Well, Chris seems to really dislike the Pirate Party, and this almost sounds like he is almost advocating some kind of economic terrorism against them if the don't vote the "right" way:

"Let’s be clear about one thing fellas: You do that, and Sweden will be cut off from the legitimate world. Not just the U.S., either. Polish up your Chinese, Korean and Cuban and see how much you like dealing with them, kiddies."

So, Amy who is using hate speech against whom?

I believe Chris Castle was speaking in the tone and manner in which he finds the Pirate Party's policies (or lack there-of): non-seriousness and untenable, childish. Note, the previous paragraph reads:

***The most fallacious part of the entire Pirate Party episode is the idea that the Pirate Party actually stood for anything... This was a copyright platform that carefully excluded enforcement against the Pirate Bay, the Bit Torrent site that appears to be the sustenance for the Pirate Party and their candidates and also would abolish patents.***

Still, I'll hand it to the Pirates. 33,000 votes is pretty impressive.

Actually, I belive that you oflks haven't a clue regarding the depth of antipathy in the EU regarding software patents in the EU.

It has become an issue of national debate in Netherlands, France and Poland. There is no conceivable way that software patents could pass if they are put to a democratic process there. So the options are: some kind of underhanded trick, or an acceptance of defeat on the part of the pro-software patent lobby.

In particular, I was extremely proud of Poland's deerailing of the software patent directive, where it was brought up at an agricultural meeting. That's twice Poland has saved Western civilization, the first being in 1683 when Jan Sobieski relieved the siege of Vienna.

(And perhaps it's actually the third time, considering their breaking of the German enigma cipher just prior to the Second World War.)

I'm not in the habit of replying to anonymous folk, Mr. E, but the point I'm making is fact, not advocacy. If any country, not just Sweden, stops respecting international law, such as international copyright treaties--they will be cut off.

The Swedes got a little tast of this, what Wired refers to as a “scandal” of Swedish officials kow towing to American copyright interests.

You could call it a scandal, or you could call it leadership—let’s see, legitimate interests that can land my country on the international trading blacklist because of massive theft by scary ska8r boys who attract women by smell, or…a raid. Hmm, now there’s a moral dilemma.

"If any country, not just Sweden, stops respecting international law, such as international copyright treaties--they will be cut off."

Then USA would have been cut off a long time ago. In the real world, that hasn't happened, nor will a country ever face an economic blockade because there copyright terms are different than ours.

Actually, that's exactly how Canada got put on the list. The hate America first crowd has its list, we have ours.