From 2018: THEOCRATIC MERCENARY ERIK PRINCE AND THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT.

"President Donald Trumps election allowed the Christian right to achieve a new level of domination in the US government. Since the 1960s, the #ChristianRight has become the loudest voice in the Republican Party, moving their message from the revival tents and into the political arena. Continuing this tradition, Erik Dean Prince, founder of the private security services firm RBlackwater, embodies the values of a heavily financed movement in American politics, combining elements of corporate greed, pro-war fanaticism, and religious fundamentalism. Prince has been eyeing a run for political office, which would enable him to help legislate his proposals and build momentum for his fellow travelers to achieve the same in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

A Son is Born

"Erik Dean Prince was born in Holland, Michigan, on June 6, 1969, the youngest child and only son of Edgar and Elsa Prince, who also had daughters Betsy, Emilie, and Eileen. As documented by author Suzanne Simons in her 2009 book Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War, Prince grew up in a religious household and attended Christian schools; the Princes were members of the Reformed Church in America, a conservative Christian sect that follows the philosophical template of theologian John Calvin.

"Edgar Prince worked as a die caster and then chief engineer for the die cast machine manufacturing outfit Buss Machine Works after serving in the US Air Force. In 1965 he and two co-workers struck out on their own to establish Prince Manufacturing. By the 1970s the company expanded its operations and became financially successful, as did the Prince family. Edgar Prince died of heart failure in 1995, and the company was sold to Johnson Controls for over $1 billion.

"Surrounded by those who share their belief in Christian-based politics, the Prince family has used its fortune to help build the conservative Christian movement. Focus on the Family founder #JamesDobson and Richard Nixon's disgraced former special counsel Charles Colson (who became a born-again Christian after serving seven months in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal) were family friends. Edgar and Elsa Prince were major contributors to the Family Research Council and founded the nonprofit Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation in 1979, substantial funds from which have gone toward the effort to abolish the legal wall separating church and state. lhe Prince family also has deep ties to the Council for National Policy (#CNP) which, according to its vision statement, supports 'a united conservative movement to assure, by 2020, policy leadership and governance that restores religious and economic freedom, a strong national defense, and Judeo-Christian values under the Constitution.'

"From Reverend Billy Graham's "spiritual counsel" to twelve US presidents, to Reverend #JerryFalwell's #MoralMajority movement of the 1970s and '80s, to Marion Gordon #PatRobertson's #ChristianCoalition (now the Christian Coalition of America), the movement to push a fundamentalist 'Judeo-Christian' agenda into the public sphere has been an ongoing crusade. Keeping with family tradition, #ErikPrince's sister Betsy married fellow Christian right figure Dick DeVos, whose father is the founder of Amway and the past president of the CNP from 1990-1993. #BetsyDeVos served as the chair of the Michigan Republican Party and now serves as US Secretary of Education under Donald Trump. The DeVos dynasty, labelled a 'family of extremists' by the Center for American Progress, is undoubtedly having an influence on the Trump White House.

"As many readers of this publication [#TheHumanist] likely know, the Christian right calls for: mandatory prayer in school, the abolition of #ReproductiveRights and bans on #SameSex marriage, persecution of #minority groups, and funding of #pseudoscientific studies (such as those that deny #ClimateChange and promote intelligent design). Recently, Secretary DeVos instructed her office to remove guidelines protecting the #CivilRights of #transgender students. This is only one of many ways that she and her #Trumpian cohorts are ignoring the will of the majority in favor of the #theocratic #tyranny of the few. By contrast, DeVos's brother Erik, characterized by critics as a 'mercenary' and '#WarProfiteer,' made his mark on US policy through his controversial outfit Blackwater. "

Read more:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/THEOCRATIC+MERCENARY+ERIK+PRINCE+AND+THE+CHRISTIAN+RIGHT.-a0545669941

#USPol #TrumpSucks
#Authoritarianism #ErikPrinceIsAWarCriminal #ErikPrinceColonialism #ChristoFascism #Fascism

#IQ is largely a #Pseudoscientific #Swindle : Medium

Rare find: #Interstellar #Visitor seen #Blazing through our #SolarSystem : Nature

#Photonic #Processor could streamline #6G #Wireless #Signal #Processing : MIT

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#Tory #MP says #government is ‘#reneging’ on #LGBTQ+ #promises after #conversiontherapy #Uturn.

Most medical groups view the practice as #pseudoscientific and #damaging #practice. The #AmericanPsychiatricAssociation (#APA) has described it as “#harmful.”

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #UK #Tories #ConversionTherapy #Hate #Bigotry #Discrimination #Homophobia #Transphobia #TERFIsland

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/09/26/caroline-nokes-rishi-sunak-conversion-therapy/

#Pseudopsychology refers to #pseudoscientific formulations of #psychology. Although psychology has increasingly become associated with cognitive science in recent times, there is still no general unifying theory of psychology. This makes the demarcation problem in the field more difficult to assess. However, there are some schools of thought and erroneous claims that have been widely rejected within the field today. Psychology has also been applied to numerous fields and occupations, leading it to be rampantly used, misused, and abused by a wide variety of professionals and amateurs alike. The proliferation of pop and pseudopsychology has been a concern for psychologists and those in related fields from very early on, as is evidenced by Joseph Jastrow's debunking of psychological pseudoscience published in 1900.

#RationalWiki #demarcationproblem
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pseudopsychology