<p>The point is, you should NEVER under any circumstances let emotions of any kind get in the way of important decisions about your life. When deciding whether or not to join the military, put ALL feelings of nationalism, blind jingoism, and whatever other ism that may sway you aside, and go on a purely cost and benefit perspective, i.e. are you willing to risk the X% chance of coming back from Iraq in a wooden box, and/or put your university career on hold for X years, potentially giving up income (costs) for the pay and benefits (benefit)? If your answer is no, then don’t join. If your answer is yes, then that’s your prerogative.</p>
<p>I’m telling you MY answer is Heck no. And for those of you that think you are Mother Theresa because you “consider yourself a failure if you didn’t help someone” or whatever other BS, you’re in complete denial. EVERYONE is self-interested. You help people because you derive some kind of enjoyment/benefit from helping, not because you’re Mother Theresa. And even Mother Theresa was self-interested. She derived enjoyment from helping other people, that’s why she did it. The benefit from helping people doesn’t have to be material or monetary.</p>
<p>You parents agreed to that contract for you when you were not able to make it yourself. Upon becoming an adult you had every right to void that contract and leave, you chose to stay and thus the social contract applies to you. The contract is not a written form or document and you don’t need to sign it. The initiating factor to such contract is if the laws of the land apply to you and all of these laws and regulations sum up the contract. As for it holding in a court of law, well it would hold in all 3 of the ones you mentioned and you would be sentenced to a 5+ year prison sentence for not keeping your end of the contract. You have every right before the initiation of such, to void this contract give up your citizenship and leave. You choose to stay and by doing so you agree everyday to that contract.</p>
<p>“What’s this “my country” you speak of? I don’t have a “my country.” There’s a reason I always refer to it as “the country”, or “the state”, or some other nonpossessive form. I do not possess a country nor does a country possess me, unlike Operadad would like me to believe.”</p>
<p>“Your” country…it’s that place that’s afforded you the economic and social privilege to act like a douch. Other countries aren’t so gentle towards your precious “individualism” that you seem to pride yourself so much in.</p>
<p>A euphemism for “IT DOESN’T EXIST.” I don’t implicitly agree to anything. If I agree to something, it’s in writing. If it’s not in writing, I haven’t agreed to it. Plain and simple. Because the government can’t produce a signature, this contract you speak of doesn’t exist.</p>
<p>“Social contract” alone is not a valid argument in any criminal trial. The prosecution needs to produce EVIDENCE. Cold hard, evidence.</p>
<p>AND I fulfilled my entire obligation when I paid taxes. Don’t expect anything more from me. How many people do you seriously think would endanger their lives to go fight if Mexico were to invade us today? Trust me, I’d be on a plane to Toronto faster than you can say “Aux armes”. I’m sure many others would do the same as well.</p>
<p>Jobs in nursing often pay fairly well. If you do get a nursing job, and if you live somewhat frugally, you could probably save up a bit of money over a certain period of time. If you do work in nursing, you could consider it a temporary thing. Also, once you’re 24, you no longer have to list your parents’ financial info on financial aid forms, which results in some students qualifying for considerably more aid.
With some people with bachelor’s degrees (especially in non-marketable majors) sometimes working for a while at minimum wage jobs, putting off your ideal career for a while might not be the worst possible option.</p>
<p>30K at 6% is nearly 600/month to pay back in 5 years. That’s a lot on a 50K salary.
Think of it as starting out owning for two cheap cars you don’t get to use.</p>
<p>Um actually no its not a euphemism. And also not all and most agreements rare not in writing. I ask you to search westlaw or lexusnexus for the numerous cases where verbal/assumed agreements were considered valid. I then also ask you to look at court cases from both WW2 and Vietnam and see how many draft dodgers went to jail for breaking the social contract. If you don’t notice, well none of them signed any papers either. So sorry, but you are wrong and the Supreme Court Highly agrees with me on the matter.</p>
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<p>Again you know little of political theory and Common law. Like I have said before, the social contract is a basic idea in which all citizens give up natural rights to allow for the continued success and social order of the common nation. You agree to those common laws, and you most certainly have given up some natural rights to in effect gain the social order. So again, the laws apply to you as a citizen, then you have agreed to said contract. </p>
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<p>Judging from past wars, the majority of men would. Then there would be a minority pussies like yourself that would run away like a child. You would go to Canada, get arrested then brought back here and sentenced to jail time. You really cannot flea a draft in today’s world, there way to many agreements between nations to prevent such. Once a draft was initiated you would have little chance of getting into Canada even via water.</p>
<p>Again, I’m going to point out that others have different values, even if they don’t measure up to your PERFECTLY rational mind.</p>
<p>Yes, I am largely self-interested, but that does not adequately describe 100% of my actions. Otherwise, joining a career where I may be required to die for someone else would not make much sense. </p>
<p>You probably never signed a contract stating you would follow the laws of whatever locality you are present in, but you would be prosecuted and convicted if you broke them. That’s the way the system works. Don’t like it? Move to Antarctica and try to never be seen by another human.</p>
<p>By the time a draft was initiated, I would have passed through the CIC desks at Pearson Airport a long time ago. To hell with everyone else. My role on this planet is to protect myself and my immediate family. If I want to help people, I have to be alive to do it, not to mention financially stable.</p>
<p>The highest form of patriotism is dissent. What you’re describing is sheepish nationalism. Sometimes you have to stand up to the government and tell it to go **** itself. Just look at the past century of world history. Do you need to be dragged off to concentration camp to realize that? The French realized this 200 years ago and cut off Louis XVI’s head, along with 17,000 other people’s. While I don’t necessarily condone those actions, in France, the citizens run the show, not the corrupt ******bag political hacks who are beholden to their special interest lobbyists.</p>
<p>Join a different sect of the military. Like, coast guard. Something local and in-country. My friend’s fiancee is in the coast guard and gets college and rent paid for, it’s actually a pretty sweet deal, he has to go out for a month at a time or so on a boat and do drug raids.</p>
<p>The United States war in Iraq violated international law. So, by enlisting in the army during that war, you’re breaking international law.</p>
<p>I disagree with newyork on joining the army, I think it’s noble to sacrifice yourself to defend your country. But that’s not what the US is doing here.</p>
<p>It’s a preemptive war of aggression followed by an illegal occupation. Combine that with torture and murder of civilians and that’s probably all of the laws.</p>
<p>I’m playing devil’s advocate here. There’s a stark difference between whether laws are actually being broken and what people think. We don’t know the whole story of what’s going on (yes, there have been blantant disregards for human life on both sides), nor do I think many people are well versed laws that govern war (which, I might add, are being broken all the time by everyone across the globe) to call it an illegal war. In fact, Congress approved the act of invasion, in accordance with the War Powers Resolution, created in Vietnam.</p>
<p>LogicWarrior, you are forgetting that we were allowed to be there via the Iraqi govt prior to the war. We have leased the land for the bases the next 99 years and have paid for such leases. We are allowed to be there.</p>
<p>Saddam’s government broke the terms of the cease fire signed in the 1990s…hence the war could be continued at the convenience of any party involved (more or less).</p>
<p>You have cited the alleged violations, but not the law. That’s like saying someone drove 40 mph, and thus broke the law. What law did they break?</p>