Solutions sounds like something more appropriate in a slogan, not a name. Why is there this obsession over a “grown-up” name anyway? Changing things now would abandon any name recognition built up and wouldn’t help election chances at all.
We could always go for phrasing things in Australian terms and call ourselves the Bushranger Party or perhaps the Eureka Party…
Regarding PPAU membership: I’ve been told several times that it’s predominantly male. If statistics alone are indicative of discrimination, then surely there must be something fishy going on here, right?
Regarding thoughtcrime: The way you quoted me followed by “That is what needs to be done” left which sentence that was directed towards unclear.
Regarding guilty until proven innocent: “when all else is equal, err in the direction of the person from the discriminated against group” which is consistent with similar statements in a certain other thread that was locked recently.
On those lines, a phrase that popped in in discussion between @miles_w, @Emily and I earlier this year was “Pirate Party Australia - Radical Sensibility”.
The Pirate Party Australia does not need to be saddled with labels or slogans. It does not need to have policies on every issue. It is unlikely to be a party that governs in its own right. It needs concise identifiable policies that define it and defines what makes it different to all other minor or single issue parties.
The things that first attracted me to the PPA are first and formost its international outlook, and its position on internet freedom. I dont believe any other mainstream party has got any idea or notion of the internet and its potential for the future. The other thing that attracted me was its similiar outlook to wikileaks (without the cult of personality). In the words of a popular religious figure “the truth will set you free”.
In conclusion i would not agree to a change of name nor would I want to see us labelled in any meaningless way (whilst admiting to my own far left leanings).
Anyhow I rather we drop this issue, due to the issue of working out a common “political scale” due to the Overton Window effect.
Everyone has a different scale origin and it also differs between countries. One country radical left is another’s centrist position.
I am with @Peter_Galvin in that it best that we do not assign yourself a label or even the notion of “left” or “right”. Our core principle should be our principles, we don’t need a label for it.
I too think the graph is bullshit. It really goes down the “which team are you on” route rather than “how would you solve this problem”. In the end it’s just tribalism. I don’t really see useful policy design tooling coming from that graph.
As pirates a lot of what we suggest is designed bottom-up. That’s about our only design strategy and we violate it constantly when it doesn’t work. That’s good. It means we’re pragmatic about solutions and willing to try different things based on the circumstances.
Recall that Pirate is a slur term for… citizen. Ultimately a lot of these terms, like eco-terrorist or whatever, are designed to make citizens hate each other, to keep them “wedged” so we don’t rise up against tyranny. That’s literally all we are, the citizen’s party. Citizenship is becoming outlawed and we want it back. Real democracy, real policy. The rest (left-right up-down) is interesting to chat about but I don’t really believe in it.
This ‘radical centre’ concept, as I conceived of it, is not about adopting any particular point on some political scale, so the Overton Window is irrelevant. It’s about being at the center of apparent conflicting positions, with a mission to connect stakeholders to find innovative solutions.
I think maybe politics is so adversarial because so many politicians are lawyers instead of any of the more creative professions. Maybe that’s a mistake.
In the internet age as the political landscape becomes more divided, perhaps the thing that’s missing is creative connection.
Call it what you want, but can a political party be that?
If not, why not?
Our policies look to me like we do that, but with insufficient outreach today.
Well, there’s that, but it’s also incredibly adversarial because it’s literally designed that way. There’s the government, the opposition, and nothing else. Two parties. Us and them. With or against.
Look to countries with multi-party systems and you’ll find both more democracy and a lot more compromise happening. Finland, for example, has had several… interesting… coalitions form over the years that you wouldn’t expect to work.
