A while back I noticed a lot of forums that had people contemplating joining the military. They wanted various benefits/a job/get in shape/the esteem/etc., everyone had a different message. I have had friends join the military, and I know quite a few people from the military, and universally, it screws them up.
Because of this, I made a post a while back asking for advice. I feel I have come back a little wiser now (?), and wish to spread my thoughts.
I wanted to make this post to suggest a new strategy. Instead of fighting the military by protesting the war/etc., fight the military at its source: make it impossible (or at least really damn hard) for the military to find recruits. I.e., anti-recruiting is an effective anti-war strategy. (even in countries that have drafts I would argue that stemming the voluntary recruitment efforts could also help)
I just wanted to share what are the most effective rhetorical strategies for convincing people to not join the military. If anyone else here has more to add, please do so.
===Avoid the ethical arguments===
This sounds counterintuitive. And I can understand that every libertarian in the world, or every humanist for that matter, wants to give the moral arguments. We want to tell them how screwed up killing people is. We want to explain the horrors of violence. However, in my experience, although this sometimes works, it usually doesn’t (for what empirical evidence is worth, let me say that I’ve never found this to be an effective strategy, I know that sounds horrible, but it’s just been my experience). This is because (points rated by importance):
-If someone is already considering joining the military, they aren’t a complete retard. They already know they’re going to have to kill, and they’ve thought through some sort of justification for it. You’re being a broken record by repeating this. This is the main reason you’re going to have difficultly with this approach.
-Chances are, if someone is discussing joining the military, it won’t be a one on one with you (unless you two are really good friends). In my experience, people considering joining the military are asking a group of people at once to get a broad range of advice they can sit on. This is important because if you bring up ethics, you’re likely to get sidetracked into a conversation about ethics with others. I agree that the discussion on ethics is important, but in those situations it’s not the most important issue. Think of this as a triage situation, you have one person who has a really high risk of killing someone, versus everyone else in the audience who are considering the ethical question in a philosophical setting.
-Even if you aren’t in a group setting, you’re likely to get philosophically sidetracked. The question at hand is should this person join the military or not, not the ethical ramifications of war.
===Stick with the surprise justifications against war that they’re likely to not have thought about===
Most situations you will be in where this happens might be a family member contemplating out loud about joining the military, someone in class, etc.. I.e., most situations you are in you really don’t have that much time to give a long philosophical diatribe. Most situations you are in, the other person will not be willing to sit down and read your literature. So, you’re going to have to rely on fridge logic (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic). Give them the justifications that will incentive them thinking this over. Needless to say, the most effective way I’ve found about doing so, is to identify what they don’t know about joining the military, and tell them that.
For the most part, these usually revolve around statistics. Most people don’t know the homeless rate or unemployment rate or etc. of veterans. Find disregarded or unknown statistics and facts and use those!
===Deal with the one guy who’s actively considering murder first===
You might be in a crowd debating your position with other people. Try to ignore them. Your appeal is to the guy thinking about joining the military. Focus on that one person. Don’t get sidetracked.
===Stick With How It Affects Them===
This deals with part of the problem with ethical arguments. Like a comedian once said, “People don’t find starvation in Africa interesting, you know what they find interesting? Shoes. T.V. shows. Sports.” Stick with people’s inborn greed instinct and give a cost-benefit analysis of how the military really won’t help them, even with the huge benefit packages.
Go to Google, type in “Veterens have a higher rate of X” where X is unemployment, alcoholism, imprisonment rates, drug use, homelessness, disability, drop out, etc., etc.. It really is amazing how in almost every statistic, veterans are worse off. Keep these facts and use them.
(it is also surprising how this is true, even in areas military personnel are actively subsidized in. E.g., everyone talks about the GI bill, but where are the number of military personnel lauding four year degrees?)
There are a lot of Youtube videos (which other people gave me in this forum a long time ago), which are useful for internet anti-recruitment efforts. These are typically testimonials. And they also help fill in a useful void. This void is the people you’ll face who say, “I see your statistics, but those are probably all for Vietnam veterans or etc., I’m still going to get GI bill benefits, or X benefits” to which you can reply with a number of personal stories of various people who tried to apply to those benefits, but basically found out that most military benefits are a scam. Testimonial videos (or, if you can, get an actual veteran who can help you out and tell his experience first-hand (these veterans are rare, but godsends in real life)) help the most in estabilishing the con that is military benefits.
===Avoid Being Near Recruiters===
If you are talking with someone who is thinking about joining the military, try your best to not do so when another recruiter is around (a small tidbit: sometimes recruiters aren’t in uniform and might be just walking about town (true story)). Sometimes it’s socially unavoidable. Sometimes you might not be able to do this because you’re setting up your anti-recruitment efforts right next to a recruitment booth. But, if you can, avoid it. In my experience, they are really good at their job. And having one other hurdle between you and that one person (see the previous tip) isn’t going to help you.