
Does America need a Pirate Party? - woah
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2013/05/02/does-america-need-a-pirate-party/
======
btown
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](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/](http://uspirates.org/about/get-involved/)

~~~
noloqy
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.

~~~
Finster
Actually, it's working as intended. The Founders specifically wanted to avoid
the impact of niche factions on the process. While, they didn't set out to
create a 2-party system, per se, the alternative is actually much worse,
because you end up in situations where a niche faction can wield
disproportionately large amounts of power through the use of political
coalitions and kingmaking.

This still happens, sure, but it's isolated to the parties themselves, where
they are incentivized to appeal to a larger base, which minimizes factional
influence from the get-go.

~~~
saraid216
It's worth pointing out that "working as intended" isn't necessarily "working
the right/ideal way".

~~~
Finster
In this case, I completely disagree for the reasons I cited.

~~~
tripzilch
I hear you, but I disagree that "the alternative is actually much worse". I
live in NL, which has a pretty fragmented political landscape.

And yes this means that we get idiots like Wilders (and similarly idiotic
parties before him, though not as popular). But on the other hand, we have a
Pirate Party, an Animal Party (that I'd be more supportive of if they knew to
choose their battles better, IMHO), Green Party, Socialist Party, Party for
the Elderly, a couple of Christian Parties (different ones, from very strict,
to relatively sane but right wing mainstream, and even a leftist one), Labour
Party, Liberal (right wing conservative) Party, and many more.

It works, also because if a smaller party gets a seat, what that means is they
can _voice_ their standing points, but only really have a good chance of
changing something if a larger party also picks it up. However, they are more
likely to do that with a smaller party advocating it, because it's a clear
signal of popular support for such a point, and it steers the discourse in a
particular way.

Another plus is that the extreme crazy (often bigoted) ones, tend to blow up
on themselves, because of the evaporation effect (I forget the exact term, it
means that moderate people leave, and it becomes an in-fighting echo chamber),
because there's always _feasible_ alternatives to vote for, so you don't end
up with two parties that are really not representative of whoever would vote
for them because it's the "lesser of two evils" (or worse, I've heard some
people word it recently as "the equivalent of two evils").

------
mindcrime
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.

~~~
javert
> . But I've seen some Pirates describe them as a "progressive" party, and I'm
> pretty skeptical of "progressives" and their policy positions.

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.

~~~
Apocryphon
You're speaking from an Objectivist position, aren't you?

~~~
javert
In this case, I would say no. What I said is a very basic observation. Why do
you ask?

------
rayiner
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.

~~~
Torgo
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.

I don't have a solution.

~~~
rayiner
> 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.

You don't need to dislodge them. You just need to convince them that you've
got a political platform that will get votes, to counter demographic trends
(people who remember the Soviet Union dying off, etc) that don't work in their
favor. Bill surveillance as an attack on religious groups, a way for the IRS
to more strictly enforce tax laws, etc, and you can present them with a
platform that will get votes from their base.

I haven't been watching the news lately, but I can't believe that the
republicans aren't already trying to tie the NSA thing to the IRS thing.

~~~
nitrogen
I think a lot of people who oppose ubiquitous, unchecked surveillance also
want to fix the two-party system, and would have a hard time compromising on
the second to accomplish the first.

~~~
rayiner
I mean that's the basic problem, isn't it? Some people can't compromise. Many
people who are proponents of privacy rights, oppose copyright, etc, consider
themselves too good to participate in the political system, and would never
stoop to, say, trying to find common ground with religious or social
conservatives on the subject of surveillance, even though there might be
politically valuable common ground to be found.

------
pseudometa
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

~~~
nawitus
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.

~~~
pseudometa
You vastly underestimate the voting power and wealth of people aged 50+. Try
and convince a retirement home that something called the Pirate Party is a
good thing. Best of luck to ya!

~~~
nawitus
I've tried, actually (I was a parliamentary candidate). It's not easy, but
when talking to older people the name wasn't such a big issue.

------
hwh
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.

------
tbirdz
America does have a Pirate Party:
[http://uspirates.org/](http://uspirates.org/)

~~~
smacktoward
It was founded in 2006. Has it managed to field a single candidate for office
anywhere in the United States? As far as I can tell, it has not.

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.

------
sinak
No mention in the article of the most interesting aspect of the Pirate Party,
the Liquid Feedback software platform that they use to make decisions:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiquidFeedback](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
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?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Or, even more likely, people who decide to troll the legislature.

------
1337biz
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.

------
amikula
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.

------
ruv
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.

------
mindcrime
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.

~~~
jlgreco
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".

All very bizarre.

~~~
mindcrime
No doubt. It gets worse though... Say you _don 't_ want to affiliate with a
party, and you just want to run as an "independent" or "unaffiliated"
candidate: You _still_ have to go through an onerous process of paperwork,
fees, petitions, etc. to get on the ballot. Even worse, you have to _petition
to be recognized as a write in candidate_!!

Think about that for a minute... You have to be _recognized_ by the State, to
be a _write-in_ candidate. Is there a bigger oxymoron in existence than
"certified write-in candidate"? But if you don't do it, no votes cast for you
will be counted. Even if you seemingly earned what would be a landslide
victory, it wouldn't count, because they totally disregard any write-in votes
that aren't certified ahead of time.

And people think our system of government isn't rigged and corrupt... sheesh.

------
vog
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?

------
Apocryphon
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.

------
jebblue
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.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States)

------
lettergram
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.

I believe most Americans would vote similarly.

------
themgt
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.

~~~
nooneelse
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.

------
pizza
There's a small reddit community called the American Pirate Party that's
existed for 3 years now:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/americanpirateparty](http://www.reddit.com/r/americanpirateparty)

------
detcader
What's wrong with Jill Stein?

------
flyinRyan
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.

------
ihuman
I don't know if anyone else here remembers, but there used to be an American
pirate party. However, it never gained any traction, so it decided to split up
into multiple local pirate parties.

------
Falkvinge
Yes.

------
opdemand
Whether you agree or disagree, this is a non-starter in the US due to the
entrenched two-party system. Best option is to build a "digital activism"
caucus in one of the two parties.

------
bcheung
How can you build a legitimate party based on the concept of theft?

------
chris_mahan
One would just need one seat in the US Senate to really make waves. Every
contentious issues that came down to one vote would look at the Pirate Party
Senator.

~~~
Torgo
The shitty part is that committees, who have the power to decide what Congress
even addresses, are basically organized along party lines which severely
limits the impact a non-Democrat, non-Republican congressperson can have.

------
ISL
Is there a district in Silicon Valley small enough to support a Pirate/Silicon
Party representative in the house?

------
mtgx
When US becomes a more democratic country (in the literal sense of the word),
sure.

------
mung
good luck with that, if they gained any traction they would be tapped,
discredited, marked as terrorists, a danger to all that's good and decent and
the American Way(tm) and eventually destroyed.

------
LoganCale
Why not a Hacker Party?

~~~
Zikes
To the lay person that would have an equally negative connotation, as most
people would associate it with illegally accessing private information such as
what Anonymous often does. It also conjures up imagery that's unattractive or
otherwise unappealing, and carries with it a measure of exclusivity in regards
to computing skills or literacy.

In the case of pirates there is at least a level of romanticism around the
idea. And since nobody is _really_ a pirate, anybody can be one.

------
ForFreedom
I read it as "Does America need a Private Party?"

------
_k
I think the name is easily misunderstood.

------
geneticmaterial
no, no but we do need a privacy party.

------
ttrreeww
We need a constitutional party.

