[philippK]

Well that is a good question.

The pirate party wants several steps in enabling more citizen participation.

First, they want to make government more transparent so that the people actually have all the information needed to make informed decisions on their hands. No longer do they want to accept that crucial legislation is often negotiated behind closed doors and only announced once everything is already sewn up. Also the contracts the government has with the private sector need to be made transparent. We need proper open data portals. There's a lot of things do to in this area alone.

Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level.

Third, their longterm vision includes a concept called "Liquid democracy" where basically everyone has the opportunity to have a voice in the political process. This will be facilitated using digital means. Specifically software called "adhocracy" / "liquid feedback" is being developed for this. The pirate party in germany already uses this system for their internal decision making.

It's a carefully balanced system comprised of direct voting on issues, and delegating voting power to representatives.

See here for more info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy

http://liqd.net/en/

So i don't see the danger of inviting mob rule with the pirate party. As i see it, they want to open up the political system to more direct participation while keeping it stable enough to guarantee basic democratic freedoms (like minority protections)

[nickik]

"Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level."

The should really be looking at switzerland for some of this stuff. I think we handle this pretty nicly.

[morsch]

E.g. banning building mosques with minarets, while building Christian temples with bell towers is still allowed? Thanks, I'll pass.

[nickik]

Well yes this slipped threw because of the massive advertisment and fear politics. Its a flaw in the system, laws should first be checked on human rights and then blocked. I never said the swiss system is perfect.

I think if you look at the amount of bad laws produced this way compaird to how much bad laws most governments creat with there exlusion from the people its pretty clear witch fails more often.

In generall the "tyranny of the masses" is a problem in every democracy. I would trie to solve it with a very strong civil liberty laws and a court that can block laws that go against them, like they did in germany with the "Hacker tools" and Communication Storages Laws.

[r00fus]

No, this kind of thing should be thwarted by supreme laws, ie, a Constitution, which require a super-majority to change. "Religious Freedom" could be such a constitutional right, which would make such "tyranny of the majority" more difficult (but not impossible).

[nickik]

Agree thats what I said (or at least meant)