Consider what would happen if one dishonored veterans on Veterans' Day. This is counter to the conventional custom of, if one disagreed with a war, directing disrespect toward those policymakers and the commander-in-chief who went to war, but keeping sacred the veterans who served (perhaps against their will).
The problem with the conventional custom is that those policymakers are insulated. They are very far removed from the common people. They don't care if you dishonor them, especially if they went to war for corrupt reasons (e.g., someone else's blood for their oil). There is effectively no disincentive from the common people to the policymakers not to go to war again, perhaps again for corrupt reasons.
Instead, consider a soldier, knowing that, even if he or she survives the war, he or she will face verbal abuse, discrimination from private businesses ("we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone"), shunning, and unhappiness every year on 11-11 for the rest of their life. This will make it less attractive to voluntarily choose military service. (But less attractive compared to what? A topic for a future post: rbsmehwp ) This will increase the cost of going to war, requiring higher military pay (especially to attract officers), and possibly instituting a politically unpopular draft, yielding poorly motivated soldiers. This message -- as an increased cost of war or lower likelihood of victory -- is a message that those insulated policymakers will hear.
Such criticism towards veterans happened during the unpopular Vietnam war. Returning veterans incurred abuse by the populace, and such unhappiness may have successfully played a part in accelerating U.S. withdrawal. How did it happen? Why? Why did it stop?
Grassroots efforts to change policy can take two forms: direct, by voting or communicating with policymakers, or indirect as above. When the populace feels that direct means is not effective -- look at voter turnout -- they may resort to indirect grassroots action.
This is a curious weak link. An overbearing military industrial complex might centrally control almost all aspects of democracy going to war: from campaign finance and media influencing the vote to the soldiers and weapons used for fighting. Try, as a common man, but you cannot touch any of them, secured behind corporate or military security. But the one weak link is the veterans left over after the war. Them you can touch, you can hurt, and if the mass of common people do it, it will send a powerful message against war. It may be the only such way.
But hurting veterans is a deep taboo, one of society's most sacred traditions: honor our veterans without question. Those who break this taboo may have their patriotism questioned, or worse. Thus, this one weak link curiously happens to be shored up by powerful social custom. Did the military industrial complex grow taking advantage of an already existing custom? Or was this custom somehow socially engineered into place (in which case, it is an awesome feat)? These are ancient customs and institutions. What steps are done to preserve the custom? (Probably silence iconoclastic ideas like this.)
I've heard similar well-meaning emphatic recommendations on how to treat police officers or TSA employees: even though you may disagree with the law, or airport security policy, treat those officers with respect, for they are just doing their job, trying to make a living in this trying world just like you.
But consider the hard-hearted opposite, their lives being made a living hell by the mass of people concertedly acting just barely within the limits of the law, encouraging them to quit their jobs, discouraging any new applicants from replacing them. Thus, the cost of enforcing a disagreeable a law or policy increases, possibly accelerating its repeal.
It's not easy. People aren't normally mean to each other, and in being so, a little part of your soul dies each time, and that respect for fellow human beings that binds society together might unravel.
To be cruel effectively might require training and coordination.
Here we have a flaw in human rationality, where although being cruel may yield a desirable social outcome (combatting a corrupt government), even ultimately benefitting yourself, people don't do it. What other institutions of power are built abusing this flaw?
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I used to walk past a war memorial every day to work, and through my entire life never questioned that veterans should be honored, until today. My reasoning then was that a society that respects its veterans is of tremendous strategic military value. Such a society can field, or if necessary, quickly raise, a large army of soldiers motivated by the personal respect and honor to be earned by service. That threat -- our army will destroy yours -- serves as a strategic deterrent, winning wars before they even begin, without needing to fire a shot.
Both viewpoints are valid. How do you reconcile them? Those with power must earn -- re-earn -- the trust of the common people.
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