the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.

Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William Smith in 1787

This phrase has been used by right wing groups to justify violence against the left, who they see as trying to control society.

I find violent rhetoric concerning… I’m still hoping we can find progress without fighting. We don’t have to fight. I believe that the only reason anything stable came out of the American revolution is that a lot of people (well, primarily men, but that was the style at the time), who didn’t actually agree with each other on a lot of things, spent a lot of time sitting around and talking about what they could do better than the monarchies they had grown up in. They planned for how to make things better, and they compromised with each other for it, and when the first plan didn’t work they rewrote it (governments need prototypes like any other complex system). Most importantly they spent time listening to each other (seriously, years and years of discussion, sending letters back and forth, meeting in person, writing new proposals and revising drafts).

If you want to change your community, maybe spend a little more time listening to the people in it. Don’t go looking for a fight, go looking to prevent one.