The Pirate Party Now the Biggest Party In Iceland 136
jrepin writes The Pirate Party now measures as the largest political party in Iceland, according to a new servey from the Icelandic market and research company MMR which regularly surveyes the support for the political parties in Iceland. Support for political parties and the government was surveyed in the period between the 13thand 18th of March. The results show that The Pirate Party has gained increased support. Now, support for The Pirate Party totals 23.9%, compared to their previous 12.8% in the last MMR survey.
so (Score:5, Funny)
feel free to seed bjork torrents guilt free
Re:so (Score:5, Interesting)
You shouldn't directly assume that the Pirate Party has any politics regarding copyright infringement.
While many of the different Pirate Parties to some extent have freedom of information exchange on their agenda the main reason for their popularity is the push for more government transparency and less insight in personal lives.
Voters have in general lost faith in the block politics that only argue about if people should have to pay for services directly or if the government should be a middle man, partly because the traditionally liberal parties have switched over to a more non-liberal fascist line.
It shouldn't come as a surprise that a party shows up with a main point that the government should have less knowledge and less influence over the individual to replace the void left by the older parties.
Re:so (Score:4, Informative)
The page you read up upon doesn't talk specifically about the Icelandic Pirate Party. There is very little connection between the Pirate Party in different nations and that Wikipedia page is an outstanding example to why you shouldn't use Wikipedia as an example.
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Okay, well for what it matters, Píratapartýið (which by the way is a rather silly name in Icelandic) supports copyright law reform.
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The liberals he is talking about is, like liberal most places outside the US, right wing. Typically to the right of the local conservatives. They believe in liberties for businesses.
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His statement is still true, though. Even the most right-wing liberal European parties are nowhere even close to fascism (which doesn't believe in liberties for businesses at all).
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His statement is still true, though. Even the most right-wing liberal European parties are nowhere even close to fascism (which doesn't believe in liberties for businesses at all).
Fascist economics is an economy run by the largest corporation with the backing of the state. It is cronyism taken to its extreme. Economywise all of the west let by the US are descending towards fascism.
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Fascists economics are economics run by the state, with a number of state-backed corporations. However, the meaning of the word "corporation" in fascist parlance is very different from the regular meaning of that world in English language. It's supposed to be more of an association based on some common industrial affiliation, to act as a single body (hence "corpora") representing the common interests of its members, rather than as a profit making engine. For example, industrial associations are fascist corp
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Can you show an example of how the New Right supports Italian corporatism (which has a very distinct meaning of the word "corporation")?
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We don't actually have to listen to them, do we?
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You don't have to, but once they get in power, they get cutlasses and a plank. So, you may want to consider it.
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Actually, a literal translation of the "Pirate Party" to Icelandic would be Sjóræningjaflokkurinn. A pirate is a sjóræningi (sea-thief) and a political party is a flokkur (group). Pírati is not an Icelandic word, but an homage to the international pirate party movement. And "partý"? That's the word for party as in "Hey, I went to a great party" the other day, not a political party. It's a rather silly name, but hey... ;)
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So what you're saying is that the Piraty Party of Iceland is basically the political wing of Alestorm [youtube.com]?
Re:so (Score:5, Informative)
If you look closer you might notice that the PP isn't for abolishing copyright, but rather for reducing it to a sensible form. I.e. pretty much what it was allegedly supposed to be: An equalizer between the interests of those who produce and those who consume.
And I don't think we have to go any further than "from the death of the artist plus the lifetime of his grandchildren" to see that it's out of whack.
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Believe it or not, there are other musicians in Iceland (really, not kidding!)
It's actually kind of weird the percentage of the population that are incredible musicians.
Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Funny)
...to air drop some Freedom on those dirty pirates.
/duck
/run
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Hyperbolic, but the message has some truth.. Iceland is tiny (population wise) has negligible defence capabilities and could be dealt with by overnight installation of puppet government in the manner normally reserved for banana republics. The days where you weren't allowed to do that to developed countries populated by white people are behind us..
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IIRC, Iceland has actually NO military whatsoever, aside of what could with a bit of good will be considered a "coast guard".
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We also have Víkingasveitin (The Viking Squad). They're sort of like something between a small special forces and a big SWAT team.
Oh, and our coast guard's been buying some serious guns recently. They're still small, of course, like the country, but they're hardly unarmed. Our current government is really big into guns. They tried to equip every last police car with two guns, one of each being a military-issue submachine gun.
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Why bother, though? Since, as you've said, Iceland is tiny, the cost of such an operation would far exceed the gains to be had from forcing long copyright terms on them.
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Iceland is increasingly sounding like one of the most democratic places in the world. The people really do seem to be in control.
For example, when their banks failed they decided not to bail them out, and rejected government plans to compensate other countries which would have screwed them. As such they have avoided crippling austerity. They did what was in their best interests and screwed the bankers and politicians who caused the mess. It's incredible.
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being true, keep in mind that most of the money in Icelandic banks was from foreign depositors. It's easy to oppose the bailout in such a scenario.
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They couldn't have bailed out the banks, even if they had wanted to. The losses per capita were something like TWO THOUSAND times the losses of the US banks.
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They just did the math, I think. How much money would it have cost them to bailout all the banks and their fat British accounts versus how much money would they lose if they didn't. Easy, no?
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How would you expect them to seize the assets of people who don't even live in Iceland to begin with?
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knew the risk when investing in a foreign bank. The bank failed, you lost, sorry but you could have used a UK bank. Okay, the interest rate probably wouldn't have been as good, but that's how financial risk tends to work.
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Banks fail, even in places like Iceland, the UK and the US. Now, many countries have bodies set up to guarantee a certain amount of a given account's deposits, like the FDIC in the US will guarantee the first $250K in an account if the bank fails. But then again the US also has almost 400 million people and the largest economy in the world. It'd be a little insane to expect that Iceland with a population of less than 350,000 people could offer the same guarantees, especially on foreign deposits in privately operated banks. That would be privatizing profit, but socializing the risk, hardly fair.
There are always risks, you took one, it went badly. Such is life.
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I agree... and my Republican friends agree.... and my Democrat friends agree... and my Libertarian friends agree... and my Green Party friend agrees.... so who disagrees? Oh yea, those guys who own our politicians
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We had something similar happen here where a bank was offering a lot higher rates on deposits than anyone else. Guess why. They needed live cash to paper over their financial black hole. The bank went bankrupt shortly afterwards.
You know what? If an investment or application sounds too good to be true it probably isn't.
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Yes, they didn't bail out the banks, but in doing so they allowed someone in Iceland to steal £30,000 of my money.
Steal them, as in YOU lost them, by investing or saving money in a deal that was too good to be true, and which then collapsed?
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You lent your money to an Icelandic bank because they were paying much higher interest rates than UK banks. You pays your money and you takes your chances.
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:5, Informative)
BS.
First off, while you can't see it anymore due to a robots.txt page, I could previously show you on the Internet Archives what Landsbankinn's old Icesave page looked like. Just one or two clicks from the front page anyone could go there and read their account insurance policy. The account insurance policy was thus: the primary insurer was a private fund established by the Icelandic government. The secondary insurer was the UK government.
Now, either you put a ton of money into an account without reading the readily accessible information about what was backing the account, meaning you're an idiot, or you're willingly blaming the government of Iceland for something that they never promised to insure
Secondly, the UK and the Netherlands took Iceland to the EFTA court. Guess what? They Lost. The EFTA court ruled that Iceland did indeed follow all EU banking laws and that the private fund met the letter and spirit of the law. Just because your banks chose government backing rather than a private fund doesn't mean that you can retroactively damn us for having not made such a ridiculous decision.
Lastly, the UK government *did* pay out all insured minimums, as the secondary insurer. Meaning that if you lost £30,000, you're complaining about losing money that wasn't bloody insured. Which makes you even more of an idiot and a whiner. Were you really so stupid as to put a huge amount of money into an account without checking what the insured minimum for the account was, and then claim that an entity that never promised to ensure any of your account - the government of Iceland - "stole" it?
Re:Sounds like it's time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Utterly false:
Iceland seeks end to austerity with new center-right government [reuters.com].
And the "...politicians who caused the mess" were re-elected in 2013.
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What they call austerity is nothing compared to what the UK has had to deal with. Even that they rejected, and why not since it wasn't the fault of the average Icelandic voter. Iceland is recovering much, much faster than near by European countries.
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BS. Sorry, but you don't live here. We took on massive austerity (average 30% cuts across the board) during our *last* government, and the new government has been cutting down even further to pay for massive tax giveaways to the upper class - the "leiðrétting" money to people with expensive homes at the expense of higher food taxes and a higher retirement age, the elimination of the veiðigjald on the fishing barons, etc.
Yeah, it gets weary being lectured by foreigners about how lovely the pol
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The difference is this isn't brutal austerity imposed from abroad but normal austerity cause by local conditions.
Yes a lot of people are stuck with expensive mortgages that they are finding hard to pay. The same thing is happening elsewhere with the added issue that even those people who didn't contract any debt in the first place are being forced to pay someone else's debts.
The banks shouldn't have given easy credit that they knew people couldn't pay. Of course this will lead to foreclosures and bankruptci
Keep in mind... (Score:5, Interesting)
Iceland is a country of 323.000 people, of which some 200.000 live in the Reykjavik metro area.
Iceland's electorate is some 235.000 people (of which some 63% actually show up).
Reykjavik's electorate is some 85.000 people (of which some 66-75% actually show up) of which some 20.000 voted for the Best Party in 2010.
Which was a "member of the International Pirate Party, but not associated with Pirate Party Iceland".
They elected a comedian and a talkshow host JÃn Gnarr in 2010, and have dissolved the party after that one term in the office.
Among the political promises were the following: "a polar bear for the city's petting zoo; palm trees for its icy waterfront; free towels at its swimming pools; a rearrangement of statues; and a commitment to "sustainable transparency."
Their political platform was not much different, promising open corruption, canceling all debts, free bus rides and free dental [wikipedia.org] - constantly making a point that they are just making promises, with no plan of keeping them.
The president of Iceland has been in office since 1996. They keep voting him in.
Number of votes he won last time - 84.036.
His major opponent, a journalist with the national TV service, won 52.795 votes.
It is basically a large town.
In a geographically favorable place, just off the coast of everything, with free geo-thermal energy.
Those who do vote are voting by inertia or by treating politics as a joke.
It's just the same as everywhere else in the western world, only colder, smaller and with more volcanoes and less army.
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They already had me when they let their banks go bankrupt for their own idiocy instead of having the population foot the bill.
You might notice that Iceland is already on the rebound and out of the recession slump. We're not even in it yet.
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They already had me when they let their banks go bankrupt for their own idiocy instead of having the population foot the bill.
They really had no choice. The banks losses were just so incredibly massive that they simply couldn't be bailed out, no matter how much they might have wanted to. $100 billion in losses, for a country of 325k people. Total net US bailouts have added up to about half that, for a country 1000x larger.
You might notice that Iceland is already on the rebound and out of the recession slump. We're not even in it yet.
Iceland's GDP is still 30% smaller than it was at the peak, while US GDP is 16% above pre-recession levels. Both are in current US$ for comparability.
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And we did not default on our national debt. This is a common myth. We were (and still are) actually rather crushed by it.
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HAHAHAHAAAA...... oh god the foreign views of Iceland are always hilarious.
Just to let you know, it's questionable whether we even qualify as a democracy any more. Our current government has declared itself the right to void bills from parliament signed by the previous administration, at the stroke of a pen. Our gun-smuggling personal-data-revenge-leaking media-threatening stealing-tax-money-for-themselves government.
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Well, do you still have elections?
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Actually only a very small percentage of our major bankers who caused the crisis went to jail. Ask, say, Björgólfur Thor how he's doing these days.
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All of you who think that Iceland is some sort of anti-capitalist liberal paradise, you should know that Icelanders are making fun of you [youtube.com].
It's Iceland (Score:5, Funny)
You can be the largest political party there and still have your membership fit inside a Ford Transit van without violating any seatbelt laws.
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The US had 57 cities larger than Iceland
Oh? What happened to them?
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lol
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If only the Pirate Party hadn't vetoed those stricter seat belt laws:(
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Sadly too true... I own some land just north of Reykjavík and just had a shipping crate full of window panes blow over in ~130mph winds last saturday. One place measured 163 mph.
We're no stranger to bad driving conditions...
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Now dump the Berne treaty (Score:1, Troll)
And start accepting sane copyright laws. Increased production will also more than compensate for the sanctions the US will impose, as long as they can avoid a US invasion to "liberate" the country.
Re:Now dump the Berne treaty (Score:4, Funny)
And start accepting sane copyright laws. Increased production will also more than compensate for the sanctions the US will impose, as long as they can avoid a US invasion to "liberate" the country.
They have weapons of ice destruction there you know.
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Sometimes people demand "cash" from us, but they forget, there's no "C" in the Icelandic alphabet.... ;)
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Sometimes people demand "cash" from us, but they forget, there's no "C" in the Icelandic alphabet.... ;)
But you do have those hot Icelandic Girls - Dottirs, if I'm not mistaken
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If you go around Iceland asking for dóttir to ravish, I suspect it won't be long before you get a taste of some öxi delivered by an angry víkingr.
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I predict some serious VPN revenue (Score:5, Insightful)
If they manage to have a sane copyright law not too far in the future, that may be quite an economic advantage.
I'm polite so... (Score:5, Informative)
The party has not officially taken a position in favour of or against Iceland's accession to the European Union. The party has however concluded the following in a party policy on the European Union:[3] Iceland must never become a member of the European Union unless the membership agreement is put to a referendum after having been presented to the nation in an impartial manner. Should Iceland join the European Union, the country shall be a single constituency in elections to the European Parliament. Should Iceland join the European Union, Icelandic shall be one of its official languages. If negotiations on the accession of Iceland to the European Union halt, or membership is rejected by either party, a review of the agreement on the European Economic Area must be sought, to better ensure Iceland's self-determination. It is unacceptable that Iceland need to take up large part of European legislation through a business agreement without getting representatives or audience.
and the one you were not expecting
Edward Snowden: On 4 July 2013 a bill was introduced in parliament that would, if passed, immediately grant Edward Snowden Icelandic citizenship
Re:I'm polite so... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well, becoming a vassal state to the thoroughly corrupt EU, especially without representation, would largely deprive them of the ability to pursue any of those goals. How often has the EU passed some ridiculous privacy-violating or copyright-expanding act that all the member countries then had to alter their own laws to come into compliance with?
Besides, just because you belong to an international party, doesn't mean your priorities should be international - an Icelandic representative should rightfully be
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We already have to follow most EU rules and regulations due to being in the EFTA and other treaties. But we don't get to vote on them.
And you can lecture me about how wonderful it is to be a little country not part of some bigger entity when you have to pay 4-5% higher interest rates on home loans and pay out the nose for goods and have nobody ship to you and on and on.
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Those crazy Icelandic nutcases!
Hey baby it's cold outside (Score:1)
Lois on couch: Peter, it was like that time you participated in Talk Like A Pirate Day.
Cut-Away Peter: G'day, mate! I'll have some beer and backbacon, eh?
Peter on Couch, sad: I...I don't know how Icelanders talk.
If it was not for the separation... (Score:2)
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There is a pirate religion http://kopimistsamfundet.se/en... [kopimistsamfundet.se]
I've thought of that, but the Pastafarians preach that you should dress like a pirate, which is more fun.
Damn It! (Score:5, Interesting)
We need a US Pirate Party. They're kind of a one-platform party, but at least it seems to be a rational platform that you can actually explain to someone. I'm guessing the average Pirate Party candidate is much less likely to be a hypocrite than some of the other parties' candidates.
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Political parties in the US are organized by state. I mean, as a recognized party you can put on your voter registration card. National organizations are umbrellas for the state orgs. So, you can only register as a pirate if there's a state party, and there's only a pirate party in a handful of states. The one in my state shut down for inactivity.
No, the biggest party in Iceland.... (Score:2)
....is at ARNAR'S HOUSE!!!!
Amiright?!?
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You won't know until at least an hour or two after the official start time ;)
History repeats itself (Score:5, Funny)
Iceland has been the home of Vikings for centuries, so not much has changed.
It's no coincidence that the first Pirate Party was founded in Skandinavia...
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Sadly, that party is more or less non existent now.
When the Pirate Bay trail was over and media decided to push for the feminist party in the last elections combined with the extreme right wing going forward, not many voters was left for the Swedish pirate party.
They lost the European parliament election to the extreme right and the feminist party and they made an extremely bad national parliament election. I would call them dead by now...
A Bit of Social Rebellion (Score:2)
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"After having their nation's wealth raided by a collapse of British banks I suspect that the public feels a bit like a pirate seeking a bit of revenge."
Whaaa? It's the other way around - a bunch of Brits lost their deposits when ICELANDIC banks failed. Now, I don't have much sympathy for them, they put their money offshore to try to earn more interest, and that has risks, but the bad decisions that led the Icelandic banks to fail were 100% home grown.
Excellent piece from Michael Lewis about it here: http [vanityfair.com]
Foes Iceland have a ... (Score:2)
... bay?
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It depends on what you mean by "bay". We certainly don't name things with the word" bay", as that's an English word. But we have lots of firðir, víkur, sund.... ;)
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Do y'all have a website called, PirateFirðir?" :p
Video: Pirate Party Cpt Prime Minister of Iceland? (Score:2)
Re:Video: Pirate Party Cpt Prime Minister of Icela (Score:4, Informative)
Shouldn't be surprising that they wouldn't form a coalition with the Independence or Progress parties.
The Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) is basically Icelandic Republicans. It's too good of an analogy not to make. If Republicans in the US like it, they like it. They're maybe not as hard on the social conservatism, but economic, yeah, they can party with the best of them in the US Republican Party. Anti-EU.
The Progress Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn)... this is a beast that you really aren't familiar with in the US. Sometimes they're referred to as right-populism, but really I think the best way to describe them is the "Idiot Party". Generally they do terrible in the polls right up until a couple weeks before the election, when they come out with some Big, Super Plan, which basically amounts to "We're going to give you tons of money, and you're never going to have to pay for it, like ,not EVERS!" There's so little time before the election that idiots get enough time to hear about it but not enough time to hear about how utterly terrible it is, and Framsóknarflokkurinn surges in the polls... then their support quickly collapses after the election, but who cares about it then? They're in government and can enrich themselves and their friends to their heart's content. Anti-EU.
The Pirates on the other hand could easily form a coalition with a number of other parties:
Samfylkingin (not sure what the English translation for them usually is)... as much as Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn is Iceland's Republicans, these people are really Iceland's democrats: left-center pragmatists. But then again, the left in Iceland is further left than the US. Pro-EU.
Left Greens (Vinstri Grænir): Yeah, there's also a Right Greens, but they're a small party, no need to talk about them. The Left Greens are a traditional Green Party... Left-Idealists. Anti-EU.
Bright Future (Björt Framtíð): Relatively new party. They're another leftist party, with some stances matching with Samfylkingin but others matching the Left Greens. Pro-EU.
The Pirates have no pro or anti EU stance, except that people should get to vote on it. They're very much not happy with our current government's promise breaking and lawbreaking on this front. But the membership is mixed on how they'd actually vote - they just want to get a vote.
I think the Pirates would form a great part of any potential leftist coalition. They have a lot of policy blind spots where they try to avoid taking stances, but they're very hardcore on certain issues that really need an advocate.
Re:voting age reform (Score:5, Insightful)
Before you go blaming the young, perhaps you should look around at the state of the world and think long and hard about what the old have been doing with it for generations.
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I am of the opinion that the voting age should be lowered, to maybe around 12 or 13. Also any politicians that fund a war or aggressive action or vote for one need to be assigned a platoon and it needs to be sent to the front line with them leading it (this includes the Prez). People in prison should also be allowed to vote in all elections where they are being stored and where they came from. I think that would start to even out some of the stupidity perpetrated on the masses by the old and the privileg
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" There are reasons for why I think this should be the case"
Because you're 12 or 13?
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I'm 45, actually. MS in mechanical engineering from a top ranked university. Generally I have a philosophical bent and for sure a rebellious streak. I also possess (am possessed by?) a strong sense of social justice due to the way I grew up and the economic class of which I was a part growing up. But thanks for the joke, that was funny.
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I understand, brain development comes at certain ages etc. However, look at where only allowing those with "mature" brains vote has gotten us. Do you see a lot of evidence of good judgment in our voting patterns? Sarah Palin still has a credible shot at being president some day for crying out loud! Is there any evidence that our current system is doing fantastically? We are an extremely young country headed down a very bad path, and need to do something to turn this ship of state around. I think that
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"look at where only allowing those with "mature" brains vote has gotten us. "
And you think letting kids who know the square root of fuck all about the world having a vote will improve things? Get a grip.
"Why shouldn't felons get to vote either? Who better them has insight into how our current criminal justice system is or isn't fair. Are they no longer human just because they have been put in prison?"
They opted out of the rules of society when they broke them. Give us a good reason why they SHOULD get the v
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News flash! Most grown adults don't know the "square root of fuck all", I myself imagine that the "square root of fuck all" is masturbation or it could be some other thing but I'd not bet my life on it as the problem seems poorly defined. "Get a grip" see my answer to above ;-). Fox "News" has been number one for 13 straight years, need I say more? I would rather people who still enjoy watching the PowerRangers vote than the blank minded parrots who watch Fox "News".
As for why felons don't get the vote, tha
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" myself imagine that the "square root of fuck all" is masturbation"
GTFU.
You sure you're 45 because you're coming across like a student and not a particularly smart one at that.
"A good reason why they should vote? Because they are humans and citizens."
Oh boo hoo. Where's my violin?
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Viol8, hmm, you seem so much more mature than I am, I like the nick it screams maturity and civility. Like your non-arguments do. How about you attempt to field an argument yourself? I'm feeling that our conversation has grown increasingly one-sided not to mention hostile. I might suggest places to look for your violin but won't as that might encourage some of your less savory addictions.
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... ar sem strax er teygjanlegt hugtak ;)