As the article hints at in saying that the Icelandic Pirate Party garnered enough votes to have a single seat in the parliament, a Pirate Party, or any niche-issue political party, really only makes sense in a proportional representation system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ). There is simply not enough support or funding for any candidates to have a chance at a national level. However, there is a small chance at a state legislature level, since (to my knowledge) most US citizens don't care much about state legislature elections, and a sufficiently charismatic and well-funded Pirate Party candidate might be able to amass enough votes in a relatively well-educated area. Thus the current US Pirate Party's focus on having state-level organization: http://uspirates.org/about/get-involved/
PR would be great (I struggle to see FPTP as really democratic to be honest- it systematically supports entrenched interests), but if you aren't actively working on changing the system, then you have to work with the system.
The partial saving grace of the existing system is that even though niche parties will never get elected, their aims can still be achieved-- enough votes to a 3rd party can scare the main players into changing their policies. No one ever won an election for women's suffrage, but the policies still got adopted.
You're right, and I believe you pinpoint the problem with the US political system. It's pretty much impossible for anybody with out of the ordinary political views to be represented at a high level in the US democracy. It will take a revolution for a bipartisan system to break.
A couple years ago I went to a weekend seminar on political activism, taught by some long-time GOP political consultants. They said there is one good use for third-parties at the national level, and that's to punish one of the major parties.
They told a story about Democrats in one state putting up a (national) candidate for the House with a poor environmental record. Republicans in that district consistently got 45% of the vote. The environmentalists went Green Party that year, and the Republican candidate won with the usual 45%. Two years later, the Democrats learned their lesson and picked a strong environmentalist candidate. The Republican got his 45% again and the Democrat won handily.
To use this strategy you have to be willing to put up with some short-term pain, but if you're successful once you'll be in a strong negotiating position for a good while to come. The voters with power are single-issue voters willing to switch parties.
The problem with this approach is that copyright laws are strictly Federal issues. It's one of the few powers that is explicitly granted to the Federal government. Where one could make an argument that states ought to regulate things like education or health care, you simply cannot make that argument for copyright. If we wanted states to be able to make laws regarding copyright we would need a Constitutional amendment.
So the absolute top priority for the US pirate party should be voting reform at the state level. If people see how much vastly better alternative systems are at the state level they're likely to start complaining about it at the federal level.
On the contrary independent candidates do better in larger elections that are given more attention by the media. Smaller local elections are dominated by parties with an established infrastructure that can turn out their members in low turnout elections.
As a hardcore techie, software developer and tech entrepreneur, you would think that I'd be lining up to support the Pirate Party. But, alas, other than cyber-security and digital rights issues, I don't necessarily agree with them about anything else. I also don't necessarily disagree but since they don't appear to have much a published platform and planks, it's hard to say. But I've seen some Pirates describe them as a "progressive" party, and I'm pretty skeptical of "progressives" and their policy positions. Anyway, for my money, it's the Libertarian Party that represents the path forward, not the Pirate Party.
Unfortunately, the problem in the US isn't that we don't have enough parties. We have tons of political parties in the US, ranging from the Libertarian Party, to the Green Party, to the Pirate Party, to the Worker's World Party, to the Prohibition Party, to the Modern Whig Party. No, the problem is plurality / first-past-the-post voting. As Duverger's Law notes, a plurality / FPTP voting system almost always results in a two party dominated system (like we have).
Switch voting to Approval Voting, Range Voting, or a Condorcet method, and we might see some meaningful change.
The fact that the "libertarian party" is a "thing" in the US is a large sign of what the problem is.
But in any case, what we need to do is get a party going who's only platform is voting reform. The only goal that matters right now is the end of FPTP and the two party system. Once that's done having all these "fringe" parties will be a good thing because my "progressive" parties will agree on a lot of policy with your libertarians (e.g. surveillance, world police force, etc.).
In a first past the post system, starting yet another fringe party is pointless. If technologists want to have a real impact on American politics, the solution is to take advantage of the current disorganization within the Republican party. If the tea partiers can do it, so can the technologists (so long as there are a few deep Silicon Valley pockets willing to bankroll the escapade).
"Obama's NSA is spying on your church groups and trying to figure out how many guns you own" would be a pretty powerful political platform that could get a few people elected.
I don't think you need a disorganized party to hollow out and crawl inside of.
The secret to the US two party system is that primary elections are really, really important and virtual no one partakes in them. Democrats get elected in safe blue districts and Republicans get elected in safe red districts and only a tiny number of purple districts are really up for grabs. So if you want to shape who wins the general election, the place to apply your time and money is in the primary elections.
Even if you don't win, nothing turns a politician faster than a strong primary challenge. Most of the "old guard" Republicans who defeated their Tea Party challengers none-the-less have shifted course to appease the Tea Party.
So if you want to get Congress to move on domestic spying, start primary-ing Congressmen with anti-spying candidates.
This is exactly right. I predict a backlash against the Democrats after Obama's epic failures (that doesn't mean most people will vote Republican, but it probably means a lot of dems simply don't show up next time around).
And you're spot on about pulling a "Tea Party". The fact is, politics is a nasty business. We need a large group of people willing to say whatever it takes to get voted in. Once in, the only goal should be voting reform. If we can get rid of FPTP we can fix everything else eventually.
Regardless of the disorganization, there is a set of people at the top that are going to be extremely difficult to dislodge, and they will thwart your every move. I am not a Ron Paul person, but you can look at what the party did to disenfranchise him. The problem here is that political parties are basically clubs, they have their own rules. So when party leaders violate parliamentary procedure to ignore successful votes to remove leaders, when they set up shadow offices for Establishment candidate when he doesn't win in a district, when they call police to eject people who win votes, your only alternative is "to form another party." At the same time the RNC and DNC have managed to weasel their way into preferential treatment under state laws, so they get to have their cake and eat it too.
They were backed by the billionaire Koch Brothers. We'd have to get Bill Gates or someone like that to pull off something similar.
I propose something called "The 4th Amendment Party" which directly addresses privacy issues, in the US anyway. An international Pirate Party could be used for hopefully countering the negative effects of multinational corporations.
Why restrict "pulling a tea party" to only the republican party? You could start a movement whose primary objective is the infiltration of both parties with candidates aligned with the movement's ideals. As adverserial as both parties are, it would be quite easy to start a movement with meaningful principles whose ideas align with both parties' stated principles.
The lobbyists know how this works: they fund both sides to hedge their bets, and they fund individual candidates, not parties. They understand that the balance of power is not between republicans and democrats but it exists inside of both the parties.
Don't start a fringe group, do what the tea party did? Fight government spying, utilize the party that authored the Patriot Act? Not sure I follow your logic here.
The name alone would kill any chance such a party ever gaining traction in the United States and would mark it boldly as a fridge group. Purely from a marketing and PR standpoint, you would need to use a term that has a very broad positive connotations. Even so much as to be socially unacceptable to dissagree with the name. For instance, just look at the names of bills that congress uses to gain support for their causes such as the Patriot Act. You would be much better off with a name such as the Freedom Party, Hope Party, United Party, Liberty Party, Independence Party, etc...
However in this instance, my personal favorite would be: Patriot Party
The name has been succesfull all around the world. There's already Freedom Parties etc. in United States, and nobody cares about those parties. A Pirate Party, on the other hand, can utilize the global movement's brand.
Of course, the core problem is not the name of the party, it's the lack of a democratic voting system.
The German Pirate Party should be seen as a try to institutionalize as a political party what was there before in other forms. The protests that made people aware of data retention policies and legislation were organized by (subject focused) civil liberty unions. Matters that touch technology issues are discussed by hacker (in the good old positive meaning) groups like the CCC. Those groups do get reputation and traction.
Trying to institutionalize this protest and form a political party was what the PP was about. I'm not sure they succeeded (here in Germany). While they managed to form political positions regarding policies touching technological matters, information acts and data retention, they fall short on anything else on the political scale. They were able to gain traction in state parliaments, but the outlook for the nationwide elections coming up in fall aren't good at all. They have immense personal problems - often connected to the fact that in the areas not covered by their agenda, they are quite diverse.
Building a political party makes sense only if it can influence decisions in parliaments. I fear the PP won't get there here in Germany. Special interest parties don't work in many democratic parliament systems.
A much better fit are in most cases civil liberty unions who can gain public recognition as experts and make it hard for parties in the parliament to ignore their statements.
And there are state affiliates already existing or forming in many states, even some not listed on the US pirate party page. Texas, for instance, is starting to get organized.
I love the idea, but I wonder how robust such a system would be to large scale use. At the scale of a country, could it withstand the attacks of all the people seeking to game the system?
Sure, exactly what we need. Another fringe party, with a weird name, marching under the "we come from the interwebs" banner.
At least on a national level 3rd parties are poised for failure unless there is some massive financial backing and a strong leadership.
In my opinion the smarter way would be to focus on lobbying efforts and bundling money and manpower for pro-internet candidates. Considering that there are politicians in both parties that have excellent positions on tech related issues but not that much in common in regards to other policies, making this about one issue and not about ideology seems a much more promising approach.
The United States needs any viable third party. Unfortunately, the Republicrats have a lock on our political system, and the only way to get a viable third party is to change the rules about how we vote.
Specifically, first past the post voting provides a disincentive for third parties to compete because they are most likely to harm the candidate who is closest to their own position. Something like score voting, approval voting, or instant runoff voting is needed to break the deadlock.
Approval voting is probably the best bet because people who want to support a third party candidate could also vote for the first or second party who is closest to their position. It's simple, and much easier to support and understand than the other options. This would allow third parties to get a real sense of how well they are really performing before pushing their supporters to actually stop voting for the first and second party candidates.
I think that a major reason for the entire problem spectra of US is them being a "two party" democracy - It hardly counts as a functional democracy at all. The entire republicans vs democrats chatter seems ridiculous to an outside observer... More like a gang turf war than anything else.
In addition to everything else that's been said in this thread, let me point this out:
In at least some states (my own North Carolina, for example) it's VERY difficult to get a new political party recognized by the State, and certified as eligible to put candidates on the ballot. Now, to be fair, NC has some of the worst ballot access laws in the country, but the point is that it's not necessarily easy to organize a party, get candidates on the ballot, etc.
Here in NC, you have to gather enough petition signatures to equal, IIRC, 10% of the total votes cast in the last Presidential election, in order to certify a new party. That winds up being > 100,000 signatures, and you just can't collect that many signatures using only volunteers, which means you need to hire paid petitioners. Last I heard, it cost about a dollar per signature. Oh, and you actually need about 25% more signatures than the nominal requirement, because a bunch will get thrown out by the Board of Elections for one reason or another (not from NC, no birthdate listed, etc.)
You're basically talking about a 4 year long effort and over $100,000.00 to get on the ballot here. And here's the rub: If your party's candidate for President or Governor doesn't garner at least 2% of the vote, you get bumped back off the ballot and have to repeat the whole process again. And so on and so on and so on... Now, 2% isn't that bad, but they only just lowered it to 2% from, IIRC, 10%, a few years ago.
For context: Since the modern (current) election laws went into place, only one party in NC has ever gotten ballot access outside of the Democrats and Republicans, and that was the Libertarian Party. And until they lowered the retention threshold to 2%, we had to go through that "petion, petition, petition every 4 years" cycle essentially constantly, which meant that we had very little money (or energy) to dedicate to supporting candidates, advertising, etc. It was a nonstop war just to retain ballot access.
Also, for context, no 3rd party candidate in NC history has gained 10% or more in race for President or Governor. We have managed to hit the 2% threshold the last two election cycles though, which is nice, since it frees up time and energy and money to do other things besides petitioning.
Anyway, the point of all that is just to show that it takes a lot of effort, time, energy and money to organize a political party and get on the ballot (at least here. Each state is different). And that's just getting on the ballot. Actually winning elections is even harder.
I have never quite understood the weird limbo the "party system" seems to be in. On one hand, how they run themselves is not law, they just do it according to a bunch of internal rules each agreed on. There certainly isn't anything in the constitution about them either. On the other hand you have state laws like North Carolina's that legally recognizes and enforces the concept of a "party".
Before talking about "advanced topics" like a Pirate Party, the US citizens should start to vote a third party into their parliament. Any third party would be a huge improvement over the current situation, be it a Pirate Party or a completely different party.
Unfortunately, the electoral system of the US appears to be prevent that kind of development, as it makes it exceptionally hard for non-established parties to enter the parliament. So fixing the electoral system would be a prerequisite, but how to fix that without having a parliament majority in the first place?
It seems like if Zuckerberg and co. want to effect real change with FWD.us, they should lobby for institutional reforms such as proportional representation to give minority parties a greater chance of getting members elected. Of course, such reforms are not sexy, nor politically expedient, and stand against centuries of entrenched systems, and so this will never happen.
No. Pure democracies enable power elitists to run the show to the detriment of the minority; even when the minority view would otherwise have likely been that of the majority.
To be honest I don't think the United States needs a Pirate Party. I know I would not vote for them. I agree we need a free as possible internet, but the Libertarian party already supports that (and has a larger political platform) so that would be what I would vote.
The American Pirate Party needs to take a clue from the Tea Party and the way the American elections are structured, and act primarily as a force inside the Democratic party, electing "pirate-friendly" Democrats and taking over the party from the inside.
Why just from withing the one party? Why not have two wings and field primary candidates in both parties? That way, if ever a sufficient density of such candidates make it into office in some part of the nation, they can switch over to the new party in a coordinated manner.
Why just the Dems? I dislike both parties but find myself hating Republicans a little less than Democrats -- mostly for fiscal reasons. I've got to believe there are similar people in both parties that are fed-up with what the government has become.
If you ask me, both parties need 'agents' like you're talking about. People that are rational and don't party-line vote. Take each issue into consideration. Dragging the leftists/rightists to the middle to actually discuss items in a civil manner -- total consideration for the citizens that elected their asses.
I fear this country is toast within 50 years if we can't get away from bipartisanship and party line votes.
Yes! But don't call the party "Pirate party". Call them "Republicans" because that is likely to be backlash against the Democrats after Obama's miserable performance.
[+] [-] btown|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] polshaw|12 years ago|reply
The partial saving grace of the existing system is that even though niche parties will never get elected, their aims can still be achieved-- enough votes to a 3rd party can scare the main players into changing their policies. No one ever won an election for women's suffrage, but the policies still got adopted.
[+] [-] noloqy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DennisP|12 years ago|reply
They told a story about Democrats in one state putting up a (national) candidate for the House with a poor environmental record. Republicans in that district consistently got 45% of the vote. The environmentalists went Green Party that year, and the Republican candidate won with the usual 45%. Two years later, the Democrats learned their lesson and picked a strong environmentalist candidate. The Republican got his 45% again and the Democrat won handily.
To use this strategy you have to be willing to put up with some short-term pain, but if you're successful once you'll be in a strong negotiating position for a good while to come. The voters with power are single-issue voters willing to switch parties.
[+] [-] Finster|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flyinRyan|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpleppert|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|12 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, the problem in the US isn't that we don't have enough parties. We have tons of political parties in the US, ranging from the Libertarian Party, to the Green Party, to the Pirate Party, to the Worker's World Party, to the Prohibition Party, to the Modern Whig Party. No, the problem is plurality / first-past-the-post voting. As Duverger's Law notes, a plurality / FPTP voting system almost always results in a two party dominated system (like we have).
Switch voting to Approval Voting, Range Voting, or a Condorcet method, and we might see some meaningful change.
[+] [-] flyinRyan|12 years ago|reply
But in any case, what we need to do is get a party going who's only platform is voting reform. The only goal that matters right now is the end of FPTP and the two party system. Once that's done having all these "fringe" parties will be a good thing because my "progressive" parties will agree on a lot of policy with your libertarians (e.g. surveillance, world police force, etc.).
[+] [-] javert|12 years ago|reply
I agree with you. They are a progressive party, they are anti-individual rights, and that's why they have "Pirate" (literally a thief) in their name.
The cause of liberty cannot be advanced by backing movements that do not base their ideas on a rational foundation.
[+] [-] electronous|12 years ago|reply
Time to shave your neckbeard.
[+] [-] rayiner|12 years ago|reply
"Obama's NSA is spying on your church groups and trying to figure out how many guns you own" would be a pretty powerful political platform that could get a few people elected.
[+] [-] saalweachter|12 years ago|reply
The secret to the US two party system is that primary elections are really, really important and virtual no one partakes in them. Democrats get elected in safe blue districts and Republicans get elected in safe red districts and only a tiny number of purple districts are really up for grabs. So if you want to shape who wins the general election, the place to apply your time and money is in the primary elections.
Even if you don't win, nothing turns a politician faster than a strong primary challenge. Most of the "old guard" Republicans who defeated their Tea Party challengers none-the-less have shifted course to appease the Tea Party.
So if you want to get Congress to move on domestic spying, start primary-ing Congressmen with anti-spying candidates.
[+] [-] flyinRyan|12 years ago|reply
And you're spot on about pulling a "Tea Party". The fact is, politics is a nasty business. We need a large group of people willing to say whatever it takes to get voted in. Once in, the only goal should be voting reform. If we can get rid of FPTP we can fix everything else eventually.
[+] [-] Torgo|12 years ago|reply
I don't have a solution.
[+] [-] sporkologist|12 years ago|reply
They were backed by the billionaire Koch Brothers. We'd have to get Bill Gates or someone like that to pull off something similar.
I propose something called "The 4th Amendment Party" which directly addresses privacy issues, in the US anyway. An international Pirate Party could be used for hopefully countering the negative effects of multinational corporations.
[+] [-] Joeri|12 years ago|reply
The lobbyists know how this works: they fund both sides to hedge their bets, and they fund individual candidates, not parties. They understand that the balance of power is not between republicans and democrats but it exists inside of both the parties.
[+] [-] TallGuyShort|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pseudometa|12 years ago|reply
However in this instance, my personal favorite would be: Patriot Party
[+] [-] nawitus|12 years ago|reply
Of course, the core problem is not the name of the party, it's the lack of a democratic voting system.
[+] [-] guruz|12 years ago|reply
Think about what a childish and ridiculous name "Google" is and still it got adopted worldwide.
[+] [-] hwh|12 years ago|reply
Trying to institutionalize this protest and form a political party was what the PP was about. I'm not sure they succeeded (here in Germany). While they managed to form political positions regarding policies touching technological matters, information acts and data retention, they fall short on anything else on the political scale. They were able to gain traction in state parliaments, but the outlook for the nationwide elections coming up in fall aren't good at all. They have immense personal problems - often connected to the fact that in the areas not covered by their agenda, they are quite diverse.
Building a political party makes sense only if it can influence decisions in parliaments. I fear the PP won't get there here in Germany. Special interest parties don't work in many democratic parliament systems.
A much better fit are in most cases civil liberty unions who can gain public recognition as experts and make it hard for parties in the parliament to ignore their statements.
[+] [-] tbirdz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smacktoward|12 years ago|reply
Has it raised a single dime to support candidates who follow its principles? As far as I can tell, it has not.
Has it done a single day of door-to-door organizing, either for its own growth or for a candidate it supports? As far as I can tell, it has not.
By all appearances it's just a group of people who chat together on IRC. That's fine, but it's not a political party.
[+] [-] cleinias|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sinak|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiquidFeedback
Read about it, there are some fascinating ideas about how participatory politics can work in the world of software.
[+] [-] joelthelion|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1337biz|12 years ago|reply
At least on a national level 3rd parties are poised for failure unless there is some massive financial backing and a strong leadership.
In my opinion the smarter way would be to focus on lobbying efforts and bundling money and manpower for pro-internet candidates. Considering that there are politicians in both parties that have excellent positions on tech related issues but not that much in common in regards to other policies, making this about one issue and not about ideology seems a much more promising approach.
[+] [-] amikula|12 years ago|reply
Specifically, first past the post voting provides a disincentive for third parties to compete because they are most likely to harm the candidate who is closest to their own position. Something like score voting, approval voting, or instant runoff voting is needed to break the deadlock.
Approval voting is probably the best bet because people who want to support a third party candidate could also vote for the first or second party who is closest to their position. It's simple, and much easier to support and understand than the other options. This would allow third parties to get a real sense of how well they are really performing before pushing their supporters to actually stop voting for the first and second party candidates.
[+] [-] ruv|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|12 years ago|reply
In at least some states (my own North Carolina, for example) it's VERY difficult to get a new political party recognized by the State, and certified as eligible to put candidates on the ballot. Now, to be fair, NC has some of the worst ballot access laws in the country, but the point is that it's not necessarily easy to organize a party, get candidates on the ballot, etc.
Here in NC, you have to gather enough petition signatures to equal, IIRC, 10% of the total votes cast in the last Presidential election, in order to certify a new party. That winds up being > 100,000 signatures, and you just can't collect that many signatures using only volunteers, which means you need to hire paid petitioners. Last I heard, it cost about a dollar per signature. Oh, and you actually need about 25% more signatures than the nominal requirement, because a bunch will get thrown out by the Board of Elections for one reason or another (not from NC, no birthdate listed, etc.)
You're basically talking about a 4 year long effort and over $100,000.00 to get on the ballot here. And here's the rub: If your party's candidate for President or Governor doesn't garner at least 2% of the vote, you get bumped back off the ballot and have to repeat the whole process again. And so on and so on and so on... Now, 2% isn't that bad, but they only just lowered it to 2% from, IIRC, 10%, a few years ago.
For context: Since the modern (current) election laws went into place, only one party in NC has ever gotten ballot access outside of the Democrats and Republicans, and that was the Libertarian Party. And until they lowered the retention threshold to 2%, we had to go through that "petion, petition, petition every 4 years" cycle essentially constantly, which meant that we had very little money (or energy) to dedicate to supporting candidates, advertising, etc. It was a nonstop war just to retain ballot access.
Also, for context, no 3rd party candidate in NC history has gained 10% or more in race for President or Governor. We have managed to hit the 2% threshold the last two election cycles though, which is nice, since it frees up time and energy and money to do other things besides petitioning.
Anyway, the point of all that is just to show that it takes a lot of effort, time, energy and money to organize a political party and get on the ballot (at least here. Each state is different). And that's just getting on the ballot. Actually winning elections is even harder.
[+] [-] jlgreco|12 years ago|reply
All very bizarre.
[+] [-] vog|12 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, the electoral system of the US appears to be prevent that kind of development, as it makes it exceptionally hard for non-established parties to enter the parliament. So fixing the electoral system would be a prerequisite, but how to fix that without having a parliament majority in the first place?
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Apocryphon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jebblue|12 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States
[+] [-] lettergram|12 years ago|reply
I believe most Americans would vote similarly.
[+] [-] themgt|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nooneelse|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cobrabyte|12 years ago|reply
If you ask me, both parties need 'agents' like you're talking about. People that are rational and don't party-line vote. Take each issue into consideration. Dragging the leftists/rightists to the middle to actually discuss items in a civil manner -- total consideration for the citizens that elected their asses.
I fear this country is toast within 50 years if we can't get away from bipartisanship and party line votes.
-Frustrated
[+] [-] pizza|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bfhp|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] flyinRyan|12 years ago|reply