This is such an important tension. I agree with you, now that we're at a point where the government can operate with such lethality, revolutions must be bloodless or else risk going toe-to-toe with the US armed military. Or as Jim Jeffries says in tacocat's video, "You do realize you're bringing a gun to a drone fight." If the spirit of the second amendment was to keep a federal government on its toes with a well-regulated militia, I wonder what a congruent modern solution would be.If we want to be able to violently resist our government, it must come at a cost. I'm not sure it's worth it. I don't see violent revolutions playing out well in modern times.
I think maybe there is. We have virtual gathering spaces that make both organizing and the ability of any individual to reach many people a lot easier than they ever have been. If it is true that the pen is mightier than the sword, then the logical extension is that "we" have more power than at any time in the past. I'm not sure this is true, but were enough people to decide that change was needed, they would all easily be able to connect from all parts of the country to form a critical mass. Of course that mass would have to be really big, but when things get really bad it could happen.
Maybe. But it would basically have to be a war of ideas, of persuasion: as long as the people controlling the nukes* want you to fail, there's not much even a large majority of the population can do. IMO. *ie the various huge and terrifying weaponry controlled by the governments of the world
But that comes with the supposition that the US government would ever deploy those weapons against us. It's much more difficult to imagine that scenario than one where they listen. The thing that we have that many other countries don't is a mechanism for change baked into our foundational laws. We still remember with great disdain incidents such as Selma and Kent State where violence was used against people, and that was on a scale orders of magnitude lower than anything they could if they wanted (plus both of those examples were perpetrated by states, and not the Feds).
I guess that's where we split. I imagine that a fight for structural change would be threatening enough to the current authorities that they'd be willing to stop it by any means necessary. Maybe I'm cynical.But that comes with the supposition that the US government would ever deploy those weapons against us. It's much more difficult to imagine that scenario than one where they listen.
There are plenty of examples of structural change taking place in the US since our founding that did not involve the Federal Government raining down violence. Most of these examples involve state governments raining down violence with the Feds stepping in to stop them. The most obvious example is the Civil War, but it carries through the New Deal, the Civil Rights movement, anti-war protests, etc. The main example of the Feds perpetrating such violence is mainly against the Indians in the 19th c. See, for example, Andrew Jackson's famous, "John Marshall has made his ruling, now let him enforce it." Another moment of structural change is inevitable, and it looks closer to being a necessity all the time. It will happen through the ballot box, however. It might not look like much, but even getting the ACA passed was a coup. It shows that progress is slow, but can be effective. I don't know how our tax system will get reformed, but that will be the next big thing. One reason I couldn't support Sanders fully (although I did vote for him) is that his ideas may not even be better than the status quo. We need young blood to put forth new ideas. Until that happens, I'd rather stick with the devil we know.