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

[Reinier Bakels]

Fellow pirates, before you wonder what this long mail is about: the issue 
was whether PP(I) needs an underlying philosophy. I argued not to be overly 
concerned, if only because many established and successful(!) political 
parties don't have explicit "philosophies" either ....

> Reinier Bakels wrote:
>> It is definitely better than the "Manifesto" proposals that presently 
>> circulate,
> Correction: you are the one who find it better. Me not, specially because 
> while the Swedish text perfectly fits for Piratpartiet needs, however the 
> Manifesto is not Swedish-driven or Spanish-driven, but internationally 
> driven; anyone else I guess they have own opinions as well.
>> 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).
> I'm sure that most (even all) traditional parties follow the /marxist/ 
> (from Groucho Marx) principle, "/those are my principles, and if you don't 
> like them... well, I have others/".
>
> http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/499.html
>
> So what? In PIRATA we are not interested on it, we are interested on 
> having well-known principles, to allow people who vote us to rely on them 
> and on our political platforms, and to remain loyal to the commitment 
> reached through the ballots with our voters.
>> 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.
> Where you find a conflict, we in PIRATA do not: there is a conceived state 
> of emergency to be applied in very rare situations; however, EU is willing 
> to apply emergency-like measures in an ordinary, daily basis. Privacy must 
> prevail in a general basis, i.e., must prevail when there aren't evidences 
> that lead courts of justice to issue warrants -to allow home searches, 
> wiretapping, publications seizure, etc-.
>
> Directives like data retention, or national laws like FRA, want to spoil 
> everybody's privacy without court warrant and no matter whether the 
> surveyed people is guilty of anything or not. It leaves things pretty 
> clear, in PIRATA's opinion.
>> 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).
> Don't worry, I won't reply that: I will just reply that we don't consider 
> intellectual works as property (nor as /property/).
>> Perhaps the PP
> .... again that stuff ...
>> is the *only* party with a philosophy, if only implicit so far?
> Does the fact that we have a philosophy bother you?
>> 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.
> If you want to know which are the PPI central issues, better check which 
> are each pirate party central issues
>
> http://int.piratenpartei.de/Pirate_Manifesto_parties_at_a_glance
>
> instead of guessing.
>> PP's don't want "everything", they want the balance to be restored!
> Pirate parties don't want everything -we have core issues and 
> theoretically focus only on them-, however the rest of your statement is a 
> /non sequitur/ (no matter you use a (!) or not). Because ... have you 
> asked pirate parties, specifically their members, to talk on behalf of 
> them to state what pirate parties want?
>
> I have to clarify that if PIRATA members were willing to obey a leader, we 
> would have joined any traditional party and, then, we would have tried to 
> influence that traditional party on PPI core issues -only to follow the 
> leader, no matter whether that leader follow our demands or not-; as it's 
> not the case -we even created a formal, registered party to prove it-, I 
> think nobody can expect us to change our mood.
>
> Pirate parties want what they want, i.e., what members of each pirate 
> party want. And I wholeheartedly believe that it can only be found, in an 
> inner democracy scenario, by their members self-determining their joint 
> will; never by the opinion of a single member of a single party.
>
>
> 
> Carlos Ayala
> 
> ( Aiarakoa )
>
> 
> Partido Pirata National Board's Chairman
>
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