Question: What do some disgruntled pirates do when they want to advocate for more privacy rights and government transparency?
Answer: They form a political p-ARRR-ty. (For those of you who don't get pirate humor, well, I'm sorry.)
In honor of the SOPA protest day, I thought I'd point everyone to the Massachusetts Pirate Party. According to its Facebook page, the party wants to "open up government, defend your privacy" through copyright reform and abolishing patents. A fairly specific agenda, but the pirates are only one of 21 third parties in Massachusetts, explains an article in the Cape Cod Times.
According to the article:
Out of the nearly 4.2 million Massachusetts voters who registered for the 2010 elections, 52 percent, or 2.16 million, were unenrolled. Around 1.53 million, or 36 percent of voters, registered as Democrats. Eleven percent, or 474,798, were Republicans and 15,857, or 0.38 percent, were Libertarians.
Another 8,438 Massachusetts voters, or one-fifth of 1 percent, choose other political designations. The largest such designation is the Green-Rainbow Party, with 4,949 voters, more than one-fifth of them in Middlesex County. At the other end is the New Alliance Party, with two registered voters in Middlesex County.
Not exactly a huge contingent no matter how you slice it, but with the widespread dissatisfaction with our political leaders, it wouldn't be surprising to see more local third parties cropping up around the country. I've contacted the Pirate Party's "first officer," but so far have yet to hear back.
In the mean time, the article is worth a glance. I don't want to spoil the surprise or anything, but there's also a Pizza Party-somehow, it's only got one member.
