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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

#51

Post by tingol »

DocTomoe wrote: post #24
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of Iceland are intelligent, as evidenced by their jailing of bankers and election of the Pirate Party, so would not hand him over. If small-minded people cared 1% as much about holding their own government accountable as they did whistleblowers, imagine how much better society would be?

You are mistaking "in accordance with my personal preferences and political views" with intelligence.

I don't think there's anything personal or political about corrupt people getting punished for their crimes instead of being bailed out without taking any individual responsibility.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#52

Post by tremon »

xenobioticants wrote: post #30
grosun wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely agreed re. the inflexibility of the US system, but "Europe" contains a multiplicity of different parliamentary systems. The UK for instance is sadly almost as stuck in a bipartisan world as the US, which makes change a slow and painful process (or quick and painful wrt this year's referendum!)

Yes, but most of the mainland countries have multi-party systems. Hell, the parliament of the Netherlands at one point consisted of 16(!) parties.

To put that in context: that is one party per million residents.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#53

Post by kbart »

jamnik wrote: post #43
efdee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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...

Have you actually read the article yourself, or just the title?

"he was never a “mole” for Moscow inside NSA. In reality, the Snowden Operation is probably a cover to deflect attention from the one or more actual Russian moles who have been lurking inside NSA for years, undetected."

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#54

Post by cabalamat »

mseebach wrote: post #49
aedron wrote: post #25

This 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 o…

> 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.

True in the US, not true in the UK -- May and Corbyn had been MPs and members of their parties for years before becoming leader.

> "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept, all but unheard of in UK/US parties

Again, not true in the UK

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#55

Post by good_gnu »

jamnik wrote: post #43
efdee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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...

"Bild" is basically Germany's Fox News. The author has worked for the NSA in the past and seems to somehow glorify their unconstitutional mass surveillance crimes. The same guy has also claimed Snowden being able to speak German is somehow proof of KGB collaboration. Botice how the articles headline talks about "The Kremlin", when in reality this is one senator who has said something that could be construed as meaning that Snowden "brought intelligence".

But there is a bigger overriding issue with your post. Somehow the KGB is "blood thirsty". Why do you think that? Have American intelligence agencies never killed people for political goal? Maybe it was just not disseminated in American news? Why do you not have an allegiance to values such as reason, humanitarianism or freedom as opposed to some flag?

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#56

Post by tremon »

macspoofing wrote: post #50
jacquesm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ...

But controversy in the US is similarly limited to a two-party dialog: everything in your political system (its discourse, its reporting, its policies) is geared towards this artifical (and often false) dichotomy.

In my view, it is the discourse that needs to be fixed first. As long as your media keeps painting everything in black and white (and it is in their interest to do so, being part of the establishment), I don't think any electoral reform is useful.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#57

Post by dharma1 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #2

It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home. I love Iceland. I truly do. My wife and I visited twice last year. I think it would be a wonderful place to live. Given a choice between Russia and Iceland I would pick Iceland without hesitation (although I have to admit that I have never been to Russia). However, I do not believe that they would be able to protect Snowden from the CIA. I hope Snowden sees this…

Yeah, I wouldn't, if I was Snowden. http://grapevine.is/news/2014/12/21/mfik-urges-investigation...

Having said that, we don't really know on what terms Snowden is enjoying impunity in Russia. I doubt it has come as a free lunch.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#58

Post by Broken_Hippo »

poshli wrote: post #12
ajmurmann wrote: post #2

It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home. I love Iceland. I truly do. My wife and I visited twice last year. I think it would be a wonderful place to live. Given a choice between Russia and Iceland I would pick Iceland without hesitation (although I have to admit that I have never been to Russia). However, I do not believe that they would be able to protect Snowden from the CIA. I hope Snowden sees this…

The PP is a fringe radical party that if they somehow become the majority party in Iceland, they're not going to retain it for very long. I would not recommend that famous dissidents like Snowden move there immediately. I like visiting Iceland too, the few Icelanders I know can't wait to move though. The winter weather and high price of everything is a bit of a drag. I am not an expert on Iceland but I have read that…

I would guess that it isn't so much the winter weather and the price of goods that is making folks want to leave: I'm in Norway, which traditionally has expensive goods and bad weather. Everyone complains about their weather, but from my experience, the locals don't find it to be all that detrimental to life - I've had to learn to dress better for the weather and stuff like that. (of course, I don't know how strong the icelandic currency is at the moment, so that could be an issue for buying those goods). The second one - that it is really controlled by interests behind the two main industries - is likely much more key. Having a small island country with only two main industries makes it so that folks don't have as much opportunity as they would in mainland Europe or Canada. Not only that, but one of the main industries - fishing - can be rough work in itself. The place being an island also prevents some of the options for avoiding the high prices for goods: Here I can take a (free!) bus just over the Swedish border and buy things more cheaply, but they'd have to take a flight somewhere.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#59

Post by Grue3 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #2

It has offered Edward Snowden a new place to call home. I love Iceland. I truly do. My wife and I visited twice last year. I think it would be a wonderful place to live. Given a choice between Russia and Iceland I would pick Iceland without hesitation (although I have to admit that I have never been to Russia). However, I do not believe that they would be able to protect Snowden from the CIA. I hope Snowden sees this…

It's extremely naive to think that Snowden would move somewhere out of Russia. It's very obvious why he went there in the first place.

Re: Iceland, a land of Vikings, braces for a Pirate Party takeover

#60

Post by walshemj »

mseebach wrote: post #49
aedron wrote: post #25

This 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 o…

That is one of the problems with PR its bugging's turn and there is no direct relationship between the MP and there constituency.

And collective responsibility is not undemocratic in its self.

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