Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 151 posts

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

#131

Post by pvg »

tedunangst wrote: post #129
pvg wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a purely legal view is a sensible way to look at this. In much of Europe, abortion is not a major political issue that motivates the voting patterns of a significant chunk of the electorate and hasn't been for a long time. In that sense, Europe is more progressive on women's reproductive rights.

That's a strange way to present the argument. In the early 1800s the electorate of the US South was unified in support of slavery. Not a motivating political issue. I would not say the south was particularly progressive on the issue of slavery.

You're reading what I wrote as some sort of weird 'therefore, Socrates was a cat' syllogism. Was the point I was trying to make unclear? Because I don't see how your analogy is at all related or even much of an analogy.

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

#132

Post by sctb »

jamnik wrote: post #44
tananaev wrote: post #4

It'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

We've banned this account for posting only inflammatory political comments.

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

#133

Post by tedunangst »

pvg wrote: post #131
tedunangst wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strange way to present the argument. In the early 1800s the electorate of the US South was unified in support of slavery. Not a motivating political issue. I would not say the south was particularly progressive on the issue of slavery.

You're reading what I wrote as some sort of weird 'therefore, Socrates was a cat' syllogism. Was the point I was trying to make unclear? Because I don't see how your analogy is at all related or even much of an analogy.

I don't see how "people don't care" -> "they are progressive". The logic of that escapes me.

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

#134

Post by harryh »

pvg wrote: post #131
tedunangst wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strange way to present the argument. In the early 1800s the electorate of the US South was unified in support of slavery. Not a motivating political issue. I would not say the south was particularly progressive on the issue of slavery.

You're reading what I wrote as some sort of weird 'therefore, Socrates was a cat' syllogism. Was the point I was trying to make unclear? Because I don't see how your analogy is at all related or even much of an analogy.

FWIW my reading of your comment was the same as tedunangst's. Perhaps you meant something different from what you wrote?

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

#135

Post by tdb7893 »

tremon wrote: post #126
chrisseaton wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is party discipline undemocratic? If you want to get the benefit of the support and branding of a political party it seems reasonable that you should have to follow their rules. The discipline only extends so far as removing that support. That seems fair to me. Does it not to you?

Why is party discipline undemocratic? Why is party discipline undemocratic? Can you explain why you think it's not? I think party discipline is simply autoritarianism applied within a political party. If anything, it advertises to me that said party doesn't really believe in democratic principles.

You can still pick which parties to support or even create a new party and that choice seems to me to be the foundation of representative democracy.

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

#136

Post by tptacek »

kasey_junk wrote: post #105
dagw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Comparing the Netherlands to the entirety of the USA is just weird. What are the approval ratings in New York state for instance? That is closer in population to the Netherlands (and potentially more rural & thus more conservative but still likely closer). On most day-to-day reality issues (for same sex couples or anyone else) local norms are probably much more important and I can assure you there are lots of parts t…

It is weird, and of course you're right, but to be fair: that's the question I asked. I'm setting the bar high for us. I'll be happy when we're as socially liberal as the most socially liberal country on the planet. :)

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

#137

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #81
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It goes much further than marriage, there is the whole decriminalization thing, which goes back to the 1930's in the case of some countries here. As for how NL is 'better' than the US: It's a ridiculously small country and very densely populated so what works here would likely not work as well in places like Canada or the US, but as mentioned above I think coalition politics (het poldermodel) is an important part of…

Sorry, of course there's a lot of things we could obviously be better at, things that NL is already far better about. I was asking specifically about LGBT rights.

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

#138

Post by euroclydon »

harryh wrote: post #122
euroclydon wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? We discourage smoking with the tax system. And I'm not talking about a regressive tax, like on smoking. It can be purely for rich healthy women. If abortion should be rare, than why not tax it.

Abortion should be rare the same way that heart surgery should be rare: not by stoping people from having one when they need it, but by preventing the unwanted condition (unwanted pregnancy, heart disease) in the first place. People who say that abortion should be rare aren't saying that the procedure itself is bad. They're saying that unwanted pregnancies are bad.

Wow! I always thought the "rare" part was added because what happens to the fetus is, let's say, unsavory. Now I see it's one of those genius phrases where you can read your own feelings into it.

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

#139

Post by tptacek »

euroclydon wrote: post #138
harryh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Abortion should be rare the same way that heart surgery should be rare: not by stoping people from having one when they need it, but by preventing the unwanted condition (unwanted pregnancy, heart disease) in the first place. People who say that abortion should be rare aren't saying that the procedure itself is bad. They're saying that unwanted pregnancies are bad.

Wow! I always thought the "rare" part was added because what happens to the fetus is, let's say, unsavory. Now I see it's one of those genius phrases where you can read your own feelings into it.

Whatever your feelings about it are, you can safely assume that most people who say "safe, legal, and rare" are saying that the state should have no role at all in women's reproductive choices. It's a pro-choice slogan, coined by pro-choice activists.

I think we're all a lot better off not getting any further into the details on this.

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

#140

Post by flukus »

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…

> through "party discipline", another throughly undemocratic concept

I disagree, it's more democratic because I know the party platform is what I'm voting for. I don't have to know the individual positions of everyone.

Post reply on HN