As anyone who has played the great old C64/Apple-II era game, "Pirates!" knows, the key to making a fortune was to pick your enemies carefully. The Caribbean was divided amongst the British, French, Dutch, and of course, the Spanish with the lion's share of the good stuff. When any of these nations went to war with another, assuming you were on good terms, you could get a letter of marquee, which granted you the right to plunder enemy ships. Of course, to the enemy, you were still a pirate, and bad reputations last longer than wars. I would play privateer for a while, trying not to piss off anyone too badly, until I had a fleet built up, then sack and plunder all up and down the Spanish Main.
On a different tack, we romanticize pirates for the same reasons we romanticize the Mob, Bank Robbers, and Robin Hood. We like people who live by their own rules, who take life in their own hands, damn the risks, and live it. We wish that we could live like that. Maybe not the killings and the plunder, but at least telling the boss where he can shove it.
Part of us knows that the rules only apply because we let them. But the rules (even then, I suppose) are many and confusing, and we yearn to live by a simpler law, like "I've got your back, and you've got mine."
Notice all these types are underdogs, too. We like our heroes outside the law, not above it. When a Lord or a CEO says "The law does not apply to me," well, that's just oppression, mate, a cold, hard, everyday sort of thing. When a pirate says it, that's rebellion, the little guy saying, "Oh yeah? I can play that way, too!" and we love him for it, because we wish we had the courage.
Privateers & Letters of Marquee (Score:2)
On a different tack, we romanticize pirates for the same reasons we romanticize the Mob, Bank Robbers, and Robin Hood. We like people who live by their own rules, who take life in their own hands, damn the risks, and live it. We wish that we could live like that. Maybe not the killings and the plunder, but at least telling the boss where he can shove it.
Part of us knows that the rules only apply because we let them. But the rules (even then, I suppose) are many and confusing, and we yearn to live by a simpler law, like "I've got your back, and you've got mine."
Notice all these types are underdogs, too. We like our heroes outside the law, not above it. When a Lord or a CEO says "The law does not apply to me," well, that's just oppression, mate, a cold, hard, everyday sort of thing. When a pirate says it, that's rebellion, the little guy saying, "Oh yeah? I can play that way, too!" and we love him for it, because we wish we had the courage.