Snowden is KGB operative officially confirmed by Russia. Why support KGB agenda?
[citation needed]
Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
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Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#42Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#43Snowden is KGB operative officially confirmed by Russia. Why support KGB agenda?
[citation needed]
Ok, I googled it for you so no more excuses for supporting blood thirsty KGB: http://m.bild.de/politik/ausland/edward-snowden/kremlin-admi...
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#44It's nice to see that libertarian ideas are winning at least in some counties when in most of the world governments get more and more control over people's lives.
I hope you're not talking about Russia where Snowden lives
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not having control over your own currency is a death sentence for your economy. Not to mention, cash realistically offers more freedom than any crypto-currency, as it's untraceable.
Not having your own currency (especially a crypocurrancy - where it's essentially dividable to millionth or billionth) is not a death sentence to an economy. The U.S. didn't have direct control over its currency until the early 1900's. And once they got direct control, it caused the great depression. A treasury can offer bonds and control the amount of liquidity in a market. It's not direct control, but all countries…
I'd rather my groceries, gas, bills, et al not cost 50% more/less day to day like the crazy Bitcoin swings we still see.
A cryptocurrency for a nation state as of right now is still a pipe dream.
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#46This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…
Dutch here. We need at least 5 parties to make a government in the next election. Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table. I wish we had a system like the USA.
> Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table.
That's a feature, not a bug.
> I wish we had a system like the USA.
You are missing the wood for the trees. The last thing you want in a country is an effective government that can push through it's majority agenda at the expense of the minority.
That's why EU countries are as a rule quite far ahead on the curve of progress, see: abortion, euthanasia, LGBT rights and so on.
It's also a way to keep religion out of government as much as possible, you won't see the separation between state and church in a country where the dominant political parties all have to nominally support the dominant religion.
So please, no system 'like the USA' in Dutch politics, though, you may get your wish soon enough. Personally I'd much rather have us adopt the very opposite, the Swiss system which requires a much more active electorate and a much more educated one too.
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#47Very cool experiment. It's easy being the opposition. Governing is hard. Let's see how they handle it.
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#48This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…
Simply not true. In two party system radical ideas are taking over the parties and changing their agenda. It's not like OWS has no influence in the Democrat Party. Or Tea Party in thevRepublucan Party. Both are mainstreamed by the parties, but that's a good thing. By civilizing radical elements you can actually still enjoy democracy vs having it destroyed by radicals like nazis or communists. Never thought why US nev…
Sorry, off-topic, but thanks to your unexplained acronym I've just realized the coincidence of initials between Occupy Wall Street and Open Whisper Systems.
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#49This kind of change could only happen in Europe, due to the multi-party system. In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties. I honestly believe this proves the superiority of this system, over the American one. The great advantage of democracy is that it provides an avenue for peaceful change, or, if you are more cynical, the appearance of such. Thi…
> In America, as has so often been proven, the system is rigged to prevent alternatives to the established parties.
But the difference is that the parties in the US and the UK aren't very powerful in their own regard. Trump wasn't even a member of the republican party until very recently, and he won the nomination -- and Sanders forced Clinton very far to the left before dropping out.
On the other hand, the leaders of european parties are mostly selected through opaque backroom deals and yet are very powerful (through "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept, all but unheard of in UK/US parties). Policy is made by these leaders (or their appointed nominees) meeting each other and negotiating a compromise, and then (except in very rare cases) every MP of the parties in this negotiation defends in the media it as a solid and credible response to the issues faced by the country (despite, often to great hilarity, the compromise being orthogonal to several very firm positions and red lines drawn by that very same politician just days before) and then votes for it.
The mechanism for this power is that few individual MP carry their own seat, they're assigned proportionally, according to the national share of votes won by the party. Party leadership wields significant influence over who runs where (especially who runs in "safe" seats), and thus who gets in. MPs who cause too much trouble will find themselves campaigning in a difficult district, or next to a more popular/well-known candidate.
Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dutch here. We need at least 5 parties to make a government in the next election. Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table. I wish we had a system like the USA.
> Nothing ever changes here because everything has to go through many iterations of compromises if it even wants to leave the negotiation table. That's a feature, not a bug. > I wish we had a system like the USA. You are missing the wood for the trees. The last thing you want in a country is an effective government that can push through it's majority agenda at the expense of the minority. That's why EU countries are…
>That's why EU countries are as a rule quite far ahead on the curve of progress, see: abortion, euthanasia, LGBT rights and so on.
Except those are controversial with Americans. I'm not seeing how the system is to blame. Making the electoral process 'more democratic' isn't going to change that. It might make things worse ...