>>2664485Oh please. Not a single one of those things was actually done because someone thought it was the right thing to do. Child labor laws didn't do jack shit in the U.S. on a national level until the Great Depression, and then the only reason anyone cared was because countless adults were desperate for jobs, and kids taking them up for lower pay. Before that, what attempts that were made at the federal level were either struck down, or blocked. Your "do somethings" may have done some good at the state and local level, true, but nothing that made a difference nationally.
Slavery? Are you fucking kidding me? Slavery in the U.S. didn't end because a bunch of righteously indignant "do somethings" complained about it enough. It ended to fuck over the South for trying to secede and losing the Civil War. Maybe there were people protesting it, but they had jack shit to do with actually ending it, and the fact those freed slaves spent a long-ass time afterward living in conditions that were just as bad (if not worse) than when they were at least valued as property just serves to prove nobody who had anything to do with ending slavery did it because they gave two shits about the actual slaves.
I'm not even going to get into your "government abuses are kept in check" nonsense, because I do not have the time or energy to go into all the wonderful abuses and atrocities that governments are allowed to commit just because our government doesn't consider them to be one of the "bad guys".
The point is, your "do somethings" don't accomplish nearly as much as you like to pretend you do. What causes they do seemingly "win" is not because of their efforts, but because of the people far above them who actually DO have the power to do something decided they or someone else will benefit from it. And, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that "someone" who benefits from it is anything BUT the people your "do somethings" are fighting for.