Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#11

Post by hef19898 » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:16 PM UTC

10dpd wrote: post #10

jellicle wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, democracy is the worst system of governance we have, except for all the others. In Greece, voters punished the two main parties who colluded to fuck them over so badly, by voting for other parties. In fact, almost 20% of the parliament is now composed of members of brand new parties - brand new because many voters don't feel their interests are being represented by the older parties. Isn't this result exactly wh…

"If Athens doesn't keep its word, it will be a democratic choice. The consequence will be that the basis for fresh aid will disappear." Jens Weidmann, German bank chief (quote from today from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18046280 )

That's european union understanding of democracy. you can vote for what ever you want as long as it is what we want. they showed it time and again.

Examples include the austrian government with far right participation, the felt 100 votes about eu membership and maastricht contracts (sometimes three times until they finally got slim pro vote). And thats one of the reasons the pirates and others are growing that fast: people are pissed by that, espacially the younger ones. just my 5 cents.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#12

Post by sparkie » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #8

10dpd wrote: post #7

I've always been intreagued by the notion of democracy and allowing people to choose their leadership. All political systems sound good on paper. But my point is this. At a psychological level people are driven by emotion rather than logic. Most of the general public do not understand or are interested in politics. They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a good decision. Rather they rely on the media…

Yes, democracy is the worst system of governance we have, except for all the others. In Greece, voters punished the two main parties who colluded to fuck them over so badly, by voting for other parties. In fact, almost 20% of the parliament is now composed of members of brand new parties - brand new because many voters don't feel their interests are being represented by the older parties. Isn't this result exactly wh…

> Isn't this result exactly what we would want and hope for in a system of governance?

It's all too little too late - after most of Greece's public assets have already been plundered by the the ECB and the IMF. We wanted that result 3 years ago - not now. A country can be ruined in 4 years.

Should we really need to wait until a country has become so fucked beyond repair that we can protest it by "punishing the main parties"? It doesn't matter who you vote for in the end, the government still gets in!

While 'democracy' isn't inherently the problem, our current interpretation of it is. It goes as follows: Some men in suits make up lots of lies to gain your votes. After they get power, they ignore all their promises and usually do the opposite. If you don't like it, tough - come back in 4-5 years.

We don't really have any democracies (rule of the mob), we have rule of the representatives. The flaw is that they don't represent the mob, they represent their own parties. The concept of a political party is undemocratic. If you vote for a representative in your constituency, he should be voting as his constituents want, not how his party tells him to. (And moreover, if this doesn't happen, you shouldn't need to wait 4 years to give him the boot)

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#13

Post by muuh-gnu » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:18 PM UTC

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing political diversity in the parliament decreases support of a goverment and the chancellor, which could destabilize a country, meaning less dissent in the parliament, more stable country.

The two big parties are basically getting threatened by the internet and are obviously ready to go nuclear by threatening to simply team up, get supermajority required for a constitutional change, and "optimize" the political diversity down to 2 or 3, US style, maybe even 1, by simply throwing the annoying emerging competition out of the parliaments.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#14

Post by jacquesm » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:21 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #8

10dpd wrote: post #7

I've always been intreagued by the notion of democracy and allowing people to choose their leadership. All political systems sound good on paper. But my point is this. At a psychological level people are driven by emotion rather than logic. Most of the general public do not understand or are interested in politics. They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a good decision. Rather they rely on the media…

Yes, democracy is the worst system of governance we have, except for all the others. In Greece, voters punished the two main parties who colluded to fuck them over so badly, by voting for other parties. In fact, almost 20% of the parliament is now composed of members of brand new parties - brand new because many voters don't feel their interests are being represented by the older parties. Isn't this result exactly wh…

I think the Greek situation is rather more complex than that it can be summed up by two parties fucking over the voters.

Greece (and a whole bunch of other European countries) has a system of governance and a corruption level that is very different from other EU countries, and as such probably should not have been part of the EU to begin with.

Now that they're in Greece is in a position to reap the benefits of that fact but the countries that have for many years (Germany foremost) kept the weaker countries afloat are now themselves getting into trouble. This upset a lot of apple-carts and now we are at a very difficult moment for the union and for Greece.

As it is there are no real good solutions. Greece leaving the euro zone or being forced out will have big consequences for all parties involved and likely the end result of that route would be much worse for the general Greek population than any level of austerity that is currently in effect.

Greece staying in the eurozone will require a lot of very unpopular sacrifices in many places, the end result of which will be a much weaker euro.

There are no winners in any of these scenarios, only losers and it will take a long time (decades?) to fix this problem properly.

What you are seeing here is the result of the EU growing too fast in order to win the pissing match about which economic block is the largest on the world stage. If the forging of the monetary union would have been done in a more restrained fashion a lot of this misery could have been avoided.

Cowboy politics a decade ago are what caused this, emotional reactions to the problem at hand certainly won't repair it overnight. It will get worse before it can begin to get better.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#15

Post by jacquesm » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:24 PM UTC

The pirate party will continue to win seats until the larger and more traditional parties will need them for a swing vote.

The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#16

Post by jacquesm » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:26 PM UTC

muuh-gnu wrote: post #13

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing…

More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny.

It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned.

People should vote for other people, not for parties.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#17

Post by muuh-gnu » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:35 PM UTC

10dpd wrote: post #7

I've always been intreagued by the notion of democracy and allowing people to choose their leadership. All political systems sound good on paper. But my point is this. At a psychological level people are driven by emotion rather than logic. Most of the general public do not understand or are interested in politics. They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a good decision. Rather they rely on the media…

> They do not have the indepth knowledge required to make a > good decision.

You need knowledge to decide whether something is good or not, when the policy is fact-based. You dont need knowledge to decide whether you _want_ something or not, when the policy is purely opinion and preference based, for example filesharing. You dont need domain knowledge to decide that for you freedom to share information trumps the freedom to profit off information creation by enforcing artificial scarcity.

> the ordinary person will vote for the person who promises

> Thoughts?

If people are not allowed to make bad decisions, you dont have democracy, but a kind of dictatorship disguising itself as democracy. "You can vote on whatever you want as long as I and the few other stakeholders approve of the results" is a fake democracy, designed solely to sedate people's natural desire for co-participation and to prevent uprising.

Whatever your justification, you're trying to ban people from contributing their small share to the overall policy because you dont like their likely policy. One of the primary goals of the pirate parties is to fight opinions like yours and people like you by enabling maximum participation for everybody. Direct democracy baby. Bring on the regular swiss-style referendums.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#18

Post by xtiy » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:39 PM UTC

The power of the people shall be heard.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#19

Post by muuh-gnu » Sat, May 12, 2012, 5:56 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #16

muuh-gnu wrote: post #13

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing…

More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny. It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned. People should vote for other people, not for parties.

> It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties

Abolishing the formal definition of parties wouldnt help, because like-minded people would still team up and form de facto parties, so nothing substantial would change.

> People should vote for other people, not for parties.

In Germany, you have both. There are two votes, the first one is for people, the "direct candidates". The second is for the whole party, which again is represented by a list of candidates determined by in-party elections.

Re: Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

#20

Post by Riesling » Sat, May 12, 2012, 6:03 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #16

muuh-gnu wrote: post #13

In other news, former German president Roman Herzog, member of the (for now) largest party, the Christian Democratical Union CDU, suggested that having new parties like the Pirates entering parliaments is bad for overall democracy because it is increasing political diversity, and should be combated by again increasing the election threshold, which is now at 5%. According to the interview he gave recently, increasing…

More parties being bad for democracy is extremely funny. It would be nice to see a total abolition of parties, in fact in most democratic constitutions the word 'party' is never mentioned. People should vote for other people, not for parties.

> People should vote for other people, not for parties.

I would like to take this concept even one step further. People should not vote for other people. They should vote for ideas and concepts.