The Arizona Pirate is an emerging Arizona political party. Our platform is aligned with the International Pirate Movement. We support digital and intellectual reform, government transparency, and protection of privacy and civil liberties. We do most of our organizing on Discord. Check out or platform and Join us!
The Whether it was the PATRIOT ACT, illegal NSA wiretapping or local surveillance cameras, our government has used 9/11 to increase its surveillance and control over us. Corporations have increased their spying on employees in order to get more work out of them. The arguments for each step on the road to a surveillance state may sound convincing, but that road leads to less control by people and more by government and corporate elites. Terrorists may attack the open society, but only governments can abolish it. The Pirate Party will prevent that from happening. PATRIOT ACT must be repealed, nothing left of it will remain. The NSA, the FBI, the ATF, the CIA, they must be either abolished in its entirety or consolidated into one department with a severely limited scope at best.
The Founding Fathers created our copyright laws to promote knowledge & culture by giving the creator a limited monopoly over their creations. Congress, under the influence of corporations, has extended the duration of that government granted monopoly to seventy years after the death of the creator. Increasingly corporations have sought broader laws to ensure that they control and profit from more of our culture. Through Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies they have locked down our culture, hindered sharing and criminalized their customers. The Pirate Party will:
Everyone must have equal access to the internet, and the Pirate Party will foster network neutrality so that internet service providers cannot give preferential treatment to preferred web sites and we oppose three strikes laws that ban anyone from using the internet because of copyright violations. The internet has the potential to be a new Library of Alexandria, if we don't let corporations and governments lock it down
In order for citizens to control their democratic destiny, we need to know what our government is doing and which special interests are influencing our public elected officials. Increasingly government officials ignore open meeting laws, make deals favorable to corporations behind closed doors and sell off your public information to private interests. Some state laws prevent people from recording public officials in their duties, such as a police officer making an arrest, but the police cameras can record your actions without your permission. The Pirate Party will make sure that our government is transparent and accountable to the people.
The The Supreme Court and Congress have expanded the power of corporations for over a hundred years and made them more powerful than people. Whether it is the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that allows corporations to buy elections, or Congress' cuts in corporate tax rates while raising payroll taxes, real people end up with the short end of the stick. The Pirate Party will make sure our laws put people before corporations.
Separation of Powers is a pillar of our Republic. It makes sure that each branch of our government, the legislature, the executive and the judicial, all operate on the same level. That one branch can’t be more powerful than the other. Ever since Lincoln, the Executive Branch has exceeded its bounds of power to the point of being a constitutional crisis and we treat the Presidency as no more than a king.
And it has culminated in the Unitary Executive Theory. An abomination that should have never been allowed to propagate in US legal theory. We firmly and absolutely reject the Unitary Executive Theory and advocate for the decentralization and decreasing the authority of the executive and bring power back to congress and the judicial system where separation of powers remain as it was.
We support a Digital Bill of Rights to help protect the privacy and freedom from users of the Internet to Video Game players. We all deserve the freedom and privacy the Internet gives us and for the government and corporations to deny it to us is unacceptable. Therefore a Digital Bill of Rights is imperative for the future of the Digital World that such freedom and privacy is sacrosanct, regardless the intentions of governments or corporations.
We proudly condemn bigotry as irrational and repugnant. We believe this behavior to be fundamentally incompatible with our core values. Pirates stand for everyone, even when others do not.
We believe that major police reform is not only a legitimate idea, but a necessity. Due to the divisive and hot button nature of this topic, the USPP is dedicated to finding quality solutions that can be agreed upon by the vast majority. Here are a few steps we can take towards reform:
There are many things that must be done in order to fix the issues with policing in our country. There are also many different end goals that many different people have in mind. What we need right now is an honest, no-nonsense start to the process, and that is what the USPP hopes to achieve.
The War on Drugs has been a stain and a black eye on our country for half a decade. And what has been the end result? What have we gained? Nothing but high incarceration rates, broken communities, black and hispanic communities targeted just because, countless deaths and murder, and the militarization of the police force. Turning America into a police state just to fight this war is a zero sum with nothing to gain.
When we advocate for drug decriminalization, we mean for the users of drugs, not dealers and makers. Drug dealers and Drug makers do not get a pass. Their actions are why we are here. They need to be in prison where they belong.
What we mean is that drug users shouldn’t be made criminals for something that at a certain point is out of their control and needs rehabilitation. And prison is not a good place for drug rehabilitation. Drug users when caught should be immediately sent to rehabilitation centers to serve as a proper substitute instead of prison.
Education in America is at a crisis. Student achievements, widening achievement gaps and a struggling teaching workforce coupled with literacy levels decreasing each year makes the current situation impossible to ignore and pretend it is all fine when it is not.
And it starts with Common Core and the No Child Left Behind rule. They have to go. Whether the Department of Education is to blame or not, they have reported no benefits nor progress since its inception and the larger population has decreased in reading, writing, math, history, science and other educational programs and academia. And no teacher supports them to the point of loathing.
In order for education in this country to be rectified and to stop the bleeding of the poor education in this country, the first measure to take is to get rid of Common Core.
We are pro-choice. We believe that while abortion has many ethical and moral qualms, it’s still the right of women to choose whether or not to keep the baby because at the end of the day, only we can decide what’s best for us, not a governmental administration that may not have the best intentions in regards to the matter at hand.
Many studies have shown that Abortion bans and restrictions have significant negative impacts on women's economic and educational outcomes, often leading to decreased income, higher rates of poverty, lower educational attainment, poorer health, and reduced social support. While access to abortion has been linked to higher income, increased college graduation rates, greater financial stability, better health outcomes, and enhanced social and educational opportunities.
And such Abortion bans coinciding with bad sexual education and peer pressured if not enforced Abstinence only programs from the State down to the parents only increases teen pregnancy and doesn’t reduce them since teens can’t be stopped from having sex with each other without a stronger China-like surveillance system. Especially considering this study here that says 30% of teens are having and will have sex, mostly without contraception and no sex education.
It’s one thing to believe Abortion is morally wrong and don’t want an abortion for themselves or their partner. It’s another thing to pretend that everyone wants the same thing and there won’t be consequences for such. A Pro-Choice policy is the only acceptable position, with varying limits or preferences, that can not only ensure the woman’s health and their social and economic outcomes. And to also prevent the rising tide of teen pregnancy.
We fully and completely support the individual right to bear arms laid out in the 2nd Amendment. That any attempt to assert that it is not a right for the people, but rather for the government, its military, national guard, corporations, etc, is incongruent and dishonest. That it is a right for everyone to exercise especially in these dangerous times. People of Color, Lgbtq+, minorities, everyone must be able to defend themselves should the administration start to try them as they did Garcia which is completely unacceptable in any manner that is American. The 2nd amendment is not some secondary or even third level right. It is on the same level as the rest of the nine and needs to be treated as such.
We recognize that mass shootings are a problem in this country and no sane person will sit by and say it is just a part of American Life. That’s just an unacceptable proposition. Especially when mass shootings only got worse after Columbine, not relatively before.
However, a lot of gun control proposals that have been proposed, such as assault weapon bans or increasing the age to buy/own a gun or registries of all gun owners, are not interested in stopping mass shootings but rather taking as many guns out of circulation as possible if not all, limiting if not restricting gun access and just red meat for the voting base that wants a Free Gun America. Which to many gun owners, especially single issue gun owners, is a canary in the coal mine and just a nonstarter for obvious reasons that just pushes them right into the arms of the GOP.
We cannot aim to solve the epidemic of mass shootings and only propose solutions that volatile the right to bear arms in the process with no proper lines in the sand drawn as to where this all ends and expect Gun Owners to not be hostile.
And many gun control proposals are incompatible with our desire for police reform. One can not heavily criticize the police for their actions, lack of accountability and police brutality with at best a bare minimum of regard for citizens rights. And then in the same breath want to give such authoritarian powers that many gun control proposals would give them. If the police are the horrid enforcement agency that we criticize them for, then why give them more power and authority through gun control? It’s just inconsistent and incompatible.
With that said, our solutions for mass shootings are as follows:
Continents have been united in various ways, such as Europe in the form of the EU, Africa with the AU, or Southeast Asia with ASEAN. While the existence of the OAS (Organization of American States) signifies a previous willingness to come together in the name of Pan-Americanism, a restructuring from a paradigm of United States dominance to genuine collaboration and friendship is essential. A more united American Continent will help each country become stronger and create a stronger bond between every American, from Greenland to Patagonia.
It's no secret that the treatment of Latin Americans and other ethnic/cultural minorities within these United States have been less than stellar. There will be high expectations if we claim that we have changed for the better, and rightfully so. It will take years of work to repair the damaged relationships and restore continental trust back in the USA and its citizens, but that is something we here at the US Pirate Party, joined in partnership with Pirate Parties on the American continent, are committed to doing.
We call for the free movement of all peoples.
This would likely require quite a significant foreign policy change on the USA's part, however. The US has made a lot of missteps along the way, so we should make the first steps to fix them.