THBT change comes through molotov cocktails, not with a voting ballot.

Change can and does occur peacefully. To defend the existence of peaceful political change, I will offer three main arguments: democratic elections provide a means for peaceful change, war as a tool for change is simply less in vogue than it used to be, and that in today's modern world, peaceful movements are simply more likely to achieve their objectives.A) Democratic electionsIn democratic elections, a group may be ousted and replaced without any recourse to violence. In fact, peaceful transitions of power are the norm in traditional liberal democracies. The US, UK and Canada all enjoy unbroken streaks of peaceful transitions of power going back to the 19th century (1). The US has had the longest streak of peaceful elections, with the first peaceful change of power being the defeat of the federalists by the democratic-republicans in 1800. More recently, in the last 30 years, there are 20 democracies that have only known peaceful transitions of power (1). Admittedly, many fledgling democracies face instability the first time the ruling power is defeated in an election but the data shows that after there is a first successful peaceful transition of power, future transitions are much more likely to be peaceful too (2).B) War is increasingly unnecessaryWar has been used to achieve political change for centuries. But a variety of features of the modern world such as global trade, a stable system of international diplomacy, and the spread of liberal values, all make the organized violence of war less palatable. This is supported by ample data that shows that the last 50 years have been the most peaceful in centuries (3). Simply put, wars have been shorter and less in number during the aftermath of World War II than in any other period of history since the renaissance. Yet numerous treaties have been signed, conflicts resolved, all without war. There remains inevitable conflicts that will result in violence but the data shows that many more conflicts are now avoided or resolved diplomatically.C) Peaceful movements are simply more successfulA recent study reviewed resistance campaigns that sought to change the government, defeat an occupier, or separate a region. In total, 323 campaigns were identified since 1900. They were then coded into whether the movement made significant use of violence or whether the movement used mostly non-violent civil resistance. In addition, the movements were coded into whether they were able to achieve their principal aims. The conclusions could not be more clearer: Non-violent movements in the 20th century achieved success 53% of the time but violent groups were half as likely to win (i.e., 26% rate of success) (4). The authors argued that non-violent movements were much better at recruiting support from the population and that their opponents tended to lose support much more quickly, particularly if they were seen as using violence to suppress peaceful protest.In sum, war is increasingly less attractive an option to achieve political change, particularly given the success of democratic elections at creating stable societies and the relative success of non-violent resistance against oppression. There are certainly circumstances in which violence remains necessary but these circumstances are thankfully becoming the exception and not the rule.(1) https://en.wikipedia.org...(2) http://cps.sagepub.com...(3) https://ourworldindata.org...(4) http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu...