[pp.int.general] Our ideology

[Philip Hunt]

2009/7/29 Philip Hunt <cabalamat at googlemail.com>:
> 2009/7/29 Rodrigo Pereira <rodrigo at partidopirata.org>:
>> But this page http://www.pp-international.net/node/1 propose to create a
>> ideological text. Can we develop the international pirate ideology to
>> coordinate international action? "Pirate Party" is only a strategy or we
>> have a "system of ideas" too?
>
> I did write a long email in reply to this, but I've decided to split
> it down into three sections, each of which will have a separate email:
>
> 1. our core ideology on digital rights
> 1.1. how computer software/hardware can facilitate this
> 2. our ideology on other matters

Section 2:

Do we have an ideology regarding other issues? We don't at present. I
don't think that PPI should have an ideology on these issues, because
we'd never all agree on one, and we'd instead waste a lot of time
arguing about it.

Individual pirate parties are likely over time to have policies on
issues ourside our core issues. It'll be interesting to see how that
develops. And it's also a potential danger to us, because every time
we have such policies, we are potentially alienating some voters. For
example, if we present ourselves as an explicitly left-wing party, we
lose half our voters; if we present ourselves as an explicitly
right-wing-party, the same thing happens.

So I think our policies on non digital rights issues should be guided
by these principles:

1. don't needlessly alienate voters.

2. in particular, don't be explicitly left-wing or right-wing.

3. it follows from the above that we will be roughly politically
centrist.Since we hope to form coalitions with other parties, it's
best if we are able to work with them

4. try to have policies that will have widespread support. For
example, if the govenrment is doing something incompetently (in the UK
this applies to most large-scale public sector IT projects), say how
we'd do it more competently. Actually I think one of the main themes
we can use in campaigning is "The big parties don't understand
computers. This leads to bad policies. We do understand computers;
this leads to good policies."

-- 
Philip Hunt, <cabalamat at googlemail.com>
Campaigns Officer / Press Officer, Pirate Party UK