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Comment by btown | Hacker News Reader

As the article hints at in saying that the Icelandic Pirate Party garnered enough votes to have a single seat in the parliament, a Pirate Party, or any niche-issue political party, really only makes sense in a proportional representation system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ). There is simply not enough support or funding for any candidates to have a chance at a national level. However, there is a small chance at a state legislature level, since (to my knowledge) most US citizens don't care much about state legislature elections, and a sufficiently charismatic and well-funded Pirate Party candidate might be able to amass enough votes in a relatively well-educated area. Thus the current US Pirate Party's focus on having state-level organization: http://uspirates.org/about/get-involved/

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PR would be great (I struggle to see FPTP as really democratic to be honest- it systematically supports entrenched interests), but if you aren't actively working on changing the system, then you have to work with the system.

The partial saving grace of the existing system is that even though niche parties will never get elected, their aims can still be achieved-- enough votes to a 3rd party can scare the main players into changing their policies. No one ever won an election for women's suffrage, but the policies still got adopted.

Looking from out side from a country that has FPTP But the USA still doesn't have two parties in the modern sense you have two wide coalitions (18th century style) with a considerable amount of horse trading and pork keeping people on side.

Read Williams Hugues bio of pitt the younger to see what I mean.

Inverse TL;DR: "Read Williams Hugues bio of pitt the younger to see what I mean."

You're right, and I believe you pinpoint the problem with the US political system. It's pretty much impossible for anybody with out of the ordinary political views to be represented at a high level in the US democracy. It will take a revolution for a bipartisan system to break.

Actually, it's working as intended. The Founders specifically wanted to avoid the impact of niche factions on the process. While, they didn't set out to create a 2-party system, per se, the alternative is actually much worse, because you end up in situations where a niche faction can wield disproportionately large amounts of power through the use of political coalitions and kingmaking.

This still happens, sure, but it's isolated to the parties themselves, where they are incentivized to appeal to a larger base, which minimizes factional influence from the get-go.

Political coalitions and minor parties have been very effective in Australia with no ill effects. FPTP is also a terrible way to elect people, the US should move onto Instant Runoff Voting.

It's worth pointing out that "working as intended" isn't necessarily "working the right/ideal way".

In this case, I completely disagree for the reasons I cited.

I hear you, but I disagree that "the alternative is actually much worse". I live in NL, which has a pretty fragmented political landscape.

And yes this means that we get idiots like Wilders (and similarly idiotic parties before him, though not as popular). But on the other hand, we have a Pirate Party, an Animal Party (that I'd be more supportive of if they knew to choose their battles better, IMHO), Green Party, Socialist Party, Party for the Elderly, a couple of Christian Parties (different ones, from very strict, to relatively sane but right wing mainstream, and even a leftist one), Labour Party, Liberal (right wing conservative) Party, and many more.

It works, also because if a smaller party gets a seat, what that means is they can voice their standing points, but only really have a good chance of changing something if a larger party also picks it up. However, they are more likely to do that with a smaller party advocating it, because it's a clear signal of popular support for such a point, and it steers the discourse in a particular way.

Another plus is that the extreme crazy (often bigoted) ones, tend to blow up on themselves, because of the evaporation effect (I forget the exact term, it means that moderate people leave, and it becomes an in-fighting echo chamber), because there's always feasible alternatives to vote for, so you don't end up with two parties that are really not representative of whoever would vote for them because it's the "lesser of two evils" (or worse, I've heard some people word it recently as "the equivalent of two evils").

Agreed. You stated them well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy#United_States

It's also impossible for anyone with ordinary political views to be represented, as representatives must first win highly partisan primaries. At best the system leaves us with a coin flip between a solid democrat and a solid republican.

Actually, I would argue that perhaps it gives us two indistinguishable candidates, whose differences are only there for show. I still have the side I favor, however.

it doesnt need a revolution (that would be a very bad thing given how much power our military has). It just needs to start locally (we all understand how exponential growth works). rather than running for US president in '16, the goal should be small, eg x% of state senators from the bay area.

There is such a thing as a peaceful revolution. Although I feel such a revolution in the US is less likely than in almost everywhere else.

Although it's apparent that the US military and police are prepped for widespread civil unrest.

A couple years ago I went to a weekend seminar on political activism, taught by some long-time GOP political consultants. They said there is one good use for third-parties at the national level, and that's to punish one of the major parties.

They told a story about Democrats in one state putting up a (national) candidate for the House with a poor environmental record. Republicans in that district consistently got 45% of the vote. The environmentalists went Green Party that year, and the Republican candidate won with the usual 45%. Two years later, the Democrats learned their lesson and picked a strong environmentalist candidate. The Republican got his 45% again and the Democrat won handily.

To use this strategy you have to be willing to put up with some short-term pain, but if you're successful once you'll be in a strong negotiating position for a good while to come. The voters with power are single-issue voters willing to switch parties.

The problem with this approach is that copyright laws are strictly Federal issues. It's one of the few powers that is explicitly granted to the Federal government. Where one could make an argument that states ought to regulate things like education or health care, you simply cannot make that argument for copyright. If we wanted states to be able to make laws regarding copyright we would need a Constitutional amendment.

The US Constitution allows the Federal government to manage copyright; it doesn't force it, so you could still make the case that it shouldn't (just not on Constitutional grounds).

From a legal scholarship standpoint, that would be an improper delegation of Congressional authority; it's part of the job description if you like, and thus an assignment of responsibility as much as facility. The word 'shall' is construed in law as a mandatory assignment, as opposed to saying Congress 'may' do something (ie if it feels like it).

Well, it says "shall have Power", not shall do X. But I'm certainly no constitutional scholar.

True. Congress could pass legislation allowing states to manage copyright.

I won't be holding my breath for Congress to vote itself less power.

I would imagine that they would see state legislature seats as a springboard to legitimize the party on a national stage, not as an end in themselves.

So the absolute top priority for the US pirate party should be voting reform at the state level. If people see how much vastly better alternative systems are at the state level they're likely to start complaining about it at the federal level.

On the contrary independent candidates do better in larger elections that are given more attention by the media. Smaller local elections are dominated by parties with an established infrastructure that can turn out their members in low turnout elections.

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