into Trumps conduct on 6 January and his handling of top secret documents. Now that Trump is officially running for reelection, the justice department has appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, a career prosecutor and political independent, to oversee those investigations.
Updated at 18.13EST
Breaking: supreme courts chief justice temporarily blocks end to pandemic-era border restrictions
At the request of Republican officials in 19 states, the supreme courts chief justice, John Roberts, has temporarily blocked the Biden administration from later this week ending a pandemic-era policy of rapidly expelling migrants caught at the US-Mexico border, Reuters reports.
The Republican officials led by the attorneys general in Arizona and Louisiana on Monday asked the supreme court to act after a federal appeals court on Friday declined to put on hold a judges ruling last month that invalidated an emergency order known as Title 42. The policy is set to expire Wednesday.
The Biden administration had faced sharp criticism for extending Title 42, a Trump-era immigration policy that advocates said had made the legal process of seeking asylum in the US much more dangerous, unstable and unsanitary.
Since the policy was put in place in March 2020, more than 2.4 million migrants have been expelled from the US and prevented from exercising their legal right under US and international law to seek asylum. The policy was justified as a way of preventing the spread of Covid-19.
In November, a federal judge ordered the Biden administration to lift the Trump-era asylum restriction, calling the ban arbitrary and capricious. The judge gave the justice department five weeks to implement the change, with great reluctance, setting the deadline for this Wednesday, 21 December.
Updated at 18.01EST
More than 9,000 threats against US lawmakers in past year, Capitol police chief says
As the January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the justice department for criminal prosecution on four counts, including assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States, in another part of the Capitol, the chief of the Capitol police is testifying about the rising number of threats against members of Congress.
Some lawmakers see increased privacy protections as one response:
Updated at 17.12EST
Unanswered questions, unsolved crimes: the 6 January pipe bombs
After more than a year of work, there are still key questions about 6 January that remain unanswered, including: who was responsible for placing the viable pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national committee headquarters that were discovered that day?
Asked about that issue, congressman Jamie Raskin said I dont believe there have been any updates since we first looked into it. Those are unsolved crimes, CNN reported.
Updated at 16.55EST
January 6 committee Democrat who lost her House seat: Its all been worth it.
This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from Los Angeles.
Democratic congresswoman Elaine Luria of Virginia, a member of the January 6 House committee, lost her reelection bid to her Republican opponent.
As Luria recapped the January 6 committees recommendations this afternoon, CNNs Jake Tapper asked her if she thought the committees work had played a role in her loss.
Luria said she believed it had, but that she felt preventing another event like January 6 was more important than her individual political career.
Its all been worth it, she said.
Luria also emphasized that the 2022 midterms more broadly had not produced a wave of victories for the most pro-Trump candidates, as the former president had hoped. The most emphatic election deniers they did not win, she said.
Luria and other Democrats told the New York Times they believed the January 6 committees work had more importance for midterm voters than polls had indicated.
Updated at 16.40EST
Four law enforcement officers who came under attack during the January 6 Capitol riot have just been on CNN, sharing their thoughts about the criminal referrals for Donald Trump handed down this afternoon by the January 6 House committee.
Daniel Hodges, DC Metropolitan Police:
Its entirely appropriate. I dont think anything is really surprising about the charges. The chatter was whether it would be meaningful at all for the committee to make these referrals and I think it is, even if its just symbolic.
Symbols have meanings, symbols of power, and, you know, future generations [will] look back and say that this branch of Congress, this branch of government, did the best they could to make accountability happen.
Michael Fanone, DC Metropolitan police:
I think it was appropriate having sat through each and every one of the committees hearings. This was the inevitable outcome. Again, you know, it is symbolic and its up to the Department of Justice, ultimately, to seek criminal accountability for those responsible for the January 6 insurrection.
Aquilino Gonell, US Capitol Police:
Its been very meaningful to have that coming from Congress, given the amount of evidence that they uncovered, and its appropriate.
Harry Dunn, US Capitol Police:
Im glad that they did it. But respectfully to the January 6 committee, its been two years. We knew what they announced today on January 7, 2021.
I really appreciate all the work that theyve done and theyre continuing to do, and the justice department is doing. But I dont even want to get into the what ifs if they dont [charge Trump].
Updated at 16.05EST
Heres our full story about this afternoons House January 6 committee meeting that approved criminal referrals for Donald Trump. Chris Stein reports:
The January 6 committee has referred Donald Trump to the justice department to face criminal charges, accusing the former president of fomenting an insurrection and conspiring against the government over his attempt to subvert the outcome of the 2020 election, and the bloody attack on the US Capitol.
The committees referrals approved by its members Monday are the first time in American history that Congress has recommended charges against a former president. It comes after more than a year of investigation by the bipartisan House of Representatives panel tasked with understanding Trumps plot to stop Joe Biden from taking office.
The committee believes that more than sufficient evidence exists for a criminal referral of former President Trump for assisting or aiding and comforting those at the Capitol who engaged in a violent attack on the United States, congressman Jamie Raskin said as the committee held its final public meeting.
The committee has developed significant evidence that President Trump intended to disrupt the peaceful transition of power under our Constitution. The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.
The committee accused Trump of breaching four federal criminal statutes, including those relating to obstructing an official proceeding of Congress, assisting an insurrection and conspiring to defraud the United States. It also believed Trump committed seditious conspiracy the same charge for which two members of the rightwing Oath Keepers militia group were found guilty of by a jury last month.
The lawmakers also referred four Republican House representatives to the chambers ethics committee. The group includes Kevin McCarthy, the GOP leader who is expected to run for speaker of the House when the party takes control of the chamber next year.
Read the full story:
Donald Trump could face up to 25 years in prison if he is convicted of the four criminal charges for which a House panel this afternoon referred him to the justice department.
The US code on assisting with or engaging in an insurrection allows for a sentence of up to 10 years, and disqualification from holding or running for any office under the United States for anyone convicted.
The former president announced his third run for the White House as a Republican last month.
As for the other three charges Trump could face, all carry prison terms of up to five years, conspiracy to defraud the US, unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government; and influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government.
There is, of course, uncertainty over whether the justice department will charge Trump with these crimes, far more whether he would be convicted. But this is the first time we know of the potential penalties Trump faces for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Updated at 15.33EST
Well see the full report (hopefully) on Wednesday, but heres the executive summary of the January 6 House panels findings, published this afternoon at the conclusion of its final meeting.
It gives an outline of the 18-month investigation and key findings that resulted in a criminal referral for Donald Trump on four federal charges today, including assisting in or engaging in an insurrection.
You can read the panels summary here.
The House panel investigating Donald Trumps efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat has referred the former president for four criminal charges, including engaging in an insurrection, in what the committees chair says is a roadmap to justice.
The stunning, unprecedented referral of an ex-president came at the final meeting of the bipartisan panel on Monday afternoon. The nine members also voted unanimously to approve the final report of the 18-month investigation, which will be released on Wednesday.
The committee alleged violations of four criminal statutes by Trump, in both the run-up to the January riot and during his efforts to remain in power after his defeat by Joe Biden.
The panel is also referring four Republican members of Congress to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with subpoenas.
The Trump referrals are for influencing or impeding a an official proceeding of the US government, conspiring to defraud the US, unlawfully, knowingly or willingly making false statements to the federal government, and assisting or engaging in insurrection against the United States.
Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, the panel chair, said the referrals will be transmitted to the justice department in very short order.
They are largely symbolic, as attorney general Merrick Garland will make his own decision on charges at the conclusion of the justice departments own investigations, headed by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
But, speaking to CNN after the session, Thompson said:
Im convinced the justice department will charge former president Trump. No-one, including the former president, is above the law.
In his opening remarks to the meeting, Thompson said: We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice.
John Eastman, Trumps attorney, whom the panel said had helped Trump in his conspiracy to stay in power, was also referred. Unnamed others are also likely to face referrals, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trumps personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and former department of justice official Jeffrey Clark.
Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin announced the referrals. Ours is not a system where foot soldiers go to jail, and the masterminds and ringleaders get a free pass, Raskin said:
The president has an affirmative and primary constitutional duty to act to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Nothing could be a greater betrayal of this duty than to assist in insurrection against the constitutional order.
Updated at 16.51EST
Here are some more tweets from the House January 6 committee session today:
The four Republican congressmen who have been referred to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with the January 6 panels subpoenas are Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader and would-be speaker from California; Jim Jordan of Ohio; Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Biggs of Arizona.
Updated at 14.42EST
See the article here:
Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four ...
Posted in Donald Trump
Comments Off on Jan 6 committee refers Donald Trump for criminal prosecution on four …
That Sound You Year Is Donald Trump Screaming at the Mar-a-Lago Pool …
Posted: at 2:51 am
It was a rough Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago this year, and Christmas is not looking much betterunless Donald Trump accusing Santa of being a mole for radical left Democrats and throwing a plate of cookies and milk against the wall is considered standard holiday cheer in Palm Beach.
On Tuesday, one day after the January 6 committee recommended the Department of Justice charge the ex-president with four major crimes, Punchbowl News reported that the House panel has begun extensively cooperating with the Justice Departments special counsel charged with overseeing investigations into former presidentDonald Trump. That special counsel, Jack Smith, reportedly sent the committee a letter on December 5, requesting all of the panels materials from the 18-month probe, and beginning last week, the panel started sending Smiths team documents and transcripts, with plans to share more documents and transcripts in the coming days, according to Punchbowl News source.
The reported cooperation marks a new front in the DOJs criminal investigation of Trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and the insurrection that followed; previously, the January 6 committee had chosen not to share its findings with the department. Now, the committees year-plus of legwork, including interviews with more than 1,000 witnesses, could prove extremely valuable to Smiths investigation. Earlier this month, CNN reported that, while some in Trumps inner circle viewed Smiths appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland as a positive development for the ex-presidents freedom, others were worried he was brought in as a hit man and is likely to indict the guy.
In other less-than-positive developments for the 2024 presidential candidate, the House Ways and Means Committee voted on Tuesday to publicly release six years of Trumps tax returns, which it obtained earlier this month to the former guys extreme chagrin. Trump, of course, has spent years going to extreme lengths to keep his tax documents under lock and key: He invented a rule that he couldnt release them because they were under audit; he begged the Supreme Court to save him; and he installed a Treasury secretary who effectively took a vow to hide every copy of the returns in his anal cavitybefore the Treasury ultimately let Congress get its hands on them. So this turn of events will obviously be deeply upsetting to him.
Prior to the vote, Republicans insisted that releasing the returns could lead to horrible, horrible acts of transparency.
While it could be sometime before the documents are released to the public, The New York Times previously noted that they may not contain major new revelations, as weve already learned a tremendous amount about Trumps finances over the last several years. In 2019, for instance, Michael Cohen,the then presidents former attorney,toldCongress that Trump regularly inflated and deflated the value of his assets when it benefited him. And earlier this year, the New York attorney generals office sued Trump and his three eldest children on accusations of lying to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities about said assets. (At the time the suit was filed, an attorney for Trumpinsistedthat absolutely no wrongdoing has taken place.)
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Trumps family business was found guilty of multiple counts of tax fraud (among other things). And then, of course, theres the 2018 story from the Timeswhich won a Pulitzerrevealingthat Trump amassed much of his fortune through dubious tax schemes, some of which included instances of outright fraud. (At the time of publication, a lawyer for Trump insisted that TheNew York Times allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false and highly defamatory. There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. He added that if therewasfraud or tax evasion, Trump had nothing to do with it, saying: President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters.) Two years later, the same news organizationrevealedthat Trump had paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, another $750 in 2017, and bupkis in 10 of the previous 15 years.
More:
That Sound You Year Is Donald Trump Screaming at the Mar-a-Lago Pool ...
Posted in Donald Trump
Comments Off on That Sound You Year Is Donald Trump Screaming at the Mar-a-Lago Pool …
Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee set to release Trump’s taxes in the coming days – CNN
Posted: at 2:51 am
- Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee set to release Trump's taxes in the coming days CNN
- I.R.S. Didnt Audit Trump for 2 Years in Office, House Committee Says The New York Times
- Private Jet Costs, Sketchy Deductions Among Red Flags in Trump Taxes Bloomberg
See the rest here:
Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee set to release Trump's taxes in the coming days - CNN
Posted in Donald Trump
Comments Off on Democratic-led House Ways and Means Committee set to release Trump’s taxes in the coming days – CNN
Ron Paul | Biography, Education, Books, & Facts | Britannica
Posted: at 2:45 am
Ron Paul, byname of Ronald Ernest Paul, (born August 20, 1935, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.), American politician, who served as a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives (197677, 197985, 19972013) and who unsuccessfully ran as the 1988 Libertarian presidential candidate. He later sought the Republican nomination for president in 2008 and 2012.
Paul grew up on his familys dairy farm just outside Pittsburgh. He earned a bachelors degree in biology from Gettysburg College in 1957 and a medical degree from Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, in 1961. He later served as a flight surgeon for the U.S. Air Force (196365) and the Air National Guard (196568). In 1968 Paul moved to Brazoria county, Texas, where he established a successful practice in obstetrics and gynecology.
Paul was inspired to enter politics in 1971 when Pres. Richard M. Nixon abolished the Bretton Woods exchange system. Paul believed that the abandonment of the last vestiges of the gold standard would lead to financial ruin for the United States. Though he was unsuccessful in his initial run for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1974, his opponent resigned before completing his term, and Paul won a special election to complete it. He lost the seat in the subsequent general election, only to regain it two years later. He chose not to seek reelection in 1984 and instead campaignedunsuccessfullyfor the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. He broke from the Republican Party to run as a Libertarian in the 1988 presidential election, ultimately winning more than 430,000 votes. He returned to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican in 1997, though his votes were often at variance with the majority of his party; for example, in the early 2000s he voted against authorizing the Iraq War and the USA Patriot Act.
Pauls presidential campaign platform remained libertarian in spirit. It focused on free-market economics, a radical reduction in the size of government, increased privacy protections for individuals, and a reduction of U.S. participation in international organizations. Having claimed only a handful of delegates, he ended his bid for the White House in June 2008 and launched Campaign for Liberty, a political action committee. In April 2011 Paul, who was popular within the Tea Party movement, formed an exploratory committee to assess the viability of a third presidential run. The following month he formally announced his candidacy. In July 2011, in order to focus on his presidential campaign, Paul announced that he would not seek a 13th term in Congress. Although supported by a devoted and energized base, Paul was selective in the states where he actively campaigned. A second-place showing in New Hampshire was among his best performances in January 2012. He garnered a number of other second-place finishes before announcing in May that he would not campaign in the remaining states. Paul did not endorse the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, and said on the night of the general election that he believed the only winner would be the status quo. He retired from the House in January 2013, at the age of 77.
Pauls views are outlined in Freedom Under Siege (1987), A Foreign Policy of Freedom (2007), and The Revolution: A Manifesto (2008).
See the article here:
Ron Paul | Biography, Education, Books, & Facts | Britannica
Posted in Ron Paul
Comments Off on Ron Paul | Biography, Education, Books, & Facts | Britannica