<story><title>Iceland’s Prime Minister Resigns, After Pirate Party Makes Strong Gains</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/europe/icelands-prime-minister-resigns-after-pirate-party-makes-strong-gains.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afarrell</author><text>&amp;gt; drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than politicians.&lt;p&gt;What was the process for this to be? Having folks who are untrained in law draft a constitution and then passing it sounds... well about as dumb as having folks who&amp;#x27;ve just learned to program write an operating system and put it in production.</text></item><item><author>joubert</author><text>Stood out for me:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The left-leaning parties — the Left-Greens, the Pirates and two allies — won 27 seats, just short of the 32 required to command a majority in Iceland’s Parliament, the world’s oldest.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;About 40 percent of Pirate supporters are under the age of 30. They had pinned their hopes on a party that has promised to install a more inclusive and transparent government.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The Pirates have pledged to enhance direct democracy by passing the world’s first “crowd-sourced constitution,” drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than politicians. Parliament blocked the document in 2013.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>belorn</author><text>Politicians are also untrained in law draft a constitution, which is why it generally is given to lobbyist that can pay people who are trained in law (paid by the companies that pays the lobbyist).&lt;p&gt;It would be nice to see a country (or EU) that forbade politicians to share or get input on law drafts from lobbyists. Just imagine how the many current trade agreements would look like if only politicians had seen and written them. Or just extensions of copyright law.&lt;p&gt;Its like having a operating system be written by an advertisement company and then be surprised when it is designed in favor of the advertisement company rather than the user who bought the device.</text></comment>
<story><title>Iceland’s Prime Minister Resigns, After Pirate Party Makes Strong Gains</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/31/world/europe/icelands-prime-minister-resigns-after-pirate-party-makes-strong-gains.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>afarrell</author><text>&amp;gt; drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than politicians.&lt;p&gt;What was the process for this to be? Having folks who are untrained in law draft a constitution and then passing it sounds... well about as dumb as having folks who&amp;#x27;ve just learned to program write an operating system and put it in production.</text></item><item><author>joubert</author><text>Stood out for me:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The left-leaning parties — the Left-Greens, the Pirates and two allies — won 27 seats, just short of the 32 required to command a majority in Iceland’s Parliament, the world’s oldest.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;About 40 percent of Pirate supporters are under the age of 30. They had pinned their hopes on a party that has promised to install a more inclusive and transparent government.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;and&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;The Pirates have pledged to enhance direct democracy by passing the world’s first “crowd-sourced constitution,” drafted by Icelandic civilians rather than politicians. Parliament blocked the document in 2013.&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>futuravenir</author><text>Actually, it was an elaborate and well thought out democratic process. It wasn&amp;#x27;t perfect, but it wasn&amp;#x27;t arbitrary either.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Icelandic_constitutional_reform,_2010%E2%80%9313&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Icelandic_constitutional_refor...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>