[pp.int.general] Pirate Manifesto: PIRATA internal ballot, results

[Reinier Bakels]

> > One does not need a fanciful philosophy to know what is right and  wrong 
> > in this field.
>
> One common criticism of the Swedish (pp) is that we're a "single- issue" 
> party. We're commonly depicted as spoiled brats whose main goal  is to get 
> everything for free, and therefore assume that our  opposition to things 
> like FRA and the Swedish implementation of IPRED  is because it might 
> threaten currently illegal internet file sharing.
>
> Having a developed philosophy to counter these arguments to come up  has 
> been helpful in this regard. Swedish (pp)'s "declaration of  principles" 
> document is available in English in PDF 
> (http://www.piratpartiet.se/documents/Principles%203.2.pdf ) and 
> OpenDocument Text format 
> (http://www.piratpartiet.se/documents/Principles%203.2.odt ).
It is definitely better than the "Manifesto" proposals that presently 
circulate,
>
> If they insist we're a single-issue party without a philosophy, we can 
> always point them towards the declaration of principles. And if they

I agree, these are serious considerations.

To some extent, such complaints can be expected if you take a completely new 
perspective. As you may know, in The Netherlands we have many political 
parties, 11 at last count (a kind of "natural experiment"). Many newcomers 
are blamed for a lack of philosphy, but that does not hurt their popularity. 
The Animal Party now has two seats (out of 150), and they are a very obvious 
example of a one issue party (their statement is: if you don't respect 
animals, you don't respect people either). Like Germany, we have a large 
Christian Democrat Party. Their "single issue" is the bible. In practice, 
due to secularisation, it is a party of older people, who are conservative = 
law & order (and they are computer-illiterate). The traditional liberals 
have become a plain conservative party, and they actually *oppose* 
liberalism! We have a second progressive "green" liberal party (D66) which 
has a very appealing leader - but they are blamed for a lack of philosophy = 
for opportunism. Actually they were founded in 1966 with the idea to reform 
the political process, but that objective turned out to be so unpopular that 
in order to save the party, they put those plans on ice! Now they grow 
dramatically in the polls. Opponents say: by gving up their principles and 
philosophy! Socialists apparently have a philosophy - but in the 21th 
century it is not really clear what socialism should be, now that systematic 
poverty no longer exists in the western world, and (some) socialist 
principles are generally accepted (at least in Europe, perhaps not yet in 
the US and elsewhere). The call for a philosophy also has somehow a 
"recursive" nature: the reference to human rights leads to a new "why" 
question. And human rights do not answer how to make inevitable choices that 
must be made in case of conflicting principles. Like privacy vs. safety. 
Like the "property" rights of authors vs. freedom of culture. (Don't reply 
that often people are factually misled - it is our task to tell the facts, 
e.g. that mass surveillance does not further safety nor helps to fight 
criminality - or perhaps only at a very high price).

Perhaps the PP is the *only* party with a philosophy, if only implicit so 
far? I remember that Rick Falckvinge said: the information age needs an 
information party, like the industrial revolution called for socialism, mass 
industrialisation called for environmentalism and mass marketing called for 
consumerism (Rick can say that much better than I ... please correct me).

Sorry for the simplification, but from my perspective the PPI have two 
(related) central issues:
1. restore the balance in the field of "intellectual property": presently 
almost exclusively gearded to the interests of (potential) rights owners, in 
favour of the general public, cultural diversity and in novation.
2. restore the balance re privacy, which should not be sacrificed for safety 
and law enforcement.

Isn't "balance" too a-specific? Perhaps, but it is definitely a major change 
from the present situation. And it answers the "spoilt child" argument. PP's 
don't want "everything", they want the balance to be restored!

reinier