Neoconservatives constantly use this term in a derogatory fashion to describe the exchange of political ideas, facts, and opinions among liberals. It's the neocon version of the liberal echochamber accusation. And they imply that it is a bad thing-- if liberals do it. It's yet another aspect of existence that they have managed to politicize: the transfer of ideas itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme
Quote: "...a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation...
"...one can roughly define 'meme' as any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods."
The responses by the neocons to my observation would be predictible. They will defend the use of the term and proceed to explain why they hate it when they hear the same opinions from most liberals. (Either that or just fling some insult.) The first thing they will accuse me of doing is echoing some liberal article discussing the neocon derogatory use of the word "meme." This wouldn't be true. I just now noticed that neocons use this word all of the time to describe liberal ideas. So I looked it up. And as far as I know, this is my unique opinion.
To me, in my opinion, the derogatory use of the word, "meme," implies that neoconservatives hate the idea of cultural evolution. They hate culture. They pass judgement on art, what you think, how you fuck, and what you can do with your own life. This seems to dovetail well with their promotion of Creationism, a concept that implies that people and ideas that exist today have remained unchanged since we sprang into existence a few thousand years ago.
It's bad enough that we have these muslim terrorists wanting to destroy our civilization. Now it becomes more and more apparent that these neoconservatives want to destroy our culture.
Whatever happened to the Dixie Chicks?
Perhaps the explaination is simple but still indicative of their non-creative ways. Perhaps the neocons resent the echochamber accusation. They couldn't effectively use the same term to describe liberal opinion. So perhaps they just found "meme" in a thesarus.
Liberals use the term too. I see it employed countless times her at Daily Kos. But it seems that it's employed in it's proper context. For example, the spreading of a lie or distortion among themselves is a meme. But neocons seem to use it as a synonym for "talking point."