

Ask HN: would you vote for "The Internet Party"?  - hoodoof

Here's the idea: create a new political party whose policies are solely focused on issues relating the the Internet and technology.<p>Would you vote for The Internet Party?
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nextparadigms
Yes, I would. But I think Pirate Party covers the most important Internet
issues pretty well already.

Your next best thing in USA seems to be Ron Paul. He's one of the very few and
maybe the only one in Senate who defended Wikileaks, and he'd probably defend
Bitcoin, too, as well as other Internet related issues. But the USA political
system seems very rotten anyway. I'm not sure even Ron Paul can do much.
They'd either try to beat him into submission (figure of speech) to do what
they want, or assassinate him (if he actually wants to do all the things he's
been promoting - no wars, no federal reserve, small government, etc).

I like this video about him (fan made):

<http://www.ronpaul.com/who-is-ron-paul/>

But I think the only thing that can save America right now is a _major_
economic crash and a major drop of the dollar (to make them _really_
prioritize the budget and to get people very angry with the system), followed
by a revolution that will lead to overhauling the system.

I think we need politicians to be a lot more accountable for their decisions,
and we need a more direct way to send our feedback than just a vote every 4
years on one of the parties, and we need this all over the world, not just in
USA.

~~~
curt
You don't need a 'crash' you need a correction to fix all the manipulations of
the economy by the federal government. When the federal government subsidizes
a product (housing, ethanol), taxes/regulates it to an extreme, or spends your
money it creates an inefficiency in the economy. The other problem is the lose
monetary policy of the Fed since Nixon took us off the gold standard, that
also needs to be corrected. There has been one study I know of that showed a
very strong correlation between tight, non-inflationary monetary policy and
GDP growth over 200 years of American history. Politicians and the media rail
on business and wall street for causing the problems, when nearly all the
crashes in American history can be tied mostly to faulty federal monetary
policy and exacerbated by legislative policy (Smoot-Hartley).

The United States is not a democracy, it's a republic the founders knew the
danger of mob rule. The solution to the problem are term limits, so
politicians don't worry about their jobs and the next election, instead they
worry about the people they represent.

PS. Ron Paul is in Congress, Rand Paul his son is in the Senate. Ron Paul is
also retiring after next year.

~~~
nextparadigms
I'm just saying that I don't think the correction will come when things are
still _not_ that bad. Major changes happen in times of crisis, not when things
go pretty well. Even if they start thinking about some corrections, the
process will be way too slow and the changes will be minor.

For example, when do you think it's more likely they reduce the Defense budget
from 25% to say 15% or 10%. Right now? Or when the dollar will lose half of
its value and un-employment will double?

I think it's basically almost impossible to make them reduce the
defense/military budgets without a major collapse and near-revolution
situation like that.

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mindcrime
I might vote for an Internet Party candidate, depending on their positions on
multiple issues... but I would not blindly endorse somebody from such a party,
based solely on their stance on 'net and tech issues. And that's even assuming
I agree with their position on the 'net and tech stuff, which wouldn't be a
given.

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mooism2
No, I wouldn't vote for a single issue party.

~~~
sixtofour
Me neither, I expect an all-weather elected official.

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olegious
No, but I would vote for a "sense and reason" party that works toward a
moderate agenda.

