The following was a letter submitted by a Pennsylvania Pirate using the pseudonym “Forward Thoughts”, written in promotion of the Pennsylvania Pirate Party, United States Pirate Party and the worldwide Pirate movement in general. Many of the quotes and references in this article are in direct reference to the Pennsylvania Pirate Party’s platform. This article is apart of the project “Message in a Bottle”, allowing supporters of the US Pirate Party to submit editorial articles to the United States Pirate Party website.
Pirates!
They sailed up and down the coast of the USA and the Caribbean, processing charm not dissimilar that portrayed in Pirates of the Caribbean, drinking rum, plundering ships that contained gold and other valuable items, forcing the crew on that ship to walk the plank into the depths of the sea (while drinking rum), easily succumbing to scurvy, and talking with either an English or Scottish accent and little else in between all while sailing with comradery for weeks or even months on end. What are pirates like today? Are they still sailing the sea on a galleon with modern weapons plundering ships for their treasures? If so, do pirates force crew members on different ships to “walk the plank” into their watery grave to Davy Jones’s locker? How about drinking rum? What about the distinct Pirate accents?
I’m here to discuss all these things in my letter about the modern day Pirates.
I’m referring to the modern day pirates “roaming the seas”; not what you see in Somalia with antiquated AK-47s fending off against invaders (corporations in particular) who wish to adversely affect their home territory, but rather, the Pirates you see organize together via mouse and keyboard, partnered with paper and pen.
To be more specific, I’m referring to the Pirate Party.
Nowadays Pirates are “roaming the seas” of the dark web with VPNs to protect their privacy from corporations who sell their information online, as they, the Pirate Party, believe people have no right to sell their private information and the right to privacy in general. Likewise, Pirates oppose the Patriot Act and illegal wiretapping government of any kind that letter agencies agencies (such as the NSA, FBI, CIA, etc.) routinely dabble in with its citizens in the name of national security. Many Pirate Party’s stance worldwide on drug use is to decriminalize all drugs, similar to Portugal. Moreover, The Pirate Party takes a compassionate approach to drug use by releasing everyone who’s been incarcerated for non-violent drug use and drug dealing.
You won’t just hear Scottish and English accents within The Pirate Party. Diversity is a must for every Pirate Party member’s vocabulary. Case in point, they’re ardent supporters of trans rights and the free flow of immigration between nations. Moreover, Pirates believe the free movement of citizens between countries is paramount. Pirates believe in reforming the immigration system to fast track undocumented immigrants, abolishing ICE, ending immigration detention, repeal the limit of visas, multilingual resources to immigrants, and less stringent visa requirements.
How did Pirates come to care about how their government operates besides theirs not killing them?
In today’s age Pirates are up in arms about proportional styled ranked choice voting and Right to Repair, but it doesn’t end there. They care about repealing laws mitigating the 4th amendment, rights of all official documents to be released to the public domain, free transformative use of copyrighted works, rigid protections to freedom of speech, and to make sound laws mandating an open door policy for government meetings at all levels of government, and decentralization of federal power. As a quote on the Pennsylvania Pirate Party (PAPP) website states: “Democracy is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.”
Scurvy was not sparse among Pirates. That said Pirates nowadays believe in altering the tax code to de-link insurance and employment, expanding the Medicaid system, repeal the prohibition of insurance from being sold across state lines and prevent what amounts to insurance schemes, city/town funds should be allocated towards non-coercive/adequate mental health resources with a care not cop model, abolishing license credentials in regards to accreditation of hospitals and health care professionals, and repeal of the FDA’s approval process with private alternatives. As a quote on the PAPP website states: “[The USA]’s healthcare system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.”
Individuals convicted of piracy during the golden age of piracy were either hanged or imprisoned. In the modern era Pirates advocate for the end to civil asset forfeiture, qualified immunity, permanent termination of police officers who violate civil liberty, police contracts with surveillance companies, zero-tolerance policies in schools, mandatory arrest, decriminalization abortion without restriction, civil commitment, police in public schools and fine and fees associated with the criminal court costs (cash bail, probation/parole fees, etc.). They also support all prisoners incarcerated to be released, reducing resources for prosecutors until on par with public defender offices, and an independent oversight board for all law enforcement. As a quote from the Pennsylvania Pirates website states: “A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.”
Additionally, Pirates the seizure of all corporate entities convicted of specific offenses, and their reorganization as worker-owned cooperative firms. These offenses should include, but not be limited to: Significant environmental damage, violating the civil rights of employees, customers, or other individuals, wage theft, significant reckless endangerment of employees, customers, or other individuals. As a quote on the PA Pirates website states: “It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation?
They’re totalitarian institutions – you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.” Many pirates were illiterate, as told in history and seen in Johnny Depp’s character Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. That said, the Pennsylvania Pirate Party currently call for the revocation of all charters in charter schools, replace the local property tax system designed for funding schools in favor of a state land value tax with universal school vouchers, investing in youth programs that promote learning, safety, and community care, and call for mutualizing all public schools into worker-owned cooperatives, with direct control and ownership resolving to the teachers and workers of the school, transforming them into private firms. Like the PAPP website states: “There’s no such thing as neutral education. Education either functions as an instrument to bring about conformity or freedom.”
Eco-friendly Pirates? Who would’ve thought that be a thing?
Well yes, today’s Pirates advocate for an end of all direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuels industry, including favorable tax policies, military intervention, and any regulation or protection of fossil fuel consumer prices, an end to laws and regulations that hamper the development of a safe, clean, sustainable, abundant energy industry in our nation. This includes onerous laws and regulations that interfere with the development of nuclear power, especially molten salt and thorium reactors, and for all government departments and agencies to become carbon neutral. Like the PA Pirate Party website states: “There is no energy crisis, food crisis, or environmental crisis. There is only a crisis of ignorance.”
To many people’s surprise, Pirates didn’t sail the seas until they met their watery grave in Davy Jones’s locker. Eventually, the ones that weren’t imprisoned or executed retired and lived the rest of their life on land. These pirates believe in achieving affordable housing for all is to build enough housing for all, we call for the elimination or at the very least reduction of all zoning, and restrictive building and development regulations that prevent people from developing their land for housing and commercial interests, prohibition of evictions, installing safe and sanitary gender-inclusive public restrooms, repurposing empty buildings, houses, apartments, and hotels to house people experiencing homelessness, and investing in land stewardship councils to oversee return of land to Indigenous communities. As the Pennsylvania Pirate Party website states: “As no man made the land, so no man can claim a right of ownership in the land.”
By Forward Thoughts
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