After the American Revolution we setup a government under the "Articles of Confederation". To put it bluntly, this new government sucked and was useless.

A convention was held to suggest improvements for the Articles; they decided instead to do it over again and propose a government that could actually stand the test of time.

The framers of this new Constitution then had to convince the rest of the country to adopt this different form of government. In the process of this debate and feedback it was decided to further specify Amendments that became known as the Bill of Rights to satisfy some reluctant states.

All of this happened peacefully.

The United States of America peacefully transitioned to its second form of government on March 4, 1789.

It hasn't been all peaceful, all the time, after ratification, but it should be in my opinion. We've managed to achieve so much as a nation with non-violent resistance and protest, there's no reason not to do that here to push for transparency.

The third U.S. republic was created after the Civil War, with the passage of Constitutional amendments that made the Federal government unambiguously superior in power to the governments of the states.

The fourth U.S. republic was created during the Progressive Era, with the creation of the "regulatory state" in which significant authority over economic matters was delegated from Congress and the courts to regulatory agencies in the Executive Branch. This system evolved gradually over the years (with the biggest changes coming through Roosevelt's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society) into the system we live in today.

The changes wrought by the Civil War were unfortunately quite violent, but all the other changes have been peaceful, as you note. Our ability to reinvent our democracy in this fashion is a big part of why the Constitution has survived so long -- we can change how we govern ourselves in big ways without having to tear it up and start anew.

Do you have any backups for that? I mean, any historical proof that rioting will make change?

Then you say this:

Want to make change? Educate people. nothing else.

Your teachers must have omitted teaching you about the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War protests. And those are only two examples where protesting and rioting actually made a huge difference.

With some significant exceptions, like the Weather Underground (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Underground).

Oddly like many — if not most — of the "terror plots" that have been "stopped" over the past however many years, that...

1. The fatalities and economic losses

2. The high possibility that the power goes to the wrong hand.

3. The good possibility that the power doesn't change hands and we are stuck with even less freedom.

4. Revolutions make the country very vulnerable which is an opportunity for enemies.

Small and secure changes are better in my opinion. Revolutions have a high risk of going wrong.

If you asked me 3 years later, you'll get a different response. Having lived through this so-called Arab spring, I have now a very conservative view for revolution.

There's genuine problems with US Democracy. The lack of a good voting system (preferential, or better still - acceptance voting) means a stable two-party system.

Statistically, protest actions can be beneficial, as long as they don't go too far. No politician wants angry people on the streets. Media tends to cover it. It's a good way for a minority of people to have a huge impact (for better, or worse, depending on whether you support what the protesters want).

The problem is, a lot of protests are pretty much zero sum movements. They are things which half the people want, and half the people don't want (environmental protection, gun rights, gay marriage). A protest for something which would be popular, but most people don't really think about could be more useful.

Take lessons from the past, and APPLY them to your context.

I'm not saying that rioting and killing Obama is the solution. I'm saying that using the government's tools (petitioning) against them is ridiculous. You have to show people you're angry, you have to show your entire country you're angry and you want things to change, laws to change, the system to change. You have to take a real stand.

EDIT : As I mentioned in some other comment. The revolution brought us Democracy, which later spread across all Europe, and brought us the beautiful Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which is used everywhere in the world as standards (not always respected though). I believe the revolution was the most beautiful part of France history. Napoleon was our anger which was still resonating years after the Monarchy. We're calm people now.

You can take a stand without destruction.

Hell, ask Snowden if he would rather have organized online action to protest, or people in the street beating other people...

In the same way, the Russian Revolution eventually generated Stalinism and brought suffering to the Soviet block, but it was a tremendous inspiration (and often brought material help) to workers' rights movements in many other countries, de facto creating the "social Europe" we currently enjoy (or used to).

EDIT: it's also funny to see these comments on American websites. Hello, your country was built by an armed revolution that was as nationalistic in practice as it was universalistic in inspiration. As certain modern philosophers from the Five Boroughs used to say, "you gotta fight for your right to party" :)

The Russian revolution started relatively peacefully, moved on to a brutal civil war, and then to draconian dictatorship (under Lenin) in just a few short years, then in 21 the resulting wars and disastrous economic policy caused a famine that killed 6 million people before NEP was introduced. And that was well before Stalin began to terrorise the country. Again, I think you're romanticising events which were nasty, brutish, and mostly harmful in their effects.

I'd argue European socialism (the social Europe we currently enjoy) evolved more from the evolution of liberal democracy and liberal capitalism in a peaceful society than from Marxism - many of the things Marx & Engels criticised have been peacefully removed (child labour, alienation of workers from means of production, lack of unions etc). Granted the UK and other European nations have other problems, but let's not forget how far we came peacefully, and how much of a set back to civilisation war and revolution really are.

I know my history well enough, I'm not denying that revolts often (but not always) result in weak political structures which are prone to collapse in the short term; you only need to look at the current wave of Middle-Eastern "springs" for confirmation - from Tunisia to Egypt, in practical terms they're now worse-off than under their dictators. Still, they play a often necessary role in putting the fear of consequences in the heart of established elites who would otherwise refuse to change; places like Saudi Arabia are now grudgingly considering improving conditions of their women, for example.

With respect I completely disagree with this - the reforms to working conditions and the state of our societies in Europe which have happened since Engels wrote 'The conditions of the working classes in England' or Marx 'Capital' have improved because of gradual progress in western democracies introduced because of peaceful protest and people working within the democratic process, on things like mandatory schooling, no child labour, minimum wages, right to assembly, health services, benefits etc. That's a far longer time-frame and was not influenced by the USSR, either in funding western political groups or acting as a sort of bogieman for western governments.

I disagree that revolutions and the attendant violence and destruction are necessary or useful in deposing tyranny, quite often they produce the opposite effect, as the two examples you initially brought up show.

The only country where you can try and talk of a continuous peaceful development is post-Cromwell Britain, which is why this country is still, in many ways, the less socialist of the lot (and getting less so by the day, I could add). Still, the influence of Soviet ideals was so strong even in this land, that there was stuff like the Cambridge Five, something that today is completely unconceivable.

Violent revolutions are not always necessary, but they can (and did) provide inspiration for wider movements.

You might want to also check out The Anatomy of Revolution - it details the broad life cycles revolutions succeed through. It concludes that revolutions are overall detrimental to lasting change in a society. The American Revolution is discussed in order to explain why it turned out atypically.

Also, it was one of the most interesting periods for arts and litterature ever to occur. Great example indeed

Not necessarily the DESIRED change, but it certainly changed things!

Let's not forget that it brought us something even more beautiful : The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Ma...

The world was certainly changed. Not always for the better.