[pp.int.general] Greens saying Pirate Parties unnecessary

[Eric Priezkalns]

On 17 Sep 2009, at 14:24, Jorge wrote:

> Hi folk
>>
>>
>> Let us be honest.  If any of the Pirate parties tried to develop a  
>> complete economic policy, it would be no better than that of the  
>> Greens.
> How you know the future? Have you a christal ball?

No, but I have some history books.  History is full of stories of  
people who thought they had lots of answers to important problems but  
really lacked knowledge or experience and, when they got power and the  
chance to change things, they made a terrible mess.  That just means  
people should be humble and realistic about their abilities, including  
the limits of their intelligence and of human intelligence in  
general.  Wise rulers know their limits.  If you want somebody who  
says similar things but more cleverly than me, I would point you  
towards Karl Popper's 'The Open Society and Its Enemies'.  Popper  
writes: "We must learn to do things as well as we can, and to look out  
for our mistakes."

It is not a specific criticism of the Pirate Parties to suggest we  
should stick to developing policies in areas where we are well- 
informed and knowledgeable.  We are less likely to be right when  
formulating policies for things where we have less knowledge and less  
experience.  If we can recruit people who really know and understand  
economics, that is great, but so far I cannot see the Pirates have a  
special advantage in recruiting the best economists, compared to the  
Greens or any other party.  But if we do recruit some really great  
economists, the best place for them to start would be the economics  
surrounding core issues like patent reform, and once they have  
persuaded more and more economists to join the party and endorse their  
point of view on those issues, then they can expand their scope to  
cover other aspects of economics.  But that would lead to another  
question about extending the goals of the party, so please let me  
leave my answer there before I start a completely different debate.

<snip>
>
> In some issues, I think we can work with the greens (as well as with  
> other parties, in a pragmatic view), but we are really very very  
> different.

Agreed.  We are and should be open to other parties copying our  
policies.  But even if another party precisely copies every policy, we  
should still argue the Pirate Party is different and that voters  
should vote Pirate.  They should still vote Pirate because of the way  
we prioritize the issues and the radically different political  
philosophy in having only a tight focus on particular goals.
>
> All the best,
>
> Jorge
> PP Brazil
>
>
>
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