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Germany's Pirate Party Looks to Win More Seats

bbc.co.uk

31–40 of 64 posts

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

#31
post #27

'They call it "Liquid Democracy" and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy.' Liquid Feedback is a server software (implementing LD for an organization) that allows proxy representation. If I think person X can vote for me on topic Y, I can say so by using LF. And I can c…

Everyone should check out the source code of Liquid Feedback (LQFB). It's really a mess of pg pl/sql and lua. Zero! tests.

http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_core

http://www.public-software-group.org/liquid_feedback_fronten...

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

#32
post #22

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…

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

> This has to be understood in historical context.

Thats what he said. How do you know that he honestly sees this as a problem for the country and not just a problem for his party? He is literally advocating getting rid of political competition and decreaasing the overall possible choice for the electorate, so you have to be really really sure that he is honest and has no horse in this race, but as a member of a party which wouldnt be affected by the change but immensely profit off it, he has one.

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

#33

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…

What is even worse: He is not only a former president (Bundespräsident), he was a judge at the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht)!

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

#34
post #22

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…

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

That's what is being taught at school in Germany.

But there are a lot or people who say that it wasn't the number of parties, it was the lack of democrats.

(Democrats, not the US party. People who support democracy.)

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

#35
post #27

'They call it "Liquid Democracy" and it involves members making suggestions online which then get bounced around through chat rooms, which they call Pirate Pads, before emerging from cyberspace into the real world as policy.' Liquid Feedback is a server software (implementing LD for an organization) that allows proxy representation. If I think person X can vote for me on topic Y, I can say so by using LF. And I can c…

[deleted]

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

#37

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.

> The election after that one the pirate party main points will be part and parcel of the established parties' programmes. I doubt that. One of the main points of the pirate party is to take power away from the politicians and give it back to the people (via direct democracy and member votes). The existing politicians would need to change things massively to their own disadvantage.

Or they could just use buzzwords and meaningless gestures to mislead the public, like they do now.

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

#38
post #34
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

That's what is being taught at school in Germany. But there are a lot or people who say that it wasn't the number of parties, it was the lack of democrats. (Democrats, not the US party. People who support democracy.)

The poor performance of the republican (form of government, not the US party) system was one of the reasons for the lack of democrats.

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

#39

"The reason for their quick growth is that they are new and that's enough at the moment. But not in the long run." Gero Neugebauer Political scientist, Free University Berlin So what? To paraphrase Keynes, in the long run we are all dead. I really dislike such dismissal without some sort of context such as whether a short term gain might or might not have any effect and why. But then again the journalist only wanted…

Journalists (and political scientist) don't quite understand the Piratenpartei.

The members of the German Pirate Party would happily go back to the things they were doing before. The party was founded as self-defense.

Some members see it as a goal to make the Piratenpartei unnecessary. Not within the next 5 years, but maybe later.

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

#40
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has to be understood in historical context. Germany has had a very Bad experience with an excessively fragmented parliament in the Weimar republic, which led to constant Government breakups and reelections, paralysing the country politically and paving the way for someone who promised to do away with all that sissy democracy stuff... That's why the 5% threshold was established.

> This has to be understood in historical context. Thats what he said. How do you know that he honestly sees this as a problem for the country and not just a problem for his party? He is literally advocating getting rid of political competition and decreaasing the overall possible choice for the electorate, so you have to be really really sure that he is honest and has no horse in this race, but as a member of a part…

people can have more than one reason to say something. In fact, that's the case more often than not.
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