Swedish Voters Keelhaul Pirate Party 299
Billosaur writes "Apparently the 'scurvy dawgs' are still in control. Results from Sunday's Swedish national election were not favorable for the Pirate Party, according to Wired News. According to the article, 'The Pirate Party not only failed to score the 4 percent required for a seat in Sweden's Parliament, but appears to have missed the 1 percent that would have afforded the party state assistance with printing ballots and funding staff in the next election.' However, the party sees this as a learning experience and morale is still good."
logic explained (Score:3, Funny)
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Sweden is where the good pr0n and cheap furniture comes from.
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Re:logic explained (Score:5, Funny)
Re:logic explained (Score:5, Funny)
Japanese island of Swaziland? (Score:2)
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I think you've mistaken Switzerland for Sweden. Sweden is in Africa.
And I think you've mistaken Africa for Scandinavia. Scandinavia is in the middle of the pacific, near Hawaii.
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Bodensee (Score:2)
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noobs.
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Any sailor who ends up in Switzerland is in BIG trouble considering it's a land-locked country.
No They're Not! (Score:2)
Ah, I have to disagree with you here. Switzerland is landlocked while Sweden has many bountiful ports to be plundered. No way in hell you'll get me off my boat, even for watches and knives.
... with the horses and the stabbing and the need for more wooden appendages.
Besides, the only fighting tactic I know is "crossing the T." And, it just doesn't work as well on land
Re:logic explained (Score:5, Informative)
IKEA, Volvo, Ericsson, MySQL, The Pirate Bay, ABBA and meatballs.
Avast, me hearties! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Avast, me hearties! (Score:5, Funny)
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Arrrr! And next time, we'll win, by gum, for we'll have Diebold votin' machines doin' the countin' for us! (Get away from my poop deck, CmdrTaco :)
It be a Ninja Conspiracy (Score:2)
I Demand a Recount! (Score:2)
Yarr.
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good category for this arrrrticle, too... (Score:2)
A shame (Score:4, Funny)
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l4m3 p0z3r n00b. scr4m b4 i pwn ur b0x!
WHAT! (Score:3, Funny)
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Shiver me timbers!!!!!!!!!!
Serious (Score:2, Insightful)
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The Pirate Party does not seek to abolish copyright or try to steal copyright but simply limit it. 70 years past the death of the author is stupid. Copyright was developed as incentive to the author to create work. I don't see why the author would see less incentive to create work when co
The "lost vote" argument (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, if you do the math, you'll see that in the long run, it does usually not matter. Coalitions are rarely formed with a single vote majority, usually the majorities are held with substancially more seats than the one or two that MIGHT have been to their favor if you just didn't vote for the "underdog" party instead.
In fact, though, they want that seat, if for no other reason than to sit on of their guys there and cash in more for their party from the governmental pot. So, if you vote for a party that furthers your agendas, even if they don't make it into parlament, the parties that are in there will try to get that odd 2 percent of voters by adding that agenda to their portfolio.
In short, your vote will move more with the underdog party than with the one that you could vote for instead. When you're already in, 2% is not a significant change when it comes to coalition talks. But it's usually one or two seats in parlament, and boy, they want that seats!
Single issue parties (Score:2)
Now get on that position paper to describe why IP freedom will improve government services, shrink the cost of healthcare, decrease taxes all while creating both long and short term job growth and increasing global competitiveness.
oh well, (Score:5, Insightful)
That is fantastic!
Don't forget that this is people's vote in a general election. Any are a big deal and most people won't make a choice lightly. They might see votes as a waste because they might not even get anyone in parliament which puts people off voting for them as they want their vote "to count". Also a lot of people in the country will already have aligences to parties and even though they might really agree with the message they might be reluctant to turn against the party which represents what they want overall better. Its hard to have a successful "single issue" party, I'm not sure what their other policies are but they will be important and you need to tell people what these are to let them know that your not just a one trick horse.
Overall though, it's a good effort, don't get too down on them.
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In the Swedish elections there were issues of massive importance going on. The right of centre party actually won on a promise to cut down on what has been the jewel in the crown of the worlds welfare states, a social democratic state (to use the terms of Esping-Anderson) and one with a high degree of decomodification. This was a big deal to a lot of people. If you look at pretty much any of the literature on the subject of welfare states then you'll see that m
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It's worth noting that the Centre-Right coalition (for the first time ever campaigning together as a single ticket under the name Alliance for Sweden) did very much announce that they are not going to lower taxes or rad
The problem is not their cause (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, i support a lot of what they lobby for, but I'd much rather vote for a party which also supports my ideas on a whole range of other issues.
This goes in particular in an election that's been running so close as the swedish one did this time.
Single issue parties, should really stop being parties, and start doing some serious lobbying instead. I do understand that they're doing it, since i realize it can be very hard for young people to be heard by politicians on new and controversial ideas on an old subject.
I hope noone ever gets voted into parliament anywhere based on such a narrow issue, I really feel it would be a double loss for democracy, the first because it should never be the only way to be taken serious, and the second, because once they get in, you'll have no clue on how they vote for issues that are very important to all of us.
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But you have to have a coalition-style ruling government for them to have any useful effect. I don't know how Sweden's government is set up, and whether it can support single-issue parties as part of the government.
Pirates should go to Pittsburgh (Score:2)
The Lo Down on the Pirates (Score:2)
... hmmm.... (Score:2)
* ie: the "hacking" scandal , involving a user with same username and password, which from no usefull information was found. A couple of corruption charges (all ridiciously minor compared to what's legal over in the US) and general aggresive debating.
It's time to accept it. (Score:3, Insightful)
There's got to be a better way to enact the changes we want.
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Maybe there's something similar going on concerning the Pirate Party, but one big difference between the two is that the Pirate Party will get another bite at the apple in future
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Larger change in Swedish politics (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't categorize the Pirate Party as a left wing party. For instance, the founder Rickard Falkvinge [wikipedia.org] is a former member of Moderate Youth League [wikipedia.org] the youth organization of the Swedish Moderate Party (conservative).
Besides, the election results had more to do with people wanting new faces in politics (especially the prime minister), and an incredibly lacking campaign by the Social Democrats, basically just repeating how "things are great", neglecting every concern expressed by the people and saying nothing about what they want to do in the future. At the same time, the moderates described themselves as "the new working class party" (calling themselves "the New Moderate Party") and lauded the welfare state. So people switched.
Exact figures (Score:3, Informative)
EU Parliament next (Score:2)
Also, getting 1% in the first election so fast after
So what's new? (Score:2)
Yet again showing that those of us who care about this stuff are in an extreme minority. We delude ourselves every time we believe that our concerns are going to be taken up by the general populace. It makes me wonder. Will the Wii actually be successful
Here's the deal (Score:2)
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Pirate party was wildly successful! (Score:5, Informative)
At least they have (Score:2)
The Pirate Party is global! (Score:2)
This is a list of the current Pirate Parties that have their own homepage:
Pirate Party Inte [pp-international.net]
Suggestions for the next year (Score:2)
Not a failure (Score:3, Insightful)
TPP said "this is going to be a close election, there are about a million people in Sweden sharing files, we can become a tiebreaker by gaining 4%". Making file sharing legal is the best-understood point of their political tenets (as few "intellectual property" institutions as possible, better privacy, reforming the copyright system). I don't fault them for picking exactly what they did to run on, or by the issue they made themselves known by (legalize file sharing). Which isn't the same as saying there weren't problems.
The other day I visited a page listing some Swedish political parties. The one line that described TPP was "They want to make downloading music and movies legal". Depending on how you look on it, it may be technically correct, however it's vastly oversimplified: The TPP reform of copyright includes perpetual and unlimited rights to *private* copies of anything, and shortens the exclusivity of selling the work to a five year duration instead of the author's-life + 70 + whatever-Disney-can-coax-international-law-into years of the current system, which effectively legalizes a lot of file sharing, which by necessity includes both uploading *and* downloading. These issues are hard and complicated. The Man on The Street won't be able to detail copyright law beyond perhaps author's-life + 70, and I don't think a tenth of the population have even heard of the continuous lengthening of the copyright period.
The "regular" parties run using a platter of promises - hundreds of them - where at least two are presented in a reasonable way. The Green Party (once a similar tiebreaker running using a similar philosophy) runs using more advanced stuff like TPP, but the few-words summary here, as expressed by The Man on The Street - "be nice to the environment and give us more family time" - is infinitely more agreeable to, well, most people, than "make downloading music and movies legal", which reeks of "omg plz make everything free kthx!1" rather than the well-thought out proposals behind TPP. This is one factor why TPP didn't make it all the way.
The other factor, then, is that more people found it more rewarding to vote for one of the two blocs (who mostly carry full political agendas on *all* issues, even the aforementioned Green Party) or on other small parties.
You could argue that the pie-in-the-sky chance that they would ever reach 4% was abysmal, but if they hadn't been so optimistic about it, I am positive that a lot of supporters would just have given up, saying "we're not going to make it anyway, why bother?". TPP didn't get its way, but I find it hard to deem them a failure. From 0 to sub-1% of above five million votes in less than 10 months is astounding work.
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Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Informative)
And it does, as you so have so aptly demonstrated. >8)
(posting in a thread that you've moderated causes all of your moderations in the thread to be wiped)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I think you forgot to add [/ironic] ;-)
Charlie Chaplin was deported due to his anti-war opinions, while there was attempts to do the same for John Lennon. Now, imagine you are not famous, rich and happens to be a muslim.... (deportation [zmag.org])
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Don't you know you can count me out (in)". The Mao verse was "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow". I wasn't thinking properly.
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Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Funny)
nah, america is better than other countries because we god loves us and hates everyone else. that's why is says "god bless america" in the bible.
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-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Nothing wrong with advocating for change. (Score:5, Insightful)
And to put it quite bluntly, this is perfectly fine. The point of a democracy is that it responds to the will and wishes of its citizens; if they want a law changed, then they have the right (and, I would argue, the responsibility) to attempt to change it within the structure of the system, if possible.
The only difference between the Pirate Party and NAMBLA (I think that's the 'sex with children' thing you're talking about) is how personally offensive you find the behavior they want to legalize. As long as they're not doing the behavior in question while it's still illegal, they're perfectly within their rights to campaign for a change in the laws. This is why political speech is protected by the First Amendment in the United States, and why we tolerate things like the Nazi Party and the Stalinists and any number of other kooks.
For a less extreme example, consider the people who advocated for the repeal of Prohibition in the 1930s; history has shown that they were probably doing the right thing, but at the time they could have easily been accused of "advocating illegal behavior."
If you didn't allow people this freedom, then democracy would be nothing but an irreversible march into an oblivion of illegality.
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Or NORML [norml.org] today.
Repeal the prohibition of marijuana (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I regard it as a test of integrity, when I find someone claims to support free speech except when it's racist/sexist/whatever/else/they/don't/like I know they're a hypocrite and I needn't give much weight to their opinions.
Revolting as the idea of a polical party campaigning to legalise child abuse may be, I'd campaign to support it's right to exist.
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:4, Insightful)
If they call for the government to arrest someone for speech that is racist/sexist/whatever/else/they/don't/like, then they are a hypocrite, and they don't support free speech. If they merely call the 'offending' speaker a dickwad, then not only are they not hypocrites, they are demonstrating the power of free speech.
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Informative)
Just because a political party is advocating something currently illegal doesn't mean it's a bad idea to elect them and change that law. Especially if it's a stupid law or is detrimental to the populace.
Let the people vote.
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:4, Insightful)
This wasnt all that suprising, they had a lot of interest, but they failed at getting it together into votes. This was their first attempt and a lot of the probs were related to learning how to do political party things.
If copyright < life + 50 then no WTO for you (Score:2)
But if you don't harmonize or harmonise your laws to those of the United States and European Union, you won't be able to join the treaty organizations that can get you favorable trading status with the developed world.
Re:If copyright life + 50 then no WTO for you (Score:2)
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At one point in time it was illegal to free slaves in the US. And you'd be hard pressed to find an elected official at this point that would still defend that stance.
-Rick
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Except for perhaps Jesse Helms...
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That's how you go about changing laws you dont agree with. This is nothing wrong - indeed this is exactly right. You work with the political system to have the law changed.
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Of course, this free trade threatened the income of the empires, so they outlawed piracy and charged their own capt
Illegal actions (Score:2)
I can imagine a world where the state pays a recording artist for every download and provides music for its citizens for free. Something like state supported arts.
The point is that WE define what legal and illegal mean, and they don't have to continue meaning what they mean now. In fact, the meaning of "own" has changed already--we don't "own" software, despite the fact that we hold a shiny disc in our hands. We only own the "righ
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I can imagine a world where my taxes are lower because the money isn't spent on garbage like "Piss Christ" [wikipedia.org].
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How about, oh, artists being paid for performances rather than recordings? Almost no artists make money from deals with record companies, as the companies have their own private accounting theories. Artists get real money from live performances, hence the record companies buying
Nice Troll, Young Lad! (Score:2)
You most h'mble and o'bt s'vts,
- George Washington et. al.
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In fact, one of the candidates (I forget which one) said 'we cannot have a law on the books that makes our children criminals. This needs to be changed, and we will have to find a way to compensate artists.'
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It Is Necessary (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, intellectual property is free for anyone to copy but these are just ideas. Capitalism can function just fine if everyone can use anyone's idea for free -- you just suffer less incentive to come up with innovative ideas since copying someone else's is easier.
Freeloading, maybe
Calm Down (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, learn to use the <br> tags. They are your friends and do wonders for your readability.
Third, they ran and lost. That's how Democracy works. Maybe they'll do better next year, maybe they won't even be around, who knows? But one thing is for sure, when you outright say they shouldn't even exist, you're starting to hinder the goal of Democracy. Sounds like you have a pretty closed mind, my friend.
Also, thanks for writing me off as a hippie. I'm glad you took 2.5 seconds and one post to know me and I highly value your (fairly incorrect) stereotype. I was only trying to point out where they're coming from, not advocating it. You either need to do more reading or stop talking because you really don't understand the goals of this party.
Re:This was not good to start with (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, part of the point of a capitalist system would be that we'd get affordable items - it isn't difficult to understand why the entertainment industry would rather maintain the status quo.
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'[A]bolition of conventional capitalism?'
Tell me, exactly, what is 'capitalistic' about the current 'intellectual property' system? Do you know what capitalism is? How is the scenario promoted by the Pirate Party, i.e., the legalization of 'piracy', causing the means of production to be somehow not private? Under the legalization of
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