A revolution in this country is not imminent. However, unless the gross injustices are not addressed, where there is more equality of opportunity among all social classes, in addition to fairer representation of various social classes in our Congress, or if not represented, at least their needs are being expressed and acted upon by our government, ultimately, a revolution of some dimension will result.

Although I recognize that currently, there are more pressing problems that Congress needs to address, in addition to dealing with the inequality of representation that I just mentioned, my solution is the same in both instances, all of which I discuss in my book: What Would Our Founding Fathers Say?:How Today’s Leaders Have Lost Their Way, and plan to touch upon in future blogs.

When there’s a conflict between how you view your personal integrity with that of your nation’s, and you begin to question whether or not you’d indeed be willing to die to protect what our forefathers and the Americans who have fought so valiantly in the various wars of our nation were willing to do, which was their willingness to die to protect our freedoms, then you may find the only alternative you have is to become a revolutionary. For when we talk about our personal and our nation’s integrity, they’re inseparable, that’s because in both cases, integrity represents yours and your country’s soul, which is all that’s good about being an American as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights (which is part of our Constitution).

I am 81 years old, a senior citizen like Benjamin Franklin, who was in his late 60s when he joined the small ‘band of brothers’, his fellow Founding Fathers, who clearly were revolutionaries in their own right. Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. While a Founding Father, Franklin said, “I now take up a resolution to do for the future all that lies in my way for the service of my countrymen.”

He was truly the statesman of his time, where he was the only person to have signed all four of the documents which helped to create the United States of America: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance , Amity, and Commerce with France(1778), the Treaty of Peace between England, France and the United States (1782), and the Constitution (1787).

No other individual was more involved in the birth of our nation. Even though Franklin’s role was not demonstrated on the battlefields, like George Washington’s was, he was very active “behind the scenes,” where he was on the go in the halls and staterooms of governments, at home and abroad. He demonstrated clear vision of the way things should be, and his skills in both writing and negotiating helped shape the future of America.

All of the 56 Founding Fathers who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor before signing the document. It was written approximately one year after the Revolutionary War had commenced.

By the end of the war, five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

Clearly, the signers were revolutionaries in every sense of the word, for they most certainly had to have the passion and determination to win the war, even if it meant giving up their property and lives to do so.

In the case of our own country, what I’ve tried to illustrate i1s that anyone can become a revolutionist if they have the will, passion and fortitude to work toward something greater than themselves in order to save our nation’s Democracy and Republic from ultimate destruction. That will indeed happen if Congress and our president don’t learn how to compromise so that all Americans have the potential to benefit from our system of government, all of which I discuss in my book.