prepaid war card

The success of prepaid phone cards has inspired a rash of related business ideas. One I see in my local supermarket is gift cards for local chain stores. Prepaid cell phone service is hawked on the TV airwaves, at least around here.

Clearly prepaid is the way to go for so many of today's transactions. It has so many advantages. The seller doesn't have to worry about getting paid, the buyer never gets an unexpected bill, and there's no question about how much stuff to use: the buyer uses until he uses up the amount on the card.

Why not extend this idea to war?

For instance, take the proposed Iraq war. There's been much talk about how much it will cost, with varying estimates based on various scenarios, much of which depends on policy. Well, why not use the prepaid card to answer all that: you have war until the card is used up, and that's the policy, the scenario, and the transaction.

Another advantage: some feel that taxes to pay for war is unfair because everyone has to pay, including people who didn't want the war. With the prepaid war card, only those who want war pay. Then they have as much war as they've purchased. If you want a lot of war, charge up the card a lot.

Plus of course no bickering later about war debt.

And no bickering now about whether to have the war, or how much to have. If we don't have enough people who are willing to prepay enough for a decent sized war, then it's simple; you don't have one. That's how it works with prepaid cards of all sorts. No one makes you have that phone service. If you want it, you pay for it. In advance.