Elections in Germany

[SeanHeron]

I know there's a few other Germans hanging around here, and I'd be interested in there take on the elections (coming up on Sunday - so pretty soon ).

It's obviously going to be a pretty tight race - what I'm wondering a lot though is how the Pirate party is going to do: if the people I know are anything to judge from, I reckon they might get a suprisingly large share of young people's votes (though they have no chance of getting past the 5% hurdle, and thus into parlament of course).

I am actually considering to vote for the Pirate party myself - otherwise I'd probably vote for the Green party (which has been my preference in the past).

So let's hear you :) !

[Forboding Angel]

Aye, Avast! What be the pirate partay pray tell? Speak up, ye land lubber!

[SeanHeron]

What I find interesting about them, is that they say our laws in some areas are entirely based upon the past, and don't reflect the our current speed of development, and changes in society and technology. And that they suggest to actually change them - laws that a lot of people see as "unchangable".

Specifically, they say that patent law in a number of areas inhibit R&D more then it encourages it (and gives an unfair advantage to large companies).
And that enforcing that private sharing of copyrighted media is illegal would mean severe restrictions and or surveilance of peoples internet use - so make it legal .

Some links:

http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/

The whole world from a pirate party perspective:
http://web.piratenpartei.de/navigation/ ... n-weltweit

P.S. The pirate party is affiliated with Piratebay website (of which you might have heard ? :D). Okay, I guess that's not necessarily the most positive connection...

[JohannesH]

Its fucking hard to catch most shoplifters. Legalize??

[tombom]

Aye, Avast! What be the pirate partay pray tell? Speak up, ye land lubber!

I can't remember which Pirate Party this is, but one of them is apparently really libertarian apart from the copyright stuff. I don't know how you can reconcile "capitalism will solve everything" with "except when those nasty big businesses sue us over us using their intellectual property without permission for free, waaah"

[KDR_11k]

Libertarians are often opposed to IP because they believe that not having "unfair monopolies" lets competition flourish. I guess some controlled cutbacks (though legalizing private sharing is too much) would be beneficial but if you cut too far you risk putting inventors at a competitive disadvantage and thus discouraging innovation.

Anyway, we've got bigger fish to fry like Wolfgang Schäuble and the "killergame" panic. Possibly the BPjM after that (I think measures need to be taken to prevent indexing from being a de-facto ban and thus censorship, indexed works are obviously still suitable for adults but often the indexing prevents adults from accessing them and severely impacts the economic viability of the work, resulting in youth protection censorship for works that can only be sold to adults anyway).

[Master-Athmos]

I guess I'll give the pirate party my vote this time too. I'm a bit sad to say but except for "Die Linke" there's no real party with the chance to get some decent amounts of votes worthy of election in my opinion...

All other parties usually have attitudes which are indiscussable or have utopic election pledges (and as Franz M├╝ntefehring said when translating to english: "One mustn't pin down a politician to his election pledges. That would be unfair!" ). To make things a bit more "real" I really like a lot of what Volker Pispers says. Some of his old cabaret speeches (both very old and new) as well as some comments by other guys can be watched here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMyI-QTD ... playnext=1

Other probably well known videos one should watch are those:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGD2q2vewzQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwrMroEiHj0

[bobthedinosaur]

Warum lehnen Deutsche ab, auf Deutsch zu sprechen?

[rattle]

Liebe NPD-Wähler: Nicht vergessen - Montag ist Bundestagswahl!

...und fleissig rechte winkel fuer die hakenkreuzchen ueben!

[KDR_11k]

I guess I'll give the pirate party my vote this time too. I'm a bit sad to say but except for "Die Linke" there's no real party with the chance to get some decent amounts of votes worthy of election in my opinion...

I don't think the Left party can handle the economy, not after how they botched the GDR. If those idiots had enough power they'd chase a dream and wreck the whole country in the process.

[Tribulex]

Aye, Avast! What be the pirate partay pray tell? Speak up, ye land lubber!

Thats canadian not german...

[Gertkane]

I vote hitler.

[Gota]

I vote hitler.

Your a bit late.

[FLOZi]

I guess I'll give the pirate party my vote this time too. I'm a bit sad to say but except for "Die Linke" there's no real party with the chance to get some decent amounts of votes worthy of election in my opinion...

I don't think the Left party can handle the economy, not after how they botched the GDR. If those idiots had enough power they'd chase a dream and wreck the whole country in the process.

Not like the neo-liberal parties have wrecked the whole world economy...

Oh wait!

[Master-Athmos]

Yeah like any of the other parties would have any real competence on the economic sector. Like giving the Commerzbank 18 billion Ôé¼ which then uses 5 billions of those to buy the Dresdner Bank to become a company worth 3,9 billion Ôé¼ where "we" own a 25% share (with no saying whatsoever). A true bargain! Especially as we probably won't see most of the invested money ever again as the companies we invested in have to become private again once things have been "stabilized". We're now in the lucky condition though that when giving the money there afaik was no condition that said that the money has to be payed back. So in the end we might get some assets until the privatisation and that's it. Don't get me wrong - pumping money into the banks probably was the right step but in the end we're just going to pay their huge debts and that's it...

Or like the "Riester Rente" which got advertised as a wonderful form of the retirement pension but actually and in fact is nonsense (especially for those with a low income)...

There also are things like the pension scheme. I at least don't see any point of a system being "socially fair" where people with low incomes have to pay a higher percentage of what they earn and people with high incomes have to pay a lower percentage of what they earn (as the upper border here gets always put to a 5400 Ôé¼ income - if you earn more than that you still only pay the respective percentages on those 5400 Ôé¼). Doing it "fair" seems to be unthinkable while it works fine in e.g. Switzerland with even lower percentages one has to pay after all...

I don't want to say that everything they say is good and should be done and they most certainly also have some persons you might have different opinions of but imo they in the end say many true things and ask for a change...

[FLOZi]

It's also somewhat fallacious to equate Die Linke policy with that of the PDS, hell, to equate the PDS to the SED isn't entirely accurate, surely?


Of course, I'm incredibly biased, as I am in the sister organization of the SAV.

[KDR_11k]

I guess I'll give the pirate party my vote this time too. I'm a bit sad to say but except for "Die Linke" there's no real party with the chance to get some decent amounts of votes worthy of election in my opinion...

I don't think the Left party can handle the economy, not after how they botched the GDR. If those idiots had enough power they'd chase a dream and wreck the whole country in the process.

Not like the neo-liberal parties have wrecked the whole world economy...

Oh wait!

Fortunately noone votes neo-liberal.

[FLOZi]

All the mainstream parties across europe are neo-liberal in economic outlook.

[Sabutai]

shit a brick spd 22%

[manolo_]

i couldnt vote the pirates in my area, what a pitty