The idea a general upheaval will result in your societal preference is something shared by a whole range of fucking cranks whose motivation is just the blind creation of suffering.
@SwiftOnSecurity Sometimes I think the American Revolution is one of the worst things that ever happened to the world. History is absolutely loaded down with examples of revolutions that resulted in incredibly repressive, violent and/or chaotic regimes. But the famous one is the one that resulted in the world's (current) most powerful state.
So people think "Hey, it worked for them, we'll have a bit of that!" without realising that the odds are very much not in their favour on things turning out well.
@VoxDei @SwiftOnSecurity I think if the American Revolution hadn't happened, one of two things would have happened:
1) A Canada-style slow separation from the UK by the mid-1800s. We would have a parliamentary monarchy and be part of the Commonwealth Nations.
2) An attempt at independence by the southern colonies when the UK banned slavery and eventually enforced that in North America. This would be put down by Redcoats and armies from the northern colonies. The northern colonies would later drift away, followed eventually by the southern colonies, who might be troublesome but eventually more trouble than they're worth and just spun off to deal with the world themselves, sort of like South Africa (quite likely with the apartheid, too).
@VoxDei @SwiftOnSecurity "those who don't learn history" and all that...