G.R. Minister of Security:--- Will you all please rise for the President and CEO of our Global Republic.

President (to applause): --- Thank you, ... thank you very much, ... ... It gives me great pleasure to be here with you in Boston today, to preside over our twenty-seventh annual conference on socio-genetics. As you may know, genetics and biotechnology have been areas of high personal interest for me, ... and I have followed very closely, the outstanding progress in these fields, and the enormous benefits they have brought to our society, all across the globe.

We are specially privileged to have with us today, ... the team of geneticists and evolutionary biologists who were last year's winners of the Leben prize for socio-genetics, along with this year's Leben contenders.

As you know, the work of last year's winners has played a major role in reversing the rising tide of violence which we encountered coming into this third millenium, while the work of this year's Leben candidates promises to add further to these humanitarian achievements.

We're going to start off the conference with an open discussion on the social impact of the work of these outstanding men and women. You've already had a chance to meet and talk with the Leben laureates and to view their displays and documentaries on 'socio-genetics in crime prevention' in the exhibition hall, ... and we'll be showing a film here shortly on some of the startling research results of this year's contenders, on the evolutionary biology of insects, ... results which have resolved some very old and resistant questions in the domain of evolutionary theory and which pave the way for important new socio-genetic applications.

The session is now open for questions, ... and might I remind everyone that we would like to keep the questions and responses at the level of general understanding, for the benefit of our largely non-technical conference participants as well as our television audience. To serve that purpose, I shall try to field those questions that I can, myself, and hand off to our panel of experts only a needs-be basis.

1'st Questioner: --- Sir, ... you mentioned in your pre-election speeches, your intention to increase the levels of investment in 'violence gene research'. Can you tell us if funding will also be allocated for research into the contrary findings that the identical gene structures to the 'violence gene' have been found by experts examining the remains of African tribes dating back to the pre-slavery era, where the historical record points to a harmonious and relatively violence-free social milieu?

President: --- As I understand it, ... we can fully expect some minor level of 'false positives', as this is technically termed, in all of these genetic models, ... and we must remain alert to the possibility of misapplication of the theoretical findings. At the same time, it is our responsibility to build further on the tremendous progress we've made in violent crime reduction. We've been fortunate in the fact that modern technology has allowed us to avoid pre-judging those carrying the 'violence gene', by enabling us to insert at a very youthful age, the protective ankle bracelet. Micro-technology coupled with modern cosmetic surgery has allowed us to do these insertions so that they cannot be visually detected by others even in an intimate proximity. In addition, the small hand-held remotes which activate the lethal injection device in the ankle bracelet are licensed in the same manner as fire arms and have an activation range of no more than fifty feet. Those who carry the remote electronic activators are warned that any use, other than in life-threatening situations, is strictly prohibited by law.

What we have found is that in almost fifty percent of those incidences of threatened violence, when remotes were available and activated, ... the attacker was found to be amongst those fitted with an anklet, and the victim of the attack, was thus able to survive the attack, in most cases, fully unscathed. This method, which makes no pre-judgement as to whether the 'violence gene' will actually push the carrier to violence, has dramatically reduced the toll of death and injury to innocent people attributable to violent crime, ... and it continues to eliminate the sources of violence as well as their further propagation, in our culture. Many people who carry the remotes have told me how greatly this reduction in the 'odds' of serious injury or death by violent attack, ... has lightened their minds, ... and made them feel 'part of the team' which is working for the progressive reduction of violent crime in the Republic.

2'nd Questioner: --- Mr. President, ... the statistics also show a marked rate of increase of suicides amongst blacks, who are the predominent carriers of the 'violence gene', and this would seem to indicate, as suggested by the other gentleman, that environment, ... how society looks at you and opens up opportunities for you, ... may have more influence on the emergence of violence than the 'genetic-causality' hypothesis of the Leben team. In point of fact, Charles Darwin noted in 'The Origin of Species' that there are many instances in which "instinct varied before structure", citing examples such as birds in changing environments which were induced to evolve seed-eating behaviors which only subsequently led to the evolution of beaks more well adapted to the seed-eating behavior.

President: --- The non-causal notion that the emergence of a new 'instinct' or behavioral evolution can precede and predominate over genetic structure-caused behavior has often been raised by the lay public, but I have been assured, not only by the team, but by the Leben committee of distinguished scientists, that such is not the case, ... and I would like to hand your question off to the Chairman of the Leben Committee for further, technical commentary.

Leben Chairman: --- What the President says is correct. The statistical correlation supporting genetic causality is far too strong to be overridden by the misleading intuitive notion of environmental induction. Our further research on rising suicides in the black population, in conjunction with advancing technology which lets us look into yet deeper levels of detail in gene structure, is showing up a suspected gene alternation which is currently in progress. In other words, ... the evidence is pointing to a progressive deterioration of the genetic structure in those already afflicted with the 'violence gene'. Further, extended scope research into this question has already been funded and we expect that our 'real-time' monitoring of the progressive evolutionary deterioration of defective gene structure will shed much light on the cause of suicide in the populace at large, leading to preventative treatment applicable and available to all ethnic groups.

I would also like to refer you and other interested students of evolutionary theory to the revised and simplified interpretations of Darwinian theory such as the 'Richard's Notes' version of 'The Origin of Species', a very succinct and readable distillation published by Richard Dawkins at the turn of the millenium.

President: --- At this point, we're going to take a break from the discussion and watch an amazing piece of film of insect colonies, ... a cinema-verite view of insects engaging in the most intimate aspects of their lives, ... a view made possible by the use of nano-components embedded subcutaneously in the abdomens of selected members of these tiny social collectives. The information recorded by these components, which includes crisp, video like imagery along with audio signal, are unloaded inductively from the nano-devices following two or more weeks of continuous data recording.

The question which is being researched by the team is one which, in fact, goes back to Darwin's 'Origin of the Species', ... and which deals with the paradoxical persistence and evolution of sterile offspring in some families of insects. In many cases, the sterile members have markedly different appearances and behaviors from the normal adult phenotypes, and though not contributing to the productive social activities in the normal manner, ... are often doted on by their non-defective peers. The disadvantage to the social collective, ... the overhead of having to feed and provide living space to raise the defective members through adulthood and old age, even though they contribute no offspring, seems a sacrifice which is absorbed willingly by the insect community and seems not to have hurt their competitive, natural selection standing at all, on the basis of comparisons to closely-related strains where sterile offspring do not occur.

The questions examined by the team, this years Leben prize contenders, ... dealt firstly with the identification of the causal mechanism by which the sterile offspring evolve, ... a mechanism which had to derive, in some way, through the lineage of the normal adults which parented them, ... and secondly the question of a genetic means by which the emergence of defective offspring could be eliminated or suppressed. Now, let's watch the film clip.

~^^~ (viewing of the film) ~^^~

President (picking up on the open forum session once more): --- Since this is a newer and more complex topic than is my usual fare, ... I'll defer to the leader of the research team on any questions coming from the audience.

3'rd Questioner: --- The musical-like sounds which were coming from the sterile offspring, ... in the two different strains said to exemplify different stages of evolution of the sterile offspring, ... seemed in both cases to be having a stimulating effect on the activity of the normal phenotypes in their vicinity, ... though the sounds or 'signallings' or whatever, ... were very, very different, .. in one case, sounding almost like a soprano voice.

Research Team Leader: --- Yes, it seems like the insects 'language', if you like, is also an evolving trait, ... and when we first reviewed these results, the impression also came to our minds, in the one case, of a soprano voice coming from the genetically defective, sterile offspring. Of course, these are not the actual sounds made by the insects, but sounds obtained by transposing the much higher frequency acoustic signals coming from the insects, down into the range of our hearing, for convenience of observation.

2'nd Questioner: --- Is it possible that this particular sound-related trait of the sterile offspring might somehow inspire or stimulate the so-called 'normal' adults, increasing the vigour and competitiveness in the colony and explaining the favorable selection of these species in the evolutionary process, in spite of their having to 'carry' or bear the logistical burden of the sterile offspring. While the one species sounded 'operatic', .... the other had a sound almost like an electric guitar, ...yet both seemed to stimulate the insects around them.

Research Team Leader: --- ...yes, an almost Jimi Hendrix-like sound, ... right?

President: --- Now that you mention it, one of those insects in the early footage on the first colony, was the spitting image of Elvis, ... (a good-natured laughter erupts and spreads across the conference hall)

Research Team Leader: --- Well, we've all been fascinated by the unbelievable recordings we've been able to obtain with the nano-technology, ... which give us an 'insiders' view of the intimate daily routine of the insects, almost as if 'we were there', ... but fortunately, we did not have to resort to anything as far-fetched as attributing evolutionary health to entertainment or to an 'artist colony within the insect colony', to explain what was going on here. We were in fact able to identify the defective gene structure which led to the production of sterile offspring and to find a means of suppressing it. As part of our research, we actually bred several colonies of insects which were no longer plagued by the defective genetics and forced to bear the extra burden of these non-offspring-producing members.

4'th Questioner: --- Do you also have films of the modified colonies which have been corrected for the genetic defects?

Research Team Leader: --- Yes we do, but we haven't shown them today because, ... as is typical with genetic engineering initiatives, it is not always possible to 'get it right' the first time, ... and our initial results have produced colonies which were lethargic and seemed disinterested or at least careless in the key processes of domicile construction and family care, ... behaviors which would not bode well for their natural selection based evolutionary viability.

We are nevertheless confident that we are within reach of a 'clean' genetic engineering result which will strip out the defective genetics while at the same time preserving or leaving intact the natural vigor and industrious traits of the original species. Furthermore, we are confident that this same type of treatment will soon be applicable to human genetic structure, providing a means of eliminating defective genetic components in those families whose hereditary lines have been corrupted, ... such as those afflicted with the 'violence gene'. This new socio-genetics technique, which preserves the normal characteristics-producing part of the genome, will unburden the minds of families who have lived in fear of giving birth to defective, and possibly sociopathic offspring, ever since this genetic effect became known to us.

2'nd Questioner (again): --- It strikes me that there is a basic ambiguity in all these results between environmentally-induced effects and the hypothesized genetic-causality explanation. In the case of the 'violence gene', ... the statistical correlation which APPEARS genetically-related could equally be related to historical development, ... to the history of slavery and social prejudice which has also followed genetic lines. And in the case of the insects, perhaps the so-called 'defective' phenotypes possess behavioral gifts which influence the vitality of the colony. Is it really far-fetched to assume that diversity contributes to the health of the social collective, ... is it really far-fetched to assume that the music, art and literature of human society can contribute to its evolutionary success?, ... and perhaps that genetic diversity and something equivalent to 'art' could be a factor amongst the insects, in cultivating both internal and external harmonies and thus improving upon their natural selection. MIght we not be shooting ourselves in the foot, ... and be actually reducing our evolutionary prospects, by these socio-genetic purificationist policies.

President: --- Sir, ... you have taken several opportunities to present the same view over and over again. This is intended to be an open forum for everyone present. If you are so convinced of your own theories, ... in spite of the fact that you have not probed the masses of data reviewed by these experts over their years of intensive study, ... a comprehensive effort which is impossible to fully present here, ... then I suggest that you yourself should enter into a program of studies and research such as these gentleman on the panel have already been through, ... and if you can cover the ground that they've covered, as expertly as they have, ... then you will have earned the right to stand and speak along side of them.

2'nd Questioner: --- As Richard Feyman said in the middle of the last century; "in science, we are not interested in where an idea comes from. There is no authority who decides what is a good idea. ... Most people find it surprising that in science there is no interest in the background of the author of an idea or in his motive in expounding it." In other words, the validity of a scientific concept is established not by the perceived standing of the scientist producing it, but by its consistency with observed phenomenal behavior. And as Giordano Bruno said; "It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people". So, in my view, ...

President: --- Security, ... please, ... remove this gentleman, ... we have given him far more than a fair opportunity to register his views, and he has abused that privilege. It is precisely this type of non-cooperative and disruptive behavior that we must purge from our society. And on that note, ... I think the timing is appropriate to hear from our Minister of Security, who is actually on the schedule for a timeslot later this afternoon. Linda, ... it's all yours.

Minister of Security: --- I think we all realize and appreciate what a huge contribution has been made to the orderliness of our society by the field of socio-genetics. The social unrest we experienced at the turn of the millenium will not soon be forgotten. Had it not been for technological solutions such as the LIARET, administered under the Buchanan-Bush-Chretien Provisional Act of 2002, it is hard to say where we'd be right now. I feel very proud of the contribution by my own mother in this regard. Her prophetic words, while working with the Gorbachev Foundation and Bilderberg groups at the turn of the millenium, ring freshly and resonantly in my awareness.

"... out of the full spectrum of human personality, one- fourth is elected to transcend. ... one -fourth is destructive (and) they are destructive seeds. In the past they were permitted to die a 'natural death.' ... Now, as we approach the quantum shift from the creature-human to the co-creative human -- the human who is an inheritor of God-like powers -- the destructive one-fourth must be eliminated from the social body. ... Fortunately, you are not responsible for this act. We are. We are in charge of God's selection process for Planet Earth. He selects, we destroy. We are riders of the pale horse, Death."

She was one of the first to recognize that substantial reductions in the population would be an absolute necessity, ... both from an environmental standpoint, and from the standpoint of tearing apart the social fabric --- the economic growth that would be necessary to promote jobs for all in the conventional sense, and the inequalities which would necessarily accompany that growth. Prompted by rising social disorder, we have, early on in this millenium, assumed our responsibility as my mother suggested, and used our scientific wisdom and technological applications to selectively purify and thin the gene pool, allowing everyone of us more 'breathing space', to enjoy life and nature in a more relaxed and secure manner.

The development of LIARET technology has given us a hugely successful preventative tool to reverse the rising tide of violent crime which characterized the final years of the second millenium. It is a new and very different world we now live in, thanks to science, technology and the determination of our people, in seizing the initiative and putting a stop to social abuse fertilized by the degenerate ideas of those falsely claiming to speak for social equality and justice. Over the past decade, the LIARET anklet program has saved my life on several occasions, and my teenage daughter, who also carries a licensed remote with her at all times, ... her 'lariat' as she calls it, ... has already had occasion to use it in a case of attempted rape, ... not to terminate the rapist, but by keeping her finger visibly on the trigger, forcing her assailant to submit to a 'lesson' before a crowd of onlookers, ... a lesson that he will not soon lose the taste of. Gradually, then, by assuming our responsibilities and bringing our science and technology to bear, we have been building a better society for ourselves and for the generations to follow.

President: --- Thank you Linda, ... now let's hear it for these outstanding citizens of our Global Republic, ... men and women of science whose brilliance and diligence has contributed so strongly to the progress we've made over these past two decades.

(one month later, in a Boston courtroom.)

Judge (to 2'nd Questioner): --- This court finds you guilty of willful conspiracy to disrupt a free assembly of citizens of our Global Republic. As you are aware, the right to free assembly and all such liberties are protected by the laws of the new Global Republic. Under the provisions of the Buchanan-Bush-Chretien act of 2002, it is the court's decision that you be fitted with a lethal injection anklet with remote electronic triggering, a LIARET device. I wish to make you aware that it is not the court's wish, neither is it the wish of citizens this court represents, that you should come to any harm by the fitting of this device, provided that you abide by, on a persisting and continuous basis, the laws of this Republic. I would further advise you, for your own safety and protection, to avoid proximity to political demonstrations and other gatherings where social frictions may lead to the activition, by violence-suppression police or private citizens, of the remote triggering devices.

Do you wish to make a statement to the court?

2'nd Questioner: Only that I am reminded of the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, which occurred one hundred years ago in this same city, which led to their execution for a crime they did not commit.

The presiding judge in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, Judge Webster Thayer, said of Vanzetti in the pre-trial hearing "This man, although he may not have actually committed the crime attributed to him, is nevertheless morally culpable, because he is the enemy of our existing institutions". This same judge sentenced both men to death, and shortly afterwards said to Professor James Richardson of Dartmouth College "Did you see what I did to those anarchist bastards the other day ? I guess that will hold them for a while...."

A hundred years ago, in 1927, such a verdict was viewed as so blatantly unjust that the case became a global cause celebre. Demonstrations of solidarity with Sacco and Vanzetti were held in China, India, France, England, Japan, Italy, Brazil, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Uruguay, Norway, Poland, Paraguay, Belgium, Portugal, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Spain, and many other countries. Newspaper headlines reported on the global reaction, and in a single issue of the New York Times, on October 8th, 1927, there were reports entitled 'Fifty Thousand Swedes Parade'; "Argentine Strike Goes On" ; "Dutch Demonstration Broken Up" ; "Warsaw Mob Kept From Legation", "Massive Demonstrations in Bombay, Barcelona , and Buenos Aires".

Today, in spite of living in an age of advanced communications, the scene is very different, ... an insidious silence surrounds the suppression of dissent. The abstract myth of a causal reality, deeply embedded in science and technology, reigns, ... cultivating an environment of increasing sterility and judgmentalism, ... an environment which feeds from its own purificationist attitude to become increasingly intolerant to dissent. There is a belief that 'good' and 'evil' are entities in their right and that the ability to recognize them and immediately act upon them is the infallible inheritance of those in power, ... the ability to discern the "one- fourth elected to transcend. ... and the, ...one -fourth which is destructive and which are destructive seeds, and which we can no longer permit to live out their lives to die a 'natural death.'" But who is the 'we' which assumes the responsibility for making this determination?, ... who other than the self-appointed "one-fourth elected to transcend."?

To live by a philosophy of suppression is to make of ourselves the living dead. Life is the celebration of diversity, ... the transcending of opposition by the imaginative transformation of discord into harmony, ... not the unimaginative confrontation of opposition and pursuit of purification, ... the hunting down and elimination of discord, Les Miserables style. Musicians know this difference only too well, .... that we cannot afford to allow our lives to "just happen while we're busy controlling the world out there" as John Lennon said, ... that we cannot wait until tomorrow, until after we've perfected and purified the world as a place to live in, ... since, as Janis Joplin has said; ... 'tomorrow never happens, .... it's all the same fucking day.'

So I would say that this anklet I am being forced to wear is new only in its severity, ... it follows in the wake of our too-quiet succumbing to the yoke of political correctness, ... to having willingly constrained ourselves to ever-narrowing bounds of self expression, ... by our suppressing of diversity instead of our celebrating it, ... and, ...by cultivating predictability through control, rather than opportunity through imagination.

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