"Karma, really isn't that much of a bitch"

I had resisted the urge to comment on the latest Amos Yee incident regarding his false allegations against his bailor Vincent Law and his subsequent fake apology. Of course I am furious at Amos Yee for pulling such a dumb ass stunt like that - slander is not a joking matter and Vincent Law could have sued the Yee family over this. I hope they realize how lucky they are that Vincent Law isn't taking this any further given the severity of the case for now (as if the Yee family don't have enough to deal with as it is). As for Amos, congratulations - you've just proven that you deserve to be punished and you've alienated yourself from those who were initially on your side (like me) but can no longer in good conscience stand by and support your crazy actions You can't just try idiotic shit like that as if you're in a consequence free environment: there are consequences for you, your family, Vincent Law and his family as well.

In light of this... meet my friend, Karma.

Whilst I don't believe that Amos Yee should be punished for his LKY video on Youtube (nor for that picture of LKY and Thatcher he circulated), I do believe strongly that he definitely should be punished for the false allegations he made against Vincent Law. No one was hurt after they had watched Amos Yee's Youtube video, nor were any minds corrupted by the rudimentary sketch of LKY fornicating with Thatcher. Come on, if can you seriously get turned on by that drawing? If I wanted some porn, I could easily get so much free porn of very high quality. Just go to google.com and search for the word 'porn'. Yes the whole case against Amos Yee makes a complete mockery of the Singaporean justice system and it makes the PAP look like complete fools: but just as Amos Yee thinks he can emerge as some kind of martyr, he has lost all credibility and alienated himself from even his supporters. I wish to state clearly that I am no longer one of his supporters despite the previous posts I have made about him, in light of what he has done to Vincent Law. What he did was very wrong and I must express my solidarity and support for Vincent Law.

Amos seemed to think that the fact that he found Vincent Law 'immensely creepy' was sufficient grounds for him to make allegations like that. Regardless of Amos Yee's opinion of the way Vincent Law came across, being 'immensely creepy' simply isn't a crime in Singapore (nor in any other country) and it doesn't give you any justification to make such false allegations. This is why I feel that NS may be the best thing for Amos Yee right now - I have come across a lot of people in NS whom I felt were indeed 'immensely creepy'. I had to work with them, live with them, get along with them and the fact that I disliked them didn't make it any easier for me - but such are the harsh realities of life. It was a far cry from my life as a student in Singapore, where I found it quite easy to avoid classmates whom I disliked. Thus NS did prepare me for the working world, where I had to work with far more people whom I found 'immensely creepy'. Amos - NS awaits you and it may actually do you a lot of good. He's turning 17 this year, unemployed and not in school - enlist him already. Sending Amos off to NS might be the break that his parents so desperately need now

NS would probably teach Amos a lesson or two that he badly needs to learn.

For all the people who are talking about Amos Yee as some kind of prodigy and genius, well, this was a huge mistake on his part. Who is going to trust Amos Yee in the future or even believe what he has to say, knowing that he is the boy who cried wolf? Would anyone care to help him out in the future, knowing that he wouldn't hesitate to bite the hand that feeds for a laugh? This was such an act of self-destruction, of shooting oneself in the foot and one wonders that if Amos Yee is really supposedly so intelligent, how he could have made such an incredibly stupid mistake like that? What is going on in Amos Yee's head? Which makes me wonder, is he really that smart or are there just some glimmers of intelligence in amongst a horribly tangled mess of immature teenage angst? (Roy Ngerng, you're getting very close to Amos Yee, I'd watch my back if I were you.)

Vincent Law has kindly accepted Amos Yee's apology and will let the matter rest - I feel that Vincent Law has been rather too kind in this aspect, especially in view of the fact that Amos Yee showed no regard for the fact that Vincent Law has lost S$20,000 of his hard earned money just to bail Amos Yee out as a matter of principle. I wonder what poor Vincent Law has done to deserve all the crap he has received from Amos Yee but I do believe that someone needs to show Amos Yee that what he has done to Vincent Law is very wrong. Justice may not always come in the form we would like - but if Amos gets sent to jail this time, I will not feel sorry for him.  This does remind me of an incident that happened over ten years ago when I was working full time in sales within the financial services sector.

I used to work full time in sales within the financial services sector.

I had been pursuing this Swiss company for a long time and they kept putting me off - then as Sod's law would have it, the one week I went on holiday, they called up and were willing to finally sign on the dotted line. I was not in the office so a colleague of mine who answered the phone dealt with them and claimed that, "they weren't completely convinced at that point so I had to step in and close the deal at that point - hence I deserve half the commission." The bosses agreed and I was forced to split my commission with her. I was convinced she was lying, so I confirmed this with the client who told me that they had already decided to do it and that my colleague had simply processed the paper work - she didn't need to "close the deal" at all at that stage. This colleague had a habit of sucking up to the bosses, so they were close to her. I argued my case but they didn't believe me and of course, I was furious. Then as fate would have it, that very week, one of my American clients whom I had close earlier that year had decided to cancel a rather large order they had placed - according to the terms and condition of the contract, if they had canceled their order, they were still entitled to a partial refund (and if they canceled early enough, it could be up to a 90% refund). I was dreading the words 'claw back' - that was when the salesman had to pay back to the company the commission that was already paid out (technically they would just take it out of your next paycheck). I was looking at a huge 'claw back' as I could now only claim commission on the amount that wasn't refunded to them.

But guess what happened? I waited: week after week, for someone to finally bring up the matter but no one actually did. The dreaded 'claw back' never happened - I waited and waited and nobody said a word about it. The director who was supposed to have processed that 'claw back' simply forgot about it - she must have been extremely busy that it simply slipped her mind and no one else in the company bothered checking with her if it was done. I certainly wasn't going to say a word about it - so to my surprised, that 'claw back' simply slipped through the net. I did some calculations: the amount of the 'claw back' was about the same as the amount I lost out when I was forced to share the commission with my colleague who muscled in on my deal with the Swiss client. Now we call that karma fixing the problems and injustices in life: I would have loved to have seen that bitch of a colleague get run over by a bus for her underhand tactics, but at least I wasn't financially any worse off when the 'claw back' didn't happen. There was some kind of divinity ensuring that justice was served at the end of the day - the outcome wasn't perfect, but I'll take it, thank you.

I didn't lose any money at the end of the day - justice was served... kinda.

So in the Amos Yee case, it is ironic that he is punished for the crime that he really shouldn't be punished for, but pardoned for the far more serious harm that he had inflicted on a kind and innocent man. In an ideal world of course, I would have liked to have seen that put right - for him to be pardoned for voicing a political opinion but to be punished severely for the horrific slander he made against Vincent Law: but such is the messy reality of the world we live in. As long as we get the right result at the end of the day, perhaps we shouldn't look too closely at the details and just be grateful as we realize that things could have been far, far worse. So for now, if I may conclude by quoting the words of Amos Yee from his famous video, "karma, really isn't that much of a bitch".

As always, please do leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for reading.

Update: Please read Amos Yee's latest attack on Vincent Law. My response is simple: even if Vincent Law wasn't a pleasant person, even if Vincent Law unwittingly imposed himself on Amos, trying to help Amos when Amos did not welcome his attention, there was still no justification for the kind of underhand, despicable attack at Amos launched on Vincent Law. If Amos wasn't prepared to agree to the terms that Vincent Law had set for being his bailor - then they should be parted ways amicably. Like Amos, I am an atheist as well but I simply do not believe that this should be any justification to treat Vincent the way Amos did. Both parties made silly mistakes: Vincent bit off way more than he could chew when he volunteered to take on Amos' case (what were you expecting?) and Amos didn't know how to resolve this amicably with Vincent. Sure it is a big ask for a 16 year old kid to resolve a dispute with a much older adult amicably, but what is the alternative? To get into more trouble than one already is in? No, there wasn't sufficient justification for Amos to have done what he did, even if Vincent Law's intentions did come across as questionable at best.

Is Amos oblivious to the fact that he is about to be sentenced on the 2nd June, that is just about two weeks away? Why is he doing something like that which is likely to convince the judge that he does not deserve leniency? At the end of the day, perhaps Amos has an axe to grind with Vincent - I can see that from the way he writes about their encounter on his blog: but is this really the time and place to exact your revenge? Couldn't you have waited for a slightly better time - or maybe not, maybe Amos expected to rot in jail for a long time and decided that it was now or never. But still, very few people are going to be sympathetic to Amos Yee in light of this latest development. He can wax lyrical all he wants on his blog and you thought I was long-winded? Have you seen how long Amos Yee's blog posts can be? It's a complete TL;DR. Amos, I shall leave you with another saying that goes like this: when in a hole, stop digging already.