Privatize the Armed Forces

Yesterday, everyone’s favorite Professor, concerning Venezuela’s bout with coups and such, wrote that maybe the time had come for them to “ban government ownership of firearms.”

I’ve given this some serious thought and an even more serious cocktail, and come to this startling conclusion: It’s time for we, the people, to ban our federal government from owning firearms or any other kind of weapon. They should even face strict controls on slingshots, air pistols, and lawn darts, too. Really, I’m not so certain they should be allowed anything sharper than a chewed Crayola.

You’re thinking I’m nuts. You’re thinking there’s a war on. You’re thinking I’ve been cocktailing. You’re right, of course. But bear with me here — or bare with me, if you’re pretty and nubile and lacking in better judgment — and you’ll see what I mean.

Yes, there is a war on — a war too important to be left to Washington to fight. They’ll only mess it up. Why, left to Washington, soon we’ll have a Department of Essential Warlike Activities Department, studying new ways to subsidize domestic abaya manufacturers so that Belgium might say nice things about us at the Fourth International Conference on Blaming America for Stuff and Things.

The American people have a historic genius for self-organization. We don’t need no stinkin’ badges to form effective fighting units. Are you going to tell me Bill Gates takes second place in organizational skills to Tom Ridge? I think not! Put the power of the people to real use. It was a self-organized militia, after all, that won the first battles of our Revolutionary War. I’m convinced that when the Founding Fathers wrote that stuff about a “well-regulated militia,” that “well-regulated” meant “knowing their close-order drills.” They could have said a “regular militia,” leaving us today arguing in court over how much fiber someone has to eat to get a gun license. Our forefathers learned to drill, and so can we.

The other problem with letting Washington run the Big Show is that it features a Department of State, a great big department with lots of clout and little sense. Now, Colin Powell is a fine man with a fine job — assuming we’re at peace. But we aren’t. Can you picture the Blogger Brigade, recently airlifted into King Khalid Military City for some forceful negotiations with Crown Prince Grecian Formula, stopping the business at hand so that Powell could have a chance to muck things up for us? Of course not — Brigadier General Reynolds would horsewhip him into a warlike frenzy. Meantime, Asparagirl would be there with her camcorder, trying to make some kind of odd poli-sci S&M gay porn out of it — and we can’t have that. So we’d listen to Powell after the job is done, perhaps, and not one second before.

Another big advantage is we’d finally get colorful unit names again. Back during the Civil War, we had fancy names full of derring-do, like the Grand Army of the Republic, the Army of the Potomac, Roger’s Rules of Order, the Rectum Regiment, and David’s Damsel Defilers. Today, we get lame-ass numbers followed by jargon. Does “Third Infantry Division (Mechanized)” send the pulse pounding? Can “11th Air Electric Combat Technoweasels” give rise to dreams of martial glory in our young? Hah! I think not.

The War on Islamofascism requires big names to go with its big goals. Bobby’s Burkha Banger Regiment. The Flying Carpet Air Destructoid Force. The Bellicose Women Brigade (Colonel Green, commanding), and, of course, the Avenging New Yorkers Division. Plus a special team of Pejman’s Secret Cartographers, constantly re-drawing the globe to better suit our interests.

Citizen soldiers beat Hitler — Stephen Ambrose said so in a book almost certainly authored by him at least in part. Surely, together we can beat Yasser, Saddam, Abdullah, and Khatami.