flobaba this is true, but also, such progress comes with very real costs. The status quo is much maligned, and I'm one of those maligners, but the hard reality that the kids never want to face is that reactionary forces will predictably accelerate their violent agendas as their general support wanes. It's a real in-before-the-lock mentality, and it establishes a new status quo for the foreseeable that's very hard to undo. It's like fixing the interest on an adjustable line of credit. Genocide, historically, is often at its most intense nearer to its perpetrators' rise/demise.
The truth is that just about everyone is ready to sacrifice the lives of others for their ideological goals, which are usually couched in the rhetoric of preservation - of a culture, of a way of life, of a people, of a sense of what the status quo was or should be. But, when you actually get to the crossroads with your finger on the button, its much harder to press it than the slogans on the protest signs make it seem. Granted, some people have no trouble mashing that button, but those people aren't the ones you want to give that opportunity to, however noble their cause may be.