With more than a hundred people killed by those government snipers. The protestors succeeded, but some paid the ultimate price to do it. If they had a means to defend themselves, maybe there could have been less lives lost.

This was Ukraine, where elections still existed and there was still some air of democracy and institutions. In a place where a tyrant has an established, unshakeable monopoly on violence, what do you think could prevent the tyrant from using that?

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vel0city 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

You think there would have been less death if both sides were actively shooting at each other? Are you really following your own logic here?

How did the Confederate uprising go with their arms against the federal government in the US? More or less than a hundred or so deaths? And this was also a country that still had elections.

Do you actually have examples of civil wars in large modern-ish countries where both sides were well armed that resulted in less than 200 deaths?

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throwaway3060 5 days ago | parent [-]

I don't view civil wars the same way - these aren't individual protestors, but separatist military forces. They are violent by definition.

I did say maybe. Yanukovych ultimately fled - presumably he felt his position was threatened. We cannot know how many more he might have been willing to kill if he did not feel as threatened.

This is not advocating for a solution, only to point out that a committed tyrant can be next to impossible to dislodge.

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vel0city 5 days ago | parent [-]

What would have stopped the Maidan protesters from being labeled as separatist military forces if they were well-armed? You're drawing distinctions where there are none.

Where do you think the Confederate forces got their firearms from? They just suddenly popped into existence the moment they became "separatist military forces"? They were the people with rights to bear arms bringing up arms against their tyrannical government.

	▲	throwaway3060 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		The Confederacy was made of states. Even before the Civil War, each of these had militias. I'm sure Yanukovych would have labelled them a separatist military - but would the remaining institutions agree? We don't have to assume that the protestors bring weapons from the beginning - it could come only in response to Yanukovych committing to violence.

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slidehero 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>If they had a means to defend themselves, maybe there could have been less lives lost.

dude c'mon, be serious.

the response to "my house is on fire" is not "gee I wonder what would happen if I added more fuel..."

The response is to starve the fire of oxygen. Labour is a government's oxygen.