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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Enforcing Illegitimate Contracts

Suppose I offered you the following contract. "I'm offering to hire you as a thug in my private army. As part of your employment, you will be required to murder whoever I order you to kill, for whatever reason I desire. I'm paying you 100 ounces of gold upfront as a signing bonus, plus a salary. In exchange for this, you agree to not quit for 10 years. Working in my private army is noble and heroic!"

Suppose you accept the contract. Later, you realize that you made a mistake. Working as a paid thug isn't noble and heroic. You really are a criminal.

Is it immoral for you to quit your job? Of course not. A contract that requires you to commit crimes isn't a valid contract.

Contracts entered via fraud also aren't valid. I lied to you when I told you that the job would be noble and heroic. Of course, you should have figured out on your own beforehand that working as a paid thug is evil. The fact that you stupidly signed a contract doesn't justify staying in a job that you know is evil.

Similarly, soldiers who sign up for the military aren't allowed to quit. Via "stop-loss" orders, a soldier can be forced to stay in the army even after his original term has expired.

Via "economic conscription", for many poor people, joining the military may be their best career option. Due to State restriction of the market, there are very few opportunities for a poor person. Due to State propaganda, working as a soldier is portrayed as noble and heroic. Many soldiers rapidly figure out that's a lie. Once in the military, State parasites make it hard for soldiers to quit once they realize they were conned. The contract saying "I agree to stay in the Army for n years!" isn't valid, because fraud is involved.

A pro-State troll says "We need to force soldiers to stay in the Army against their will. Otherwise, many of them would quit!" If soldiers are forced to stay in the Army, then this means that other serious problems are not addressed. If a large percentage of soldiers would quit, if they had the option, then that's a symptom that the military has a real big problem. Why should State parasites listen to the concerns of soldiers, when they're legally barred from quitting?

In all my wage slave jobs, I was an "at will" employee, where I had the option of quitting at any time or my employer could fire me at any time. Usually, there was a "2 week notice" period. Similarly, soldiers could be allowed a "3 month notice" period if one of them decides to quit.

Many people feel that they have no alternatives, when they are the victim of State violence. People think that their only alternative is to get a gun and start murdering people. One effect of mainstream media hype of such incidents is "If you're disgruntled, your only option is violent retaliation." People who notice that the State is a scam are drawn away from productive activity and towards pointless activity.

When I hear about such incidents, I'm now sympathetic to the person who was pushed past their breaking point. It's wrong for someone to retaliate violently against random people. I'm not endorsing what the murderer did. I'm saying "Look at it from the point of view of someone who was abused and felt they had no recourse."

In such incidents, the shooter usually is an "abused productive" person who was pushed past their breaking point. That makes me sympathetic to mental state of the shooter, even though violent retaliation against random people is wrong. A parasitic person isn't normally pushed around that much, because they'll emotionally manipulate the people around them to get what they want. If a parasitic person is asked to do evil as part of their job, they'll just do it and not notice that they're committing crimes.

Due to my higher state of awareness, I can sort of think like a mass murderer, even though I won't do that myself and don't advocate other people to do that. A mass murderer has sort of realized "Everything I've been taught is a lie!", althought they don't explicitly state it and understand it like I do.

In the recent Fort Hood incident, the shooter was in the Army against his will. I'm trying to estimate what happened based on what I read, but it's hard due to heavy censorship.

The shooter was a psychiatrist. The military paid for his education, and as part of the terms of the contract he was required to serve for a certain number of years. He signed up for the Army, thinking it would be noble and heroic. He later realized that's one big lie.

A typical psychiatrist ignores the emotional state of his victims and drugs them into submission/silence. It seems that this psychiatrist was trying to do his job honestly. He was working with soldiers who were returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The fact that the psychiatrist had an Islamic background made him more sympathetic to the soldiers' stories. It made him more willing to question official State propaganda. If a soldier told a typical psychiatrist "I saw evil X in Iraq!", then the psychiatrist would say "You're imagining things. Take this drug and you'll forget." The shooter tried doing his job honestly, and he took the soldiers' stories seriously.

The psychiatrists' Islamic background doesn't seem to be as big a factor as the mainstream media is hyping it. The only role of the Islamic background seems to be "This made the psychiatrist more likely to believe the soldiers, when they complained to him about the evils of war." Most psychiatrists ignore the complaints/feedback of their patients.

The fact that the shooter took his job seriously earned him negative performance reviews. He started realizing that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are big crimes. In most State jobs, you almost *NEVER* get a negative performance review, unless your bosses are looking for an excuse to fire you. A performance review seems objective, but it really isn't. A negative performance review really means "You angered one of your parasitic bosses." A parasitic boss can always fabricate an excuse to give someone a negative performance review. Due to the nature of the Army, the shooter couldn't quit and his bosses couldn't fire him without giving him several negative performance reviews first.

The shooter probably had the "abused productive" personality type. Most middle managers have the parasitic personality type, especially in direct State jobs. This led to the same conflict that I had in my wage slave jobs. The shooter tried to do his job honestly. His bosses specifically did *NOT* want him doing his job honestly.

The shooter learned that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are a scam, based on interviewing returning soldiers. Originally, he was deployed in the USA to work with returning soldiers. He was ordered to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan, when he really wanted to get out of the Army. Knowing that war is a scam, he didn't want to go to Iraq or Afghanistan.

The shooter was stuck in a no-win situation. He couldn't quit the Army, because he was legally barred from quitting. He couldn't stay in the Army, because he couldn't stand the abuses associated with war. He probably was also having conflicts with his parasitic bosses. The stress of the conflict broke him.

That's very similar to the incident that led to my first involuntary hospitalization. I had a good job, but a really parasitic person was promoted to be my boss, leading to the obvious conflict. I didn't quit my job, because it had been an excellent job until that point. My really parasitic boss couldn't fire me, because I had a good performance record. My previous managers were honest and said I was doing a good job. The parasite was slowly trashing my reputation behind my back. I couldn't stand working for someone that evil. I didn't realize my parasitic boss was evil, and I was trying to do my job honestly. I discovered bugs in the software the parasite wrote, but he wouldn't let me fix them, because he couldn't admit that his software wasn't perfect. I was stuck in a no-win situation. I was responsible for fixing the software, which was losing a lot of money (It was a buggy real-time options market making system that made lots of stupid trades.), but my boss prevented me from fixing the problems I found. Instead of getting a gun and murdering people, I had a panic attack and was involuntarily hospitalized.

I always thought that my evil boss had good intentions, and he just needed to be educated and enlightened. If I was persistent and did my job diligently and logically persuaded him, then he would be convinced. That was wrong. He was evil, and he was doing it on purpose. There was no logical argument I could use to convince him. The more logical I was, the more my parasitic boss hated me and the more my parasitic boss resorted to emotional manipulation tactics. Having learned to ignore emotions, the emotional manipulation tactics didn't work on me, and I was really confused by what was happening. My parasitic boss was obviously doing a lousy job, but he always managed to emotionally manipulate his bosses and deflect the blame for failure elsewhere. I always assumed that evil people were merely stupid. My parasitic boss was being intentionally evil, and the shock of the discovery was very frightening.

If you're a skilled parasite, then evil has been working for you for your entire life. You won't change. There's no logical argument that will persuade a skilled parasite to change.

My parasitic boss' authority was backed indirectly via State violence. Even though I was more skilled than him, there was nothing I could do about it.

The shooter probably wanted to do more to help his patients, but probably was hampered by the State military bureaucracy.

The fact that the military paid for the shooter's education, does not obligate him to stay in the Army. Just because you pay someone an upfront signing bonus, doesn't mean they're obligated to stay in a job where they're forced to participate in crimes.

A pro-State troll says "The government paid for his education. He has an obligation to work off that debt." If that were true, then he should have the option to financially repay his debt and get out of the Army. Suppose he agreed to work for the Army for 5 years in exchange for his education, and he's already worked 3 years, and his education cost $200k. In that case, he should be able to repay 40% ($80k) and get out of the Army. Of course, a psychiatrist education is actually worth nothing, because the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is wrong.

He was pushed past his breaking point. He got a gun and started shooting as many people as he could. Once he started doing this, other people had no choice but to stop him. I'm sympathetic to his point of view, but that doesn't justify taking a gun and retaliating violently. I've been in similarly stressful situations, but didn't resort to violence.

When I was pushed past my breaking point, I never considered "I should get a gun and murder those who abused me." Instead, I was involuntarily hospitalized, labeled with a "mental illness" and forcibly drugged. As another example, when I'm unfairly fired from a job, I just leave instead of "going postal". It's better for me to look for another job, rather than take revenge on people who injured me. It's better for me to promote anti-psychiatry, rather than taking revenge on the psychiatrists who assaulted/murdered/kidnapped me.

The female policeman who shot and stopped the shooter is being hailed as a hero. Of course, she did her job correctly. However, there's an important point missing. How come none of the other soldiers on a military base were armed? A soldier on a military base starts shooting people, and a non-soldier policewoman is required to stop him? Are soldiers really that incompetent? Even if most of the soldiers were unarmed, there should have been a few guards in each building?

In such a story, it's inevitable that "The person who stopped the shooter is hailed as a hero." Since only policemen carry guns, usually a policeman stops the shooter. The only exception is when it's a non-policeman who was carrying a gun. In that case, that point is not heavily hyped, lest people think "Gun ownership is good!"

Promoting that policewoman as a hero is an evil fnord covering up "Why couldn't the other soldiers stop the shooter?"

Usually, such incidents are used as an excuse to advocate for stricter gun control laws. That spin can't be applied in this case, because the shooter was a soldier.

There's another interesting evil fnord in this story. The military police are now saying "We knew that the shooter was a troublemaker for a long time!" They're just saying that to save face. The illusion of State omniscience must be maintained! If they really knew he was a potential troublemaker, then they should have let him voluntarily leave the Army and be glad to get rid of him!

My mother says "The police were spying on the shooter based on what he writes on the Internet! Therefore, FSK should not mention his radical free market ideas on the Internet!" According to vague laws defining terrorism, I could be classified as a terrorist for writing "Taxation is theft!", even though I say that violent acts against State employees are stupid. It is moral, albeit impractical, to violently defend yourself from State aggression.

Any State spy smart enough to realize that I'm worth watching would also be smart enough to agree with my main points. Besides, any State spy who's carefully observing me should be completely scared. For example, proving that the "chemical imbalance" theory of mental illness is a mistake/fraud is really important. "Psychiatry is murder!" and The Matrix are a bigger "national security" threat than anything else State police investigate.

I'm much more at risk for "FSK will do something that angers his parents, and they will involuntarily hospitalize me!", than I'm at risk for "Some State spy will conclude that FSK is dangerous, and kidnap/murder FSK!" There are plenty of ways to kill someone and make it look like an accident, if a State spy really wanted to do it. All my parents have to do is call 911 and have me involuntarily hospitalized. They explicitly threaten to do that whenever I disagree with them.

Another interesting aspect of the Fort Hood story is "The shooter tried to contact Al Qaeda!" Al Qaeda is portrayed as a practically invincible enemy of the State. Any disgruntled Islamic person would probably try contacting "Al Qaeda". The most likely outcome is that they'd wind up contacting a spy for the Federal government. That aspect of the story seems wrong, because he probably would have contacted an FBI spy if he were really trying to contact Al Qaeda. For example, I could claim "I'm a member of Al Qaeda!", and some stupid disgruntled person might believe me.

Another interesting point is "The shooter was a psychiatrist, and was working with other psychiatrists. Why didn't any of them notice he was in a disturbed mental state?" You don't just all of a sudden get a gun and mass-murder people. He was under a lot of stress for months or longer. Pyschiatrists even have a name for this. It's the "prodromal" period for the outbreak of a mental illness. "Prodromal" is the time period where someone starts feeling stress, but hasn't had a full panic/depressive attack. It's an embarrassment that none of the other psychiatrists noticed.

Based on my experience, psychiatrists have a really low level of emotional awareness. That is a key job requirement, because they must not notice the suffering of their patients. That's the reason that none of the shooter's co-workers noticed he was in a disturbed mental state. His parasitic bosses were more concerned about their disagreements with the shooter trying to fire/discipline him, rather than really helping him.

Summarizing, the main issues in the Fort Hood incident are:

  1. If a soldier wants to leave the Army, he should be free to quit.
  2. The incident is an evil fnord, saying "People disgruntled with the State have no alternatives but violence."
  3. Why was a non-military policewoman required to stop the shooter?
  4. Why didn't any of the psychiatrist's coworkers notice that he was in a disturbed mental state?
  5. The psychiatrist was trying to his job honestly, and noticed the suffering of the returning soldiers. Most psychiatrists ignore their patients and drug them into silence.
  6. The "Al Qaeda" angle of the story was retconned to provide a distraction from the real issue, which is "A psychiatrist working for the Army was offended by what he saw, and was pushed past his breaking point."
  7. Due to the way that the "War on Terror" is defined, anybody who violently retaliates against State aggression can be classified as an "Al Qaeda" member.
  8. The story is portrayed as a single crazy individual, rather than a corrupt system. "Blame the individual and not the corrupt system!" is a common evil fnord.
The mainstream media propaganda engine is making all sorts of excuses, while missing the main point, which is "War is a scam!"

The questions raised by the Fort Hood incident should be "Maybe there are some serious issues with the US military and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?" Instead, the mainstream media spin is "Hooray for the State!"

When a soldier agrees to join the Army, that is not a valid contract. A soldier should be free to quit when he realizes that he was cheated.

The mainstream media propaganda is "The USA has a 'volunteer' Army." The fact that soldiers aren't legally free to quit, shows that they are not volunteers. Most of them were tricked into entering the Army. "Being a soldier is noble and heroic!" is an evil fnord that's repeated over and over again.

I wonder how many soldiers really would quit, if they had the free choice?

I am sympathetic to soldiers who were tricked intro risking their lives for nothing. On the other hand, there's plenty of information on "War is a scam!" available, if you know where you look. When you join the Army, you should do your due diligence first. Any soldier who signs up for the military without researching the evils of war first, deserves any bad things that happen to him.

There is one reform the mainstream media will not propose, to prevent incidents like this from happening again. Any soldier who wants to quit the Army should be free to quit. A pro-State troll says "If soldiers were free to quit, then most of them would!" If that really is true, then the Army has a real problem.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

First and foremost, the enforcement of contractual obligations DOES NOT remove any of my options. It simply enforces my word given to you, and makes me either make it true, or compensating you, or SUFFER for DEFRAUDING YOU and in this case breaking the law.

Say I signed a contract with you. Later, I changed my mind. I can quit working for you and pay you the contingent compensation, or if I don't have that much saved, then I can go to jail, and that is a second opportunity.

You have chosen to overlook these two opportunities, why?

If I don't have enough saved to pay for my contingent liabilities, then wouldn't you agree that I am a fraud to begin with?

a) How can I sign your contract, knowing full well that I will be insolvent on it? (knowing that I am not capable of repaying in case of breach?)

b) How can I touch my capital set aside to be used to pay my contingent liabilities and not become a fraud at the same time? (I must keep my repay funds available until there is no longer a liability, i.e. my contract with you is done, or you fired me).

Secondly, the choice of going to jail. What's wrong with that? This is reduced punishment, because my staying in jail does nothing to repair the damage I have caused you by breaking my contract. Even that isn't good enough for me?

So, you suggest that because I, such a son of a bitch piece of unworthy crap, have been signing contracts without thinking about them first, without making sure I am practically prepared to be responsible for my word, and now that I have changed my mind and I want out, but I am still not willing to either pay you or do my time, then obviously, other people must suffer?

So I now will continue to do what I now clearly know is wrong, because I am such a precious little beach that in no case I shall ever suffer for my own mistakes?

And what is it with this pro-communist approach to contract as claiming fraud where there was only a complete lack of desire to read the contract before signing?

What has become known to you that I was hiding? Did you think that murder is wrong? Did I suggest it is a right thing to do? Did I stopped you from consulting your lawyer?

If I just recently matured and got my pubes, then why was I signing anything before I had a right to? Doesn't it make me a fraud, instead?

Or may-be I was such a dumbshitbag that I paid attention to your subjective representation of how you see world? You may still be thinking that serving in your army is noble, so what? Who can prove it isn't? This is subjective opinion and you are legally allowed to have one and to state it.

Or should I sue the crap out of someone who states that the world is beautiful because I personally think it is ugly?

Come on man, you usually do much better than this.

Anonymous said...

FSK's post has many valid points.

However the army is different to other jobs. Well it was before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in that there were long peace times and short wars.

If soldiers were allowed to quit with short notice, then some of them would join up just for the peace times and quit just before a war. Those that didn't quit just before a war, might be pressured by family to quit in war time.

However my comment does not disqualify most of the other points made about people trying to honestly do their job and getting negative feedback for it.

War must really be the last, last resort. Problems should be solved by diplomacy as much as possible. Is the US government doing this? This is what people need to ask.

Anonymous said...

When I was at university, I once flicked through a fellow student's law text book.

It said that contracts involving sex are not enforceable.

As an extension of this and being the Devil's advocate, perhaps contracts involving killing should be not enforceable. Well this is some sort of analogy here. Just a thought.

Anonymous said...

Contracts should have nothing to do with legality of promises.

If I contracted to you to murder someone, my promise to you must still be valid, even though I of course shall be prevented by law from delivering on my promise, or punished for delivering it.

In other words, current government tinkering with contract law has no standing. Government should be busy enforcing contracts, and this means that as a government they should be telling me: "too bad you have signed this, because what you have promised to do happens to be illegal. (see, not a contract, but my acting on it) Here are your options: Do it, and go to jail or get shot during prevention by police, refuse to do it and pay up for your word, default and go to jail. It's all your choice now. A little word of advice: next time, think twice and consult a lawyer before signing a contract you will not fulfill or promising to do something illegal."

Do not uphold this contractual law, and all sorts of things will start happening. First, many lines in the sands will have to be drawn. Second, many will not have tools necessary to hedge the unknown future. Currently, for instance, it is close to useless to create a mortgage contract. Because the signing party is allowed to claim fraud, while nothing was hidden from a contract. The signing party simply claims that their expectations were breached, with regards to what the contract should have contained, while they did not even read it before signing.

Chrono said...

The entire story is an evil fnord. "Anybody who disagrees with the military is irrational, is one of the themes this story produces." Another is, this guy had ties to Al-Quaida, therefore, "there's still a reason to worry about terror." That one is also complete B.S.

Kudos to you for noticing the parallels between abuse at your job and abuse of the guy who eventually snapped.

Some clarifications on your story:
First, the shooting took place at a military processing center. According to the 'facts' given, the soldiers at the center were getting physicals, eye exams, vaccinations, etc, so it was not a military base, and there were not really any weapons there.

This is why there wasn't anyone else who could shoot back at the guy. I find it interesting that they weren't saying, if there wasn't so much hype about gun control, someone would have been packing and could have put the guy down sooner.

Personally, though, I believe these kinds of incidents are faked to keep the propaganda engine running. I'm sure there are truly crazy people out there, but I think most of them are in government. It's just as likely to me that a guy with a masters in public health went crazy and shot a bunch of soldiers, as it is likely that he was really working for some insider group and shot all those people to make news. It could also be that the cop who shot him was in on it. Not like we'll find out one way or another anyway.

But it's like a mini 9/11, IMO.

3D Face Analysis said...

Here's a link to a similar theory pertaining to the spree killing incident: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf3uFEXiofs

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