Return? We never had a reign of terror. There have been hundreds of peaceful revolutions.

“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.” ― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

I am familiar with the Reign of Terror, which gets capitalized because of it's singular uniqueness, but I am also not an 18th century French peasant, or a Frenchman at all for that matter. I doubt most of the people on this thread are either. When I say "we" I am referring to an immensely large group of people for whom "the revolution" refers to an event which did not include a reign of terror.

Why do people assume revolutionary action must be violent? Emmeline Pankhurst will want to have words with them.

Have you seen people?

> You really need to read up on your history.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47888542

The suffragette movement was hardly a revolution in the traditional sense.

Giving so many people the ability to vote was absolutely a fundamental shift in the social, political, or societal order, so is absolutely a traditional revolution. This is just the 'no true scotsman' argument.

Dont defend accepting corruption, thats so lame

But, being more respectful to you and who i orignally replied to — yes actual revolution would be brutal, and could/would create a much worse daily life for the non-elites.

Still, as I bet you could agree when not aguing semantics, its inexusable for people to declare we should accept corruption

> yes actual revolution would be brutal, and could/would create a much worse daily life for the non-elites.

50% of revolutions in the past 200 years have been non-violent, and the non-violent ones have a much higher success rate. Even for violent revolutions, most aren't brutal. When there is brutality, it's usually because the pre-existing conditions were already brutal.

That comes with the caveat that most revolutions happen against failed states. Those pretty much don't get the chance to be violent.

There's not much reason to replace good functioning governments. There are some examples, although typically they are foreign-backed regime changes masquerading as revolutions.

Good and functioning are not the same thing. Look at North Korea. It's definitely not a failed state, but it's also about as far away from a "good" government as you can get.

For most revolutions, the state needs to be unable to maintain control over it's populace. The ones where it can still maintain control is where it gets bloody.

I appreciate that info

Yes we should just calmly ignore private insurance death panels, propped up by politicians, killing treatable people at scale rather than put the fear in a few thousand rich people physics didn't see fit to spare from eventual biological death anyway (since they love to trot out that argument).

To say nothing of the processed food and automobile industries.

You really need to read up on your history.

Mhm, and is this history in the room with us now?

takes notes

What's your alternative? The present situation is intollerable and even a bad solution is better than no solution.

The present situation is very tolerable, actually.

For you.

Cowards like you would have a us a British colony to this day