The R Street Institute stands opposed to ninjas. Firmly. We believe that excessive fanboy/fangirl interest in ninjas is simply inconsistent with our free-market ideology.
While we acknowledge that some ninjas may have a number of reasonably cool attributes—such as the ability to use a shuriken to carry out silent assassinations of those who opposed their daimyo—but the feudal structures fundamental to the ninja lifestyle run counter to many of our policy stances. As such, we do not believe ninjas are best-suited to support our policy work, we will not contract an office ninja to carry out assassinations and we cannot offer employee training in ninjitsu.
We have likewise refused to swear fealty to any daimyo and, indeed, strongly discourage participation in the four-tier system of Japanese feudalism. Our reasons for opposition to ninjas are many:
- Ninjas are not involved in the market economy. They swear oaths of fealty to their liege lords, usually daimyos. Since daimyos represent the state, they are basically government bureaucrats. And R Street favors fewer bureaucrats, not more.
- Ninjas’ covert ways of waging war are not consistent with our desire to disseminate information, especially in the media. A ninja would not do well during a talk radio interview, for example.
- Pirates are much, much, much cooler than ninjas in all respects. We explain why here. http://www.rstreet.org/arrrrrr-street.
