
Iceland’s Prime Minister Resigns, After Pirate Party Makes Strong Gains - doppp
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/europe/icelands-prime-minister-resigns-after-pirate-party-makes-strong-gains.html
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joubert
Stood out for me:

"The left-leaning parties — the Left-Greens, the Pirates and two allies — won
27 seats, just short of the 32 required to command a majority in Iceland’s
Parliament, the world’s oldest."

and

"About 40 percent of Pirate supporters are under the age of 30. They had
pinned their hopes on a party that has promised to install a more inclusive
and transparent government."

and

"The Pirates have pledged to enhance direct democracy by passing the world’s
first “crowd-sourced constitution,” drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than
politicians. Parliament blocked the document in 2013."

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afarrell
> drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than politicians.

What was the process for this to be? Having folks who are untrained in law
draft a constitution and then passing it sounds... well about as dumb as
having folks who've just learned to program write an operating system and put
it in production.

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belorn
Politicians are also untrained in law draft a constitution, which is why it
generally is given to lobbyist that can pay people who are trained in law
(paid by the companies that pays the lobbyist).

It would be nice to see a country (or EU) that forbade politicians to share or
get input on law drafts from lobbyists. Just imagine how the many current
trade agreements would look like if only politicians had seen and written
them. Or just extensions of copyright law.

Its like having a operating system be written by an advertisement company and
then be surprised when it is designed in favor of the advertisement company
rather than the user who bought the device.

~~~
good_gnu
Sometimes getting input from lobbyists can actually be an all-around helpful
thing to do. Think about things like industry norms such as the default sizes
of shipping containers. Politicians who write such documents rarely have the
technical knowledge to understand what the norms should and should not
prescribe and the citizens do not care.

In such cases it is actually helpful for the lobbyists to decide, so long as
different sizes of companies and different industries are represented.

~~~
teddyh
Please do not confuse “getting input from _industry_ ” with “getting input
from _lobbyists_ ”. Getting unbiased, balanced input from a large section of
industry _is_ important, but if you think you (assuming you are a politician)
can do that by simply listen to the lobbyists who show up at your door then
you are not doing your job. Company lobbyists, however, know that this is what
you _will_ do, and they will tell you things which will give them advantages
over their competitors, _not_ what will benefit the industry as a whole.

It is a huge mistake to think that individual companies want things to be
better for their field or industry as a whole. They _don’t_ ; whatever ups or
downs the industry suffers will be borne equally by all, and is therefore
irrelevant to the _real_ goal of companies: to _get an edge over the
competition_. Companies will gladly make things worse for everyone in their
field if it means they will get a larger share of it. Politicians, apparently,
do not know this, or do not have enough incentive to realize this, so
politicians choose to listen to the lobbyists and choose to believe that they
are thereby listening to the industry.

~~~
colechristensen
"Lobbyists" is just the label attached to the people who give input. Yes,
they're professionals and yes, this is where the corruption happens, but
that's just the nature of seeking input.

You surely don't expect companies to not advocate for themselves and be wholly
altruistic? A lobbyist is paid to advocate for their client's interests.
Sometimes that aligns with the public interest, most of the time it's a grey
area.

There are plenty of opportunities for corruption in the interaction and those
need to be addressed; rebranding 'lobbyists' isn't one of them.

~~~
XaYdEk
I would disagree, I think it's a label attached to those people that actively
attempt to influence policy making on behalf of their client's interests.

Just offering specialized input would be consulting.

And the way I see it: company and industry group lobbying works just fine, but
there is a significant lack of public interest lobbying.

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arnarbi
Either I missed something or this is wildly inaccurate.

The PM's party lost much support in this election, in particular the coalition
they're in doesn't have majority. This was expected.

I find no Icelandic news about him resigning. On the contrary he says he's not
going anywhere as the party leader for the Progressive party.

NYT might have misunderstood the entirely customary "request for release from
duty" that the PM makes to the president on behalf of his cabinet. This is a
normal formality after a majority coalition loses parliament majority. The
president (which in Iceland is just a figurehead) then usually asks the
cabinet to remain until a new coalition has been formed, at which time he
gives a new coalition agency to form a new cabinet. This is just normal
procedure, and nothing newsworthy.

Pirates tripled the number of seats since last election, but they have been
polling much higher, towards 30% support on par with the Independence party.

But, inaccurate foreign news of Icelandic politics seems more normal than
accurate ones.

(source: am Icelandic)

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jbmorgado
I actually have mixed feeling about the Pirate Party. I do agree with their
major points about economy and social issues for instance.

But the part that leaves me really uneasy is this idea they have of bringing:
_direct democracy_ to people and let them vote for a lot of issues.

After _Brexit_ , do we really want to give the people the power to vote in
issues that are way above the knowledge of most of the voters and to have
media skewing and manipulating their views of the problem according to the
interests of the few ones commanding the media?

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harry8
Keep in mind when considering Iceland in terms of politics or economics that
it is tiny. 300,000 people means you can do things you can't with 300+
million. And vice-versa.

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TheRealPomax
Is there a link that does not require logging in? Right now this is a walled
garden article.

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ckdarby
[https://www.rt.com/news/364768-iceland-pm-resigns-
pirates/](https://www.rt.com/news/364768-iceland-pm-resigns-pirates/)

