Rest easy, Einstein fans. No need to break out the slide rules.
This is a social thought experiment, and it has to do with Blackwater.
The point of the thought experiment is to get you to take a peak outside the box that we have allowed ourselves to be cartoned up in. That's all.
Whenever I mention Blackwater in a post, I make sure to label them "a right wing paramilitary group." I do that because they are a right wing paramilitary group. Just google Blackwater or read their CEO's bio, if you doubt that last sentence, by the way. And they are latched onto the government tit so hard they wouldn't fall off if you slammed them upside the head with the butt of an Uzi.
In other words, we the people are actively funding the establishment and growth of a multibillion dollar right wing paramilitary army with bases planned and/or running all over the United States, and tentacles across the globe. So, here's where the thought experiment comes in:
Imagine yourself as ex-military (don't pretend if you already are) and you love the military life but hate the cya command structure and the neocon nightmare that the Bushists have created. You want to be a hero, but you don't want to do it in an insane war without end run by nutjobs. Whachagonnado?
Well, why don't you muscle your way into that 3rd nipple from the hind end: Form your own left wing (but don't call it that - Blackwater's MO is a fine one to follow in that regard) paramilitary army, and take a few select jobs that Blackwater will be restricted from bidding on after the upcoming election cycle? I mean, why do the Musharaff-loving crypto-fascists have a monopoly on the Intimidation Racket? And who's gonna stop the Millennialists from initiating their own private Armageddon, if not the Rationalist Forces?
Ok, now imagine you actually do it, you begin to organize a private, high-power security firm, with a lot of help from a lot of fellow patriots. Man, that was a lot of work.
Now imagine the court battles you will be involved in before you even are allowed to purchase your first rocket launcher or attack chopper: Blackwater will sue you to prevent you from forming a "Partisan Army." You will, of course, agree with Blackwater that you are indeed forming a "Partisan Army," modeled in fact, on the "Partisan Army Template": Blackwater itself. The laughter will be deafening.
Blackwater will then present itself as a victim of corporate character assassination, whereupon you will (of course) respond, "Corportations don't have character, they have board members and investors, whose characters are fair game if they are in the public domain. Eric Prince, in fact, is a good example." (That's because Eric Prince is a right wing zealot with a small medium sized nation's arsenal.)
The courts will rule in Blackwater's favor of course, not wanting to be offed or kneecapped or something like that. Or maybe the Judge is a personal family friend of both the Bushes and the Princes and enjoys the occasional jaunt off to someone's private island with a fully stocked bar and visiting massage therapists (several ethnicities). Or maybe the judge will rule in Blackwater's favor because she had a nephew who tried to join the military but was rejected because of mental issues, and she was promised by Prince that he would find a position for the boy. The possibilities are endless.
Or maybe Eric Prince will be assassinated by a member of his catering staff who is a CIA plant and Congress will pass a bill outlawing catered events on paramilitary bases without a note from their mother saying it was ok.
End of this thought experiment, apparently.
End of the Great American Experiment: RIP 2007