Swedish Voters Keelhaul Pirate Party

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."

Avast, me hearties!

[geckosan (78687)]

Arrr, 'tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day! What a fell blow to pirates everywhere! Let's keel-haul the negative vibes by keepin' the parlance circa 1700's, me hearties!

Re:Avast, me hearties!

[Apocalypse111 (597674)]

Encrypt the data holds, batton down tha security patches, argh thar be spyware abound!

A shame

[riffzifnab (449869)]

Tis grievous black news this most sacred of days to pirates round the globe: Talk Like a Pirate Day. Arrrr, it does bring a tear to my eye. Pas me grog and this one be fer ye, pirate party.

oh well,

[joe 155 (937621)]

It's important that they've learnt things from this and it's interesting to note that they did get quite a few votes. I know people will see less than the 1% limit for government help with adverts etc as a loss, but consider that this is a party which has been around for what... a year? It is so new, it is taking such a radical idea, and it got over 0.5% of the national vote?
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.

The problem is not their cause

[Xiph (723935)]

But that it's scope is way too limit to warrent a political party.

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.

Pirate party was wildly successful!

[abelsson (21706)]

The Pirate party may not reached the Riksdag, but they have already caused ALL parties to reconsider their position on file sharing.

• The Greens just published a policy document named "Free the files" which is basically a copy of the Pirate partys program.
• The leaders of the Moderates and the Social Democrates (the two largest parties) have stated that the the much critizied law from last year that outlawed file sharing should be reconsidered.
• ALL youth leagues of all parties are pro-filesharing.

In the school elections the party got 4.5% of the votes, even without preprinted ballots. In short, the pirate party has shown that a large portion of the youth are interested in these issues, and no party can afford to alienate entire generations. So while it didn't get into parliment, the pirates did already influency policy and debate- much more than any of the other small parties.

Re:This was not good to start with

[TheWoozle (984500)]

Something is "illegal" if there is a law against it, by definition. No law, no problem. Hence, I see it as an entirely practical way to tackle the issue.

Re:This was not good to start with

[CmdrGravy (645153)]

Surely you meant "an entirely piractical way to tackle the issue ?"

Re:This was not good to start with

[MynockGuano (164259)]

Bleh. I modded this flamebait on accident. The mod system needs to have an undo button. :/

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)

Re:This was not good to start with

[CRCulver (715279)]

Obviously the point of the party is to use the power of democracy to ensure that such actions are no longer illegal. Do you think Marxist parties should be shut down just because the state ownership of industry they advocate is not permitted under current laws? I thought America was supposed to be better than other countries since it allows any ideas to participate in the democratic process.

Re:This was not good to start with

[teh_chrizzle (963897)]

I thought America was supposed to be better than other countries since it allows any ideas to participate in the democratic process.

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.

Nothing wrong with advocating for change.

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

there is a northern country (forgot which) who has a party, which wants to legalize sex with children. so there is the question: is the "pirate party" nearer to marxism than to a fellony?

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.

Repeal the prohibition of marijuana

[TamMan2000 (578899)]

I have never smoked marijauna, but I can see that it's illigality is stupid, anti-freedom, and causes far more problems than it solves. Don't you think there were those like me in the 1930's advocating the repeal of alchohol prohibition?

Re:This was not good to start with

[trewornan (608722)]

If you believe in free speech then you have to put up with people saying things you don't like.

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

[indifferent children (842621)]

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

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

[eldavojohn (898314)]

A political party for illegal actions? come on!

Might I remind you that the founding politicians of America were violating many English laws and guilty of leading revolts against the British Crown ... punishable by death if I'm not mistaken.

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

[nine-times (778537)]

Very insightful. In fact, there's hardly a point to having a political party that is advocating legal actions, unless those legal actions are under threat. An "anti-theft" party, which thinks it should be illegal to steal car stereos, for example, would be downright stupid. The only reason I can think to start a political party is when you're unhappy with the current laws, or to combat laws that you're afraid might be passed in the future...

Re:This was not good to start with

[CastrTroy (595695)]

It probably falls under the same umbrella as the Marijuana parties [wikipedia.org] that exist in certain countries.

Re:This was not good to start with

[Tweekster (949766)]

Well considering those actions are not against the law, they are not illegal (please try and remember, different countries have different laws...)

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.

It Is Necessary

[eldavojohn (898314)]

They seemed to advocate that anyone could copy anyone elses intellectrual property without permission. Best summed up as the abolition of conventional capitalism. If they had just been honest and renamed themselves the 'communist party' they might have done a bit better. Hopefully now people will see them for the freeloading jokes that they are.

I would like to first begin by saying that nowhere have I read the Pirate Party will abolish all rights to personal property (as Socialism aims to achieve). Secondly, conventional capitalism can function fine under the engine of providing a service or a good in exchange for money.

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 ... but not the whole way. And it's nowhere close to the extremes of socialism, only in one aspect of it. Most people on /. hate IP laws anyways, let the party run and see what happens. Stop calling them names and let Democracy take it's course!

Calm Down

[eldavojohn (898314)]

Thankfully they got the electoral ass-kick they deserved.

Ok, first calm down. This is (supposed to be) a level headed discussion (no, I'm not new here).

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

[bentcd (690786)]

Copyright laws institute monopolies on cultural goods and as such represent the antithesis of capitalism. In a capitalist system, anyone would be entitled to manufacture and offer the goods for sale. Supply would then fluctuate with general interest in the goods and the profit that could be made from providing them, unlike the fixed pricing schemes we are seeing with today's monopolistic situation.
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.

Re:logic explained

[by Anonymous Coward]

I think you've mistaken Switzerland for Sweden. Sweden is in Africa.

Re:logic explained

[LSD-OBS (183415)]

Argh. It's far too easy to confuse that with the Japanese island of Swaziland.

Re:logic explained

[Per Wigren (5315)]

so wait - other than women who are beautiful (which is enough), what does sweden have thats cool?

IKEA, Volvo, Ericsson, MySQL, The Pirate Bay, ABBA and meatballs.