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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

#71

Post by nomercy400 »

"They know what they’re against. But it’s difficult to find out what they’re really for."

Well, reading what the Pirate Party wants to be, it makes sense they don't have things to be 'for'. They want to give the people more room to decide. The pirates just want to give the people that space. They don't care about all the topics traditional politics discuss and promote. They just want the people have have more of a say in it, instead of a once-in-four-year vote.

The political party shouldn't decide on the largest decisions, the people should make that decision (through matters as referendum).

With current technology, the people could even represent themselves. "We need your decision on this political matter: swipe left for yes, right for no."

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

Grue3 wrote: post #59
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.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by dagw »

tptacek wrote: post #69
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…

Is Europe ahead of the US on LGBT rights? Marriage equality is the law of the land in all 50 states here. The first amendment of our Constitution separates church and state, for whatever that's worth. You might want to suggest that to Ireland. ;)

Is Europe ahead of the US on LGBT rights?

On the whole, not really. 11 European countries constitutionally ban same-sex marriage for example, and less than half the countries offer any sort of legal recognition for same-sex couples.

Of course the problem when talking about 'Europe' is that you have a very wide spectrum of opinions. For every country that is ahead of the US on LGBT rights you have another that is very far behind.

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

#74

Post by maeln »

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…

Depends where in Europe. In France, it's the same two party since a long time. One of them just change name from time to time (UDF, then RPR, then UMP, then Les Republicains).

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

#75

Post by jacquesm »

tptacek wrote: post #69
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…

Is Europe ahead of the US on LGBT rights? Marriage equality is the law of the land in all 50 states here. The first amendment of our Constitution separates church and state, for whatever that's worth. You might want to suggest that to Ireland. ;)

Yes, the EU is ahead, but just like every other part of the future it is unevenly distributed.

Some country in Europe will pioneer a concept, others will follow, some faster some slower. The US usually catches on long after the concept has already become normal in a fair chunk of the EU.

As for your constitution, America gets it right on paper, but in practice God (the Christian one) is all over American politics, whereas even in Ireland it seems to be less of a day-to-day influence.

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

#76

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #75
tptacek wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Europe ahead of the US on LGBT rights? Marriage equality is the law of the land in all 50 states here. The first amendment of our Constitution separates church and state, for whatever that's worth. You might want to suggest that to Ireland. ;)

Yes, the EU is ahead, but just like every other part of the future it is unevenly distributed. Some country in Europe will pioneer a concept, others will follow, some faster some slower. The US usually catches on long after the concept has already become normal in a fair chunk of the EU. As for your constitution, America gets it right on paper, but in practice God (the Christian one) is all over American politics, wh…

So really you mean the Netherlands are ahead of the US in LGBT rights. I'm curious about what else the US should be doing. How is the Netherlands better?

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

#77

Post by pjc50 »

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…

This answer does not reflect reality in the UK. Party discipline is extremely important in the UK system, maintained by the "whips". Few UK MPs carry their own seat as an individual, although good constituency work can be worth a few thousand votes. One or two have managed to run as independents; Peter Law (ex-Labour protesting against all-women shortlists), Richard Taylor (Kidderminster Hospital).

Tony Blair was notorious for imposing ideological coherence from the top on the Labour party with pagers in exactly the way you are talking about: MPs were expected to keep exactly to the media line agreed by Blair and Campbell, and hide all dissent to avoid "PARTY SPLIT" headlines.

Note how the conservative party managed to campaign against itself for the Brexit referendum and has now seemingly zipped that right up again. Although the three Brexit ministers keep issuing daft announcements that have to be countermanded by the PM (this is called "cabinet collective irresponsibility").

It's worth comparing UK parliamentary elections with the regional parliament elections, which are all run on different systems with very different results.

US parties have traditionally been extremely strong. What has happened is that the US rightwing media "bubble" has taken over doctrine and thrown away the doublespeak. Trump is winning because he can say all the unpleasant things that other Republicans feel they have to dogwhistle or hint at.

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

#78

Post by rvense »

tremon wrote: post #52
xenobioticants wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When you put it like that, it doesn't really sound like that many parties...

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

#79

Post by dagw »

tptacek wrote: post #76
jacquesm wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the EU is ahead, but just like every other part of the future it is unevenly distributed. Some country in Europe will pioneer a concept, others will follow, some faster some slower. The US usually catches on long after the concept has already become normal in a fair chunk of the EU. As for your constitution, America gets it right on paper, but in practice God (the Christian one) is all over American politics, wh…

So really you mean the Netherlands are ahead of the US in LGBT rights. I'm curious about what else the US should be doing. How is the Netherlands better?

How is the Netherlands better?

From a purely legal perspective not in any significant ways. However from a public opinion perspective the difference is more significant. Same sex marriage has ~90% approval rating in the Netherlands compare ~55% in US. I cannot imagine that those sorts of differences don't greatly affect the day-to-day reality living as a same sex couple.

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

#80

Post by selllikesybok »

tremon wrote: post #56
macspoofing wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

"All or nothing", it turns out, is really appealing to people. It may be toxic to a functioning democracy with a diverse population, but doesn't seem to lessen the appeal.

We are very good at pretending that when we get "nothing", it is a temporary inconvenience.

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