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I just wished they were more relevant in german politics.
It's the typical dilemma. Vote for a party you know won't get enough votes to do something or vote for the least bad of the established parties.
There's more to joining a party than voting. You can join the party that advocates for the issues you care about and vote for the party that could actually win and is the lesser evil
better to support via votes, funding, spreading-the-word, and volunteer efforts, than to label oneself a 'pirate' (or anything, really) on voter registrations, which are public data here. i'll stick with "independent" on that form, tyvm.
In Australia we have preferential voting with no wasted votes, thought it would be more common
The issue is that the politicians benefitting from First Past The Post voting would need to be the ones to enact preferred voting. They benefit from FPTP because it locks voters into the two party “any third party vote is wasted” system. And they have zero reason to change that, because they would be legislating themselves out of office. The two big parties would suffer massive losses if people were able to vote for who they actually wanted, so those two parties have a vested interest in preserving FPTP voting systems.
Massive first preference vote losses maybe, but the preference flows would still trickle down to two major parties, it always does.
That preference flow data can then be used to shape future legislation to keep voters on their side and even to pull swing voters from the other sides, or at least that's how it is supposed to work when the media isn't actively working against you.
"hey we only won because of votes from this minor single issue party, maybe we should consider our position on that issue"
Yeah ... No.
I'm generally not a fan of party politics (though I realize you often have to bite the bullet on voting). But the pirate party here (Germany) is a really problematic bunch some of them thinking freedom means free markets some of them thinking free speech means they should be able to say hateful Nazi shit ... Really not a party I want to vote for, even in a pinch.
In my country, they are surprisingly conservative socially-wise so meh.
Also the german pirates are often incredibly sexist. Overall really not voteable
They lack a bit on all other agendas, like education, healthcare etc
They don't have to cover everything. Pirate Parties often ally with other parties that cover other specific problems, e.g. Piratenpartij & De Groenen ("Pirate Party" and "The Greens" alliance) in Netherlands, and they work well together.
They absolutely have to cover everything. The idea of voting a politician into office knowing they aren't competent in all aspects of their job is wild to me.
Am I going to vote for an MP that has no knowledge of policies on healthcare, welfare, etc? Of course not, that would be deeply irresponsible.
This might be OK depending on your location and the government system in place. Voting for a single person that has to answer all questions sounds like UK or US to me.
Take a look at the Finnish or the Dutch parliament. 7, 8, 16 parties there? Independent (no-party) politicians too. Each one of them is free to represent people with specific needs and only focus on that.
Also keep in mind that some questions like "healthcare" and "welfare" may be less relevant too. It can be pretty much resolved (you can always promise to "increase doctors' wages by 30%!"). More specific issues remain.
In ranked choice voting systems, single issue parties have a meaningful purpose, they don't need a full platform covering every topic of running a country, they just need to show the major party that gets their preference flow that people support their cause and they need to take note of where those votes came from
I'm the US those are just libertarians but with piracy. No thanks.
I've been voting pirate party for years now, though thankfully I am in a country with ranked choice / preference voting so I'm not damaging democracy by voting for a third party, in fact I believe I'm actively helping democracy by using the tools given to me.
In Australia they are now part of the Fusion Party, which combines pro-science, pro-choice, pro-environment and secular minor parties.
I was a member in Oz, but don't walk the same line as many parties they linked in with. So lost me then sadly.
Sadly the one in my country no longer exists 😞
Ours is still alive and can be voted on in 10 days.
This Green Party rebrand isn’t entirely unexpected.
I love piracy like I love electricity - it makes my life easier, and I will extoll the virtues when asked. It doesn't rise to a core political belief for me, though.
As Extra in Exile once said:
"Finally, a party for us YouTubers"
Go to this video at the 5:25 mark if you don't believe me.
Aaron would be disappointed in that CSS, holy hell
free speech
In the context of an intense commitment to an open internet I’d honestly need to know a bit more about what this means in my own country’s pirate party. “Free speech” is often just a disingenuous shield when bigots want to be be bigots without social consequences.