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."

logic explained

I just ran for president of Sweden for the pirate party. Obviously the "DrunkenSailor" was a write-in and I lost. But it's for the better; who wants to lead a country that houses dirty war and drug money and is known only for neutrality (not of the net) and watches and knives. oh wait. there are hot chicks there, write me in damnit

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I think you mean Switzerland. As in, Swiss knives, Swiss chocolate, Swiss borders that are a whole lot less anal than most other European countries, etc.

Sweden is where the good pr0n and cheap furniture comes from.

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Sweden has the bikini team. Switzerland has the watches, knives, chocolate, and cuckoo clocks. Two different countries.

Re:logic explained

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

Re:logic explained

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

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


      And I think you've mistaken Africa for Scandinavia. Scandinavia is in the middle of the pacific, near Hawaii.

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Arrr! Ye would think not, as Switzerland be land-locked. Naught but land-lubbers there, me hearty!

Re:logic explained

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.

Avast, me hearties!

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!

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

A shame

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.

WHAT!

THey did this on Talk Like A Pirate Day?! [talklikeapirate.com]

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Shiver me timbers!!!!!!!!!!

Serious

Perhaps if they have a serious name, and carried themselves in a more serious manner, people would have voted for them. I agree that someone needs to look into privacy and intellectual property laws who understands them. But I wouldn't seriously vote for

The "lost vote" argument

That's most likely what they tipped over: It's a "lost vote" 'cause they won't make it anyway and so on.

In fact, if you do the math, you'll see that in the long run, it does usually not matter. Coalitions are rarely formed with a single vote majority, usually the majorities are held with substancially more seats than the one or two that MIGHT have been to their favor if you just didn't vote for the "underdog" party instead.

In fact, though, they want that seat, if for no other reason than to sit on of their guys there and cash in more for their party from the governmental pot. So, if you vote for a party that furthers your agendas, even if they don't make it into parlament, the parties that are in there will try to get that odd 2 percent of voters by adding that agenda to their portfolio.

In short, your vote will move more with the underdog party than with the one that you could vote for instead. When you're already in, 2% is not a significant change when it comes to coalition talks. But it's usually one or two seats in parlament, and boy, they want that seats!

Single issue parties

are at least as bad as single issue voters.

Now get on that position paper to describe why IP freedom will improve government services, shrink the cost of healthcare, decrease taxes all while creating both long and short term job growth and increasing globa

oh well,

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.

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replying to myself... I might be insane :S

In the Swedish elections there were issues of massive importance going on. The right of centre party actually won on a promise to cut down on what has been the jewel in the crown of the worlds welfare states, a

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As a side note I would say that it is quite shocking that they have voted out the social democratic party, especially when their conventional wisdom says that the two track tax burden (high personal tax but low corporate tax) was working and the welfare st

The problem is not their cause

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.

It's time to accept it.

Between this and the whole 'Snakes on a Plane" fiasco, I think it's time for us to accept that the Internet is not the 'force to be reckoned with' that we all would like it to be, and that 'net geeks, as a whole, aren't cohesive enough to have that much pull when compared to the mundanes.

There's got to be a better way to enact the changes we want.

Larger change in Swedish politics

The Social Democrats just got ousted from power by a moderate coallition that is seeking to introduce some market reforms into Sweden. Gee, you think that might have something to do with a fledgling party whose property rights philosophy is probably left of the Social Democrats not getting any attention?

Nah, couldn't be that...

Re:Larger change in Swedish politics

The Social Democrats just got ousted from power by a moderate coallition that is seeking to introduce some market reforms into Sweden. Gee, you think that might have something to do with a fledgling party whose property rights philosophy is probably left of the Social Democrats not getting any attention?

I wouldn't categorize the Pirate Party as a left wing party. For instance, the founder Rickard Falkvinge [wikipedia.org] is a former member of Moderate Youth League [wikipedia.org] the youth organization of the Swedish Moderate Party (conservative).

Besides, the election results had more to do with people wanting new faces in politics (especially the prime minister), and an incredibly lacking campaign by the Social Democrats, basically just repeating how "things are great", neglecting every concern expressed by the people and saying nothing about what they want to do in the future. At the same time, the moderates described themselves as "the new working class party" (calling themselves "the New Moderate Party") and lauded the welfare state. So people switched.

Exact figures

The Swedish election authority currently lists [www.val.se] them at 0.64%, with about half of the districts being processed.

Pirate party was wildly successful!

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.

Not a failure

The Pirate Party (henceforth TPP, since PP has some interesting connotations in English) did not get into the Riksdag, no. To get in, you need 4% of the votes. Last time around, in 2002, there was no TPP, and they got 0% of the votes. How is anything above 0% "being keelhauled"?

TPP said "this is going to be a close election, there are about a million people in Sweden sharing files, we can become a tiebreaker by gaining 4%". Making file sharing legal is the best-understood point of their political tenets (as few "intellectual property" institutions as possible, better privacy, reforming the copyright system). I don't fault them for picking exactly what they did to run on, or by the issue they made themselves known by (legalize file sharing). Which isn't the same as saying there weren't problems.

The other day I visited a page listing some Swedish political parties. The one line that described TPP was "They want to make downloading music and movies legal". Depending on how you look on it, it may be technically correct, however it's vastly oversimplified: The TPP reform of copyright includes perpetual and unlimited rights to *private* copies of anything, and shortens the exclusivity of selling the work to a five year duration instead of the author's-life + 70 + whatever-Disney-can-coax-international-law-into years of the current system, which effectively legalizes a lot of file sharing, which by necessity includes both uploading *and* downloading. These issues are hard and complicated. The Man on The Street won't be able to detail copyright law beyond perhaps author's-life + 70, and I don't think a tenth of the population have even heard of the continuous lengthening of the copyright period.

The "regular" parties run using a platter of promises - hundreds of them - where at least two are presented in a reasonable way. The Green Party (once a similar tiebreaker running using a similar philosophy) runs using more advanced stuff like TPP, but the few-words summary here, as expressed by The Man on The Street - "be nice to the environment and give us more family time" - is infinitely more agreeable to, well, most people, than "make downloading music and movies legal", which reeks of "omg plz make everything free kthx!1" rather than the well-thought out proposals behind TPP. This is one factor why TPP didn't make it all the way.

The other factor, then, is that more people found it more rewarding to vote for one of the two blocs (who mostly carry full political agendas on *all* issues, even the aforementioned Green Party) or on other small parties.

You could argue that the pie-in-the-sky chance that they would ever reach 4% was abysmal, but if they hadn't been so optimistic about it, I am positive that a lot of supporters would just have given up, saying "we're not going to make it anyway, why bother?". TPP didn't get its way, but I find it hard to deem them a failure. From 0 to sub-1% of above five million votes in less than 10 months is astounding work.

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Harrr laddy, looks like yer takin' a good long pull from a shot of reality.

Re:This was not good to start with

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

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

Re:This was not good to start with

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

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.

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

I think you forgot to add [/ironic] ;-)

Charlie Chaplin was deported due to his anti-war opinions, while there was attemp

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Charlie Chaplin was deported due to his anti-war opinions, while there was attempts to do the same for John Lennon. Now, imagine you are not famous, rich and happens to be a muslim.... (deportation)

You're leaving out one major distinction about Chaplin a

Re:This was not good to start with

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.

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sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.

Nothing wrong with advocating for change.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

If copyright < life + 50 then no WTO for you

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

But if you don't harmonize or harmonise your laws to those of the United States and European Union, you won'

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Huh? Looking at politics, you'd consider that a requirement.

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As pointed out in the commentary to earlier slashdot articles, the scandinavian idea of piracy (the high seas kind) goes hand-in-hand with economic liberalism. While the British and Dutch were establishing monoplies on commodities, controlling ports, pursu

It Is Necessary

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

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

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.

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Agreed 100%. They seemed to advocate that anyone could copy anyone elses intellectrual property without permission. Best summed up as the abolition of conventional capitalism.

'[A]bolition of conventional capitalism?'

Tell me, exactly, what is 'capitalistic

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But how many votes does a hive mind get?