Revolution

The term revolution brings many different images to mind when you hear it. To some it is a bearded, cigar smoking dictator in South or Central America. To other’s, it Lords and Ladies being lead off to the guillotine to be executed by the peasants. To many, it is the plain Minutemen against the Redcoats. It is the well-trained army against the common citizens. In every case the vision is filled with battles, bloodshed and great loss of life.

All of these are correct in describing one of many revolutions that have happened down throughout history. This is another view that for the most part is bloodless and the vanquished ruling government isn’t executed, jailed or exiled. Not all revolutions end in an overthrow on the ruling government.

This bloodless revolution happens on a local scale every two years and on a national scale every four years. We call them elections. Congressmen run for election every two years, Senators every six years and the President every four years. As we found out in 1996 and 2004, the revolution isn’t successful and the ruling figure is reelected. In the 1992 revolution, George Bush was overthrown by then leader of the Democratic Party’s leader Bill Clinton. No blood was shed, to one went to jail, no one was exiled.

The next minor revolution is sixteen months away the major revolution is forty months away. My concern is it close enough to preserve the bloodless revolutions that we have experienced the last two hundred years? The current President and the Federal Government is moving in and taking over more and more control of the economy of the United States. The people are being told one thing and then find out that just the opposite is happening. The Founding Fathers warned against a too powerful centralized federal government to the point of saying taking up arms against it might be required to maintain our freedom.

I am too old to be tramping the fields fighting for the cause of freedom. I do however have son-in-laws and grandsons that I don’t want to see have to go to war to regain their freedom from a repressive government. We, the American people, have the weapon that is more powerful than the sword, THE PEN. It matters not how you contact you government leaders, pen and paper or email; it is the power to slow down the incursion into our private lives. Ten letters might not make a difference but ten thousand will and one hundred thousands will give them visions of townsfolk with pitchfork and torches chasing the monster out of town. They don’t want to be that monster.

This is a warning, a call to arms, pick up your pens or keyboards and fight with them now so that your children won’t have to fight a bloody revolution in the future.