Pirate’s Paradise

A lucky group of Somali pirates were taken to a South Korean prison recently after they were captured in a commando raid on the high seas. Now it’s reported that they enjoy the quality of their lives substantially more than home in Somalia. “South Korean jail is better than decent hotels in Africa,” one pirate was quoted as saying. (Bangkok Post; 2/1/11)

The story doesn’t reveal all that much about South Korea, but it sure tells us a lot about politics in Somalia. If a decent hotel there is worse than jail in Korea, Somalia must be a very bad place to live indeed. Any wretch having the misfortune of being born in Somalia would likely be a pirate too. In a den of criminals one has little choice but to become a criminal.

Somalia is an example of a nation in which power politics has imploded the fabric of society into the lowest form of human association – right back to the savage law of the jungle. This is what can happen when politics goes too far and the parasitic thugs take too much. Terror, theft, graft, and corruption have rendered the value of the state of Somalia to its people near zero.

There isn’t much left to steal in Somalia. Those who might otherwise want to create values peacefully and honestly won’t even try because they know it would only be pillaged and plundered anyway. Few people if any live the good life in Somalia. Even pirates with all their millions in stolen loot can’t find decent accommodations. There are no longer any reasons to create decent accommodations in Somalia. There is no rule of law; no protection from criminals; only raw force.

The politicians and gangsters who gutted Somalia failed to learn a valuable lesson from their bretheren in South Korea, the United States, and the rest of the 1^st world. Had they simply resisted the temptation of taking too much, they and their subjects would probably be prosperous and thriving today instead of dissolute and desolate as they are.  

Our own politicians think they have mastered the art of taking as much as possible from the system without causing it to implode, and perhaps they have. Peaceful honest people will put up with a lot of political taking yet continue to produce. Everything has its limits, however, and there is no guarantee that this glorious state of equilibrium will continue indefinately, especially in light of our current government financial deficit spending and debt crises.

Politicians can learn something from pirates.