[pp.int.general] Translation of the Pirate Manifesto

[Reinier Bakels]

I won't deny what you are saying. In fact you confirm that there are two different "streams" in PP: the Manifesto-lovers and the people who have other priorities. While I clearly belong to the latter group, who am I to make a judgement? 
In the Helsinki meeting, there was just one person of the former type. It is not a "boycot" by the Swedish PiratPartiet. Leading PP persons from Germany and Finland do not consider the Manifesto a priority either, aparently.

So far the facts. My *opinion* is that the present drafts rely too much on human rights arguments. I think it is a basic mistake in a *political* document such as a "PP Manifesto" to rely on *legal* human rights arguments. Basically for two reasons 1) politics and law are separate domains, perhaps connected, but different in nature 2) if you still want to use human rights arguments, you need a through understanding of this very complicated field of law, else you are likely to "reinvent the wheel" (time consuming, error prone). The problem is that most human rights are somehow contradictory, so none can be absolute: all require exceptions. And some quite common human rights interpretations lead to conclusions completely contrary to PP objectives.

Couldn't PP work on its idealistic goals without becomon a human rights specialist? Yes, but then stick to item 1) above and use *political* arguments.

OTOH, for true human rights infringements, go to court. The terms may be long, but the threshold for the ECHR is low. (Sorry for non-Europeans and Belarussians)

reinier
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Arcos 
  To: Pirate Parties International -- General Talk 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2009 10:44 AM
  Subject: Re: [pp.int.general] Translation of the Pirate Manifesto


  That's not true at all.

  1) The Manifesto was voted, the Amends were voted.
  http://int.piratenpartei.de/Pirate_Manifesto_First_Voting_Cast_Votes
  Every pirate party chose the way to vote the amends. In Spain, each member of the party voted each amends.

  2) The Manifesto (and the Amends) was not done by a single-man in a single-session. It was discussed and discussed and discussed for several months, and there was one person representing each party:
  http://int.piratenpartei.de/Pirate_Manifesto#Who

  3) The Manifesto wan't gonna be definitive, but a first version to be improved over the time.

  4) The Manifesto failed because it was boycotted by PiratPartiet. Yes, I know that they were in pre-elections and had millions of things to do, and I can understand that the manifesto was not a priority. But, in the long term, the Manifesto is very important.



  On Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:40 AM, Reinier Bakels <r.bakels at planet.nl> wrote:

      I am becoming a bit confused: is there actually a document, a sentence, anything, that is (more-or-less) "official" and on what (almost) all the Pirate Parties agree?



    No, afaik there is not. By the end of 2008, the manifesto "A-B-C" project was abandoned by most contributors after heavy flame wars, and in the end is really was the project of a single man, Carlos Ayala. During the Helsinki meeting early this year, it was *not* discussed at all. Carlos was disappointed, but he was pretty alone.

    The Uppsala document (composed during the summer 2008 meeting) wasn't so much intended as *the* PP "Manifesto", but more the by-product of a (very useful) workshop, a mental exercise to better understand PP goals and strategies.

    I wrote a one page "PPI Principles" document for the Helsinki meeting (see attachment), more to provide an alternative than because I believe(d) that a manifesto was (or is) a priority. We spent little time on it in the meeting, fortunately. The purpose of a political party is to gain votes, and a "philosophical" documents like a manifesto should be judged from that perspective: does it help to get more votes? As you know, actually deceptively few voters read party programs.

    I won't repeat here why I believe that the A-B-C manifesto's are not suitable as *the* PP manifesto (else I unleash another flame war, I am afraid).

    reinier 

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