Bountygate is the Gig Economy

Our political contestants rolled the wheel of scandal again this week and turned up "Bounty-gate," the most recent scandal to launch the nation into a frenzy of tweets, media coverage, outrage and total inactivity. If you have been successfully hiding under a rock for the past week, A) I'm jealous, and B) to catch you up, the whole premise is that Russia likely offered a bounty on American soldiers. Politicians on both sides of the metaphorical aisle are now very, very upset that the US troops occupying a foreign country might be targets of intentional violence.

You who thought comedy is dead are wrong - this entire situation is peak American comedy. Let's unravel.

First, we have a standing Army. America literally has an entire group citizens (and non-citizens who want to become citizens if Uncle Sam isn't feeling racist this administration) who we arm with the most deadly weapons ever developed in human history and send across the globe. Granted, their compensation isn't tied to killing citizens of other countries, but that doesn't stop them from doing so.

Second, we are Americans, and we believe in the free market (so I'm told). It's great that we want to provide a regular salary (and housing) to active members of our military,  GI benefits like free college after troops leave the military intact or a wide array of mismanaged health care options to our damaged veterans, but please, not every country can afford such employee benefits. If other countries want to transform their incentive structure into a pay-for-performance model, that just mean that American ideals and business models have proliferated across the globe. Perhaps Uber could provide the notification and payment system to lower the bounty program's administrative costs.

Furthermore, for a country that prides itself on its own willingness to fight, this is silly. Paying people to fight is just the business of war, and anyone can do it at any time because there's always someone who will fight for cash (even if many chose to do this for free - dirty communists). Ancient Greece fell apart because of the Peloponnesian War, a 30 year struggle between Athens and Sparta that had something to do with empire building. While Greeks were fighting, Persia was busy supplying mercenaries to whichever side was losing - a great tactic to weaken their enemy by getting the war to drag on indefinitely. It worked. Who are we to begrudge the Russians for learning from history? At least America has the moral high-ground, correct?

No. We also use mercenaries. Remember Blackwater? Personally, I think that's a great name for an amoral group of for-profit killers. It sounds so nefarious!*. America relied heavily on their services to  protect critical personnel, paying them hefty sums to make sure American diplomats and our preferred Iraqis stayed safe. Given how cheap ammunition is and how significant the bonuses were, Blackwater interpreted their own incentive structure correctly and relied on a "shoot first, only ask questions if there's an investigation after the fact and try to give misleading answers" approach. You'd think that this would have landed them in hot water after they massacred civilians, but no, all that happened is the founder's sister landed a sweet gig as the Secretary of Education and Erik Prince whispers into Trump's ear from behind the throne.
*Probably why they changed the name to "Academi," which sounds like a college chapter of young Republican chodes.

America can't even pretend that this sort of behavior is something we would never stoop to. We've offered bounties - oh yes. Multiple times in our country's history, states offered bounties on Native American scalps. In 1863, Minnesota offered a bounty of $200 to civilians who brought in Dakota scalps. In 1851, the liberal bastion state of California offered a bounty to kill the Native tribes, worried that they threatened to stem the flow of gold out of the state.The state armed militias and let them wander off to clear the land. California spent $1.7 million (in 1850s dollars!!!) to murder 16,000 Natives. Very normal, non-genocidal behavior.

It didn't stop there. This is hopefully not new knowledge to you, but meat used to be free in America. Estimates of historical populations of bison range from 30 to 60 million (compare that to today's intensive production of cattle which is approximately 95 million head, but the environmental cost of that increase is astronomical, and also you need to pay for them). Rather than allow a free source of protein to continue to exist, the US government offered a bounty on bison. Brave Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant considered the elimination of bison a solution to the "Indian Problem." The military offered a bounty on the skulls.It worked, and the people who relied on these magnificent animals were starved into submission.

American Exceptionalism (in cruelty)

Which brings us back to today, when empty bodies inside suit jackets with decorative silk nooses wrapped around their necks feign outrage over other counties offering bounties on our innocent soldiers.

Cry me a river that restores this land to its former glory.