The mandate of heaven.

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday January 01, 2008 · 1:00 AM PST

2008/01/01 · 01:00

I have many strange ideas ( often around midnight), most of which only make sense to me. Nonetheless I felt like sharing this one. The punditocracy seems to make up concepts, taking old concepts and robbing of them of their inherent meaning. What does "flip flopper" mean exactly? What does "bipartisanship" mean? Apparently unconditional cooperation with republicans because a two party system is bad. The punditocracy creates memes with no clear link to external reality and no clear meaning.

What if we were to do the same in a gesture of parody? What if we were to take a term with complex meaning and history, rob it of all that meaning and history and use it incessantly to refer to candidates we like. In particular what if we were to use the term "mandate of heaven." Imagine the conversations on talk radio:

Poll

34 votes Show Results

Is this a good idea or have I finally cracked?

34 votes Vote Now!

Is this a good idea or have I finally cracked?

Good idea

6 votes

You've cracked

19 votes

Pie

9 votes

A MIKE GRAVEL DIARY!

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 30, 2007 · 9:00 PM PST

2007/12/30 · 21:00

Okay the titles a bit of an exaggeration but seriously he's a bright candidate. He's very much on the left. He has quite a bit to recommend him. He's shown a lot more courage than any of the other candidates and there can be no question, he truly believes in all of his stances. He has experience and a kind of charisma.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday December 29, 2007 · 9:23 PM PST

2007/12/29 · 21:23

A conservative in political philosophy and thought is someone who is very concerned about rapid social changes because of the possibility of unintended consequences. A right winger is someone who advocates a number of very radical and very rapid social changes in order to create a pre imagined society. The differences between the philosophy of conservatism and the ideology of the right could not be more pronounced.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 28, 2007 · 5:34 PM PST

2007/12/28 · 17:34

This is a diary mostly about questions, not answers. It's about how we can struggle for this nation without becoming what we most revile. I’m just throwing some ideas about how we can counter the party machine of the Republican party without becoming like them

The Republican party functions as a centrally organized spin machine whereby the faithful are doled out talking points, such false unity gives the wrongful impression of a coherent conservative philosophy. It's voting discipline is superb. Also no one campaigns dirty like the Republicans. Republicans tend to score highly on Right Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation which gives them a natural capacity for terrifyingly effective hierarchical organization.

Contrast this with the left. We are disorganized (I’m not a member of any organized political party; I'm a member of the democrats as the old line goes.) As for voting discipline, well let's just say there are far more DINO's than RINO's in this world (can you imagine a Republican Lieberman?). We also use dirty tricks far less often and we might as well admit it dirty tricks are very effective. We on the left have never been the most cohesive bunch and we correctly believe that overly hierarchical rule is, in the long run, unhealthy.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 26, 2007 · 5:50 PM PST

2007/12/26 · 17:50

I've had comments on some of my posts about persuasion to the effect that swing voting is an illusion and that the power of persuasion is chimerical. I’d going to defend the importance of persuasion both on an individual and cultural level.

Persuasion is not an illusion. Australia uses compulsory voting. Thus base mobilisation means little. Yet there as many, if not more, swing seats in Australia. Why? Because people can change their minds. Politics isn't just about getting enough of your side to the booths, it's about pulling in swing voters and even some people who would usually vote for the other side. Throughout the world, in countries with higher voter turnouts, elections are clearly and unambiguously decided by swing voters.

Poll

69 votes Show Results

Pie?

69 votes Vote Now!

Pie?

Pie!

50 votes

Not pie?

19 votes

Of all the sins of the conservative movement is the worst.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday December 23, 2007 · 4:16 PM PST

2007/12/23 · 16:16

We've all heard of the moral majority and values voters. Somehow, somewhere we forgot that we are all value voters and that we all have a stake in morality. The conservative movement shrivelled a nation’s soul ending and breaking countless lives. While it might seem rather abstract to identify as the worst sin committed I feel that vast and possibly lasting damage has been done by the Republican abuse of the concept of morality. The destruction and perversion of concepts and the language that represents them takes away our ability to think like newspeak.

If a third world nation is bombed that is a moral issue. If the world fries because of greed that is a moral issue. If a nation starves and goes sick because of an embargo that is a moral issue. If people go hungry, if people have broken souls, if become objectified cogs in a system these are a moral issues. All the big issues of government are moral issues. Because morality has become about sex and culture conservatives can appeal to "values voters" with impunity even while they lie, steal and pervert the processes of democracy. I feel that an adulterated concept of morality is one of the reasons why we are so fucked up right now.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday December 22, 2007 · 6:40 PM PST

2007/12/22 · 18:40

There's a lot of Republican candiates in this world. But I feel I'm the only one together and to give it new direction in a post Reagan era. The only one who speaks a message we can all agree on. A real uniter, not a divider.

There are a few values that bind us together though. Moms and apple pie. That's why I'm standing on a platform of mums and apple pies. Yes you heard me moms and apple pies! Am I the only candidate with the courage to stand up for mums and apple pies in today's liberofacist media climate! Who doesn't like moms and apple pie! Oh and America and Freedom! America for the win! Through this brillant masterstroke I will win the nomination for to vote against me would be to show that you hate moms and apple pies and America and Freedom! Who would vote for a candidate with whom they agree on all stated positions.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 21, 2007 · 8:27 PM PST

2007/12/21 · 20:27

I would like to think that this is not a candidate diary. I support Obama and the arguments in this diary could be seen as backing that up but I would like to think I'm trying to say something much broader than "Vote Obama." What I would like to defend is the idea that it is legitimate to consider the charisma of a candidate as a factor ( not as the most important or only factor.) in deciding whether or not to vote for them.

Charisma has something of a bad reputation, a tool of tyrants and demogauges and sociopaths. It can easily be exploited to create fear and hate. It is often also a tool of justice though. Think of Martin Luther King. Charisma has the power to force people who would otherwise think of you as a faceless liberal to think of you as dignified human being.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday December 20, 2007 · 4:39 PM PST

2007/12/20 · 16:39

The techniques of persuasion justifiably has something of a bad name but at it's best it's about creating a fairer market of ideas. In the coming election season it's vitally important that if you wish to argue for the democrats you’re doing it in the best way you can. With this in mind I decided to do a little bit of digging through memory and through the internet to try and find out what helps. This diary started as a collection of personal notes and jottings. The following suggestions are based on a pragmatic mix of research from social psychology and what in my experience works. I’m no expert and I’d appreciate some critical feedback.

People reflexitively turn to bromides, biases and stereotypes in order to protect themselves from having to change their beliefs. If someone older than you tries to make a case against one of your beliefs you might find yourself, consciously or not, dismissing them as an irrelevant fogey. Similarly we tend to dismiss those younger than us as naive. If you wish to discuss issues with someone you've often got to know how to deactivate these defences.

Poll

20 votes Show Results

Are you now more interested in the techniques of persuasion?

20 votes Vote Now!

Are you now more interested in the techniques of persuasion?

Yes

10 votes

Brainstorming thread

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 19, 2007 · 2:38 PM PST

2007/12/19 · 14:38

There is surely a vast number of ideas that would help the Dems in the up and coming election which no one has ever thought of. Consider the time it took for the internet to invent something as elementary as blogs and then the time it took to invent something like Daily Kos. Perhaps there is just something you've never thought of or never thought of doing. This is a thread to draw these thoughts to the surface.

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 18, 2007 · 1:35 AM PST

2007/12/18 · 01:35

Just a short diary today on a thought many of you have probably already had but which I think deserves to be repeated. The American left is the Australian right. What is considered right wing in Australia; the land of universal healthcare and publicly funded tertiary education would probably be considered substantially left of centre in America. The same goes for most of Western Europe, New Zealand and countless other countries. Furthermore we have suffered neither economic nor moral collapse as a result and enjoy a balanced budget

Timothy Scriven

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday November 25, 2006 · 5:30 PM PST

2006/11/25 · 17:30

Today I am going to go into greater depth on reasons we might all die. The following is a set of news stories ( most of them quite old now) potentially relating to human extinction. Why am I investigating this grim topic? Because I think we need to be doing more to stop the possibility of human extinction and/or the collapse of civilization as we know it.

http://research.lifeboat.com/...

Of the teen didn't really do anything dangerous but it just goes to show what you can build in your backyard.

Poll

33 votes Show Results

Did this diary help convince you that human extinction is a real risk in the next century

33 votes Vote Now!

Did this diary help convince you that human extinction is a real risk in the next century

Yes.

5 votes

No, I already believed it .

21 votes

No, I don't believe human extinction is a real risk in the next century.

7 votes

Newer
Older

RSS

The mandate of heaven.

A MIKE GRAVEL DIARY!

Conservative vs Right Wing

How can we win the culture wars? a meditation.

Why I believe in persuasion

Of all the sins of the conservative movement is the worst.

Why I am standing for the Republican Nomination.

Charisma and candidates.

How to persaude friends and influence voters.

Brainstorming thread

It's a big world afterall

Doomsday news