> Dying in the name of freedom is just too much to ask of a normal person. Moving and freeing yourself is a more pragmatic move.

Everything you say is true. However, what about the people who are left behind, who are too old or too poor or too weak to free themselves?

Sometimes you take one for the team in order to help everyone else. Even in the face of fear, the threat to yourself and your family, pragmatism, and common sense, you must take up arms to fight the oppressor and secure your country's future.

It is this sense of duty and honor that raises us above the animals and allows us to bond together and fight a common foe, yet even animals will fight to defend their house, families, and freedom.

> Historically, majority of popular armed revolts were followed by bloodbaths, and years of economic dismay. Falling of Eastern bloc was a major exception, because USSR, the primary sponsor, crumbled itself. And even then there was Yugoslavia.

Again, all you say is true. However, there are more examples.

The nation of Texas was born from violence and revolution.

Santa Anna attempted absolute rule over the citizens in the Mexican states. He first tried to peaceably seize all arms from the Mexican states. After some initial resistance, Santa Anna was successful in subduing the other two Mexican states, but those obstinate Texians would not be quelled easily.

The Texians, as well as two other Mexican states, didn't give them up, but resisted[1].

In Gonzales, Texas, the Mexican army tried to seize a small cannon and the Texians, armed only with the small cannon and muskets, erected a flag that said "Come and Take It". They were successful that day, but, as you point out, then the bloodbath still came, at the Alamo and other bloody battles. As you know, the Texians fought hard against tyranny and were ultimately successful; they won independence from Mexico to form The Republic of Texas.

Nearly one hundred years earlier, the United States was born from a popular armed revolt.

As with Texas, the U.S. only declared independence as a last resort, and after the colonists attempted to negotiate with their oppressors and resolve their differences. The Declaration of Independence was followed by multiple written warnings and documents.

Even most patriotic Americans are not aware of everything that transpired. There, again, the British army attempted to seize the arms of the citizenry before armed revolt broke out. It took literally years before the Americans took up arms, and multiple documents to King George warning that the situation was untenable, even at grave risk to the authors of those documents.

For example, The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms[2] preceded The Declaration of Independence. Everyone knows the first line or two of the Declaration of Independence, but the full Declaration reveals in detail why the King's subjects were revolting and the "repeated injuries and usurpations"[3].

Thomas Jefferson put it most eloquently in the Declaration for Independence in 1776, after years of negotiation with the Crown had failed.

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [the pursuit of rights endowed by the Creator, that is: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

-Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence: July 4, 1776

A revolution that is grounded in prudence and common sense looks beyond the awful but short-term war to a future of freedom, for generations to come.

1. https://guncite.com/journals/haltex.html

2. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-issues-...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_I...