The Massachusetts Pirate Party announced its support for all five ballot questions appearing on the state general election ballot next month. The party made its decision based on a poll of its members conducted during a recent meeting.
Massachusetts voters will decide on five binding statewide ballot questions in November. These questions include proposals to empower the State Auditor with the authority to audit the Massachusetts legislature, eliminate standardized testing as a high school graduation requirement, allow transportation network drivers—such as Uber drivers—to unionize, permit the limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychedelic substances, and gradually increase the minimum hourly wage for tipped workers each year until 2029.
Members of the Massachusetts Pirate Party met remotely this past Thursday, where they voted on how to address these upcoming ballot questions, as well as discussed party organizing priorities for the next year. According to public meeting minutes, a majority of members voted in favor of supporting each question, with the party unanimously backing the proposal related to increasing the minimum wage for tipped workers.
Party members also discussed efforts to identify and recruit potential candidates for the 2025 municipal election cycle and set the date for the party’s Winter Conference, which will be held on January 25, 2025. However, the conference location has yet to be determined. Additionally, the party finalized a letter to be sent to municipal clerks after the election, requesting public voter registration records and information on how frequently these records can be accessed.
Pirate politics would, if taking any position about these questions at all, logically oppose all five them:
– Q1 expands the authority of the state auditor to audit the state. (Not a bad thing, but not very piratical.)
– Q2 further erodes holding students to a standard (so far so piratical), in favor of giving the state more control to pass or fail students according to its whims and politics (very unpiratical!)
– Q3 lays the groundwork to unionize Uber drivers and the like (possibly piratical), while also ensuring that such union are in bed with the government (not piratical at all).
– Q4 is all about legalizing (very piratical) and regulating (not very piratical) drugs, and includes giving extensive powers to government to levy taxes and control use (about as unpiratical as imaginable).
– Q5 increases wages for tipped workers (unpiratical), making sure to undermine both tipping and competitive pricing in the process (totally unpiratical).
A self-proclaimed “Pirate” Party endorsing any of these questions, is (almost) as silly as a self-proclaimed “Libertarian” Party endorsing Ohio Ballot Issue 1. (The “almost” is the result of pirate politics being more flexible in scope and content than libertarianism is.)
I guess it’s time to coin PINOs – pirates in name only.
Seriously though, what went wrong with political parties that led them to believe acting opposite to their name – or naming themselves opposite to their actions – would win them votes?