© 2015 Michael Swickard, Ph.D. In a small unscientific study
looking only at myself I find that the years go by quickly. They are packed
with victories and losses. If we have a loss, at least we should get the
lesson. Getting lemons doesn't help unless you have sugar and water for
lemonade.
Let's look at 2015 as we think about
2016. We must remember the mistakes that were made this year so we don't repeat
them. We also need to remember our victories so we have some chance to repeat
them.
George Santayana in 1906 wrote,
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Our
society doesn't seem to learn. Let's make 2016 the year we learn from a
previous year's mistakes.
If there was an organization to
remember society's wins and losses each year they would say you must
acknowledge both the wins and losses. Losses are difficult because people gloss
over them while fixating on wins.
The biggest loss in the last few
years is the loss of the truth. Truth has become the new hate speech. George
Orwell wrote, "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes
a revolutionary act."
Many people are afraid of the truth
because an expedient political power play has emerged in our society. It is to
label as racist or worse anyone who opposes the wishes of the political parties.
2015 was a name-calling year with most of the name-calling being done for
political gain.
A friend runs a political blog and
has a hard time with the inclination of some posters to name-call and act ugly.
I am glad he is fighting that fight because we can never have truth in our
society if the name-calling brigands are allowed to take over public dialogs.
The year 2015 will be remembered as
the year everything offended someone. David Bednar wrote, "To be offended
is a choice we make; it is not a condition inflicted or imposed upon us by
someone or something else."
This year I found I could
concurrently offend both Republicans and Democrats. I got hate emails from both
the same week. I have written a weekly column for more than thirty years so I am
used to offending people. It happens. But this year it seemed that there was a virulent
practiced response to opposing ideas and that was name-calling and ignoring the
truth.
One person was very offended when I
wrote about something that happened in the 2015 New Mexico Legislature. The
problem for me was that I did not witness this situation myself. But I found
four people who confirmed to me what happened along with two others in law
enforcement who witnessed it. I would not retract my column.
This last year the two major
political parties were nationally very similar. The only thing they disagree on
was which person should be elected, not the will of the people and how Congress
should protect the Constitution.
The emphasis of 2015 for the
national leaders of both parties was to make government bigger. This has been
covered extensively by the national press that can be identified by their
political editorial leanings. Both the liberal press and the less liberal press
have their agendas. If it wasn't for the Internet they would succeed.
Many years ago Bob Hope quipped,
"No one party can fool all of the people all of the time; that's why we
have two parties." A friend said to one politician, "Please act as if
you actually talk to citizens and not just consultants and fixers." That
didn't go over well.
Comedian George Burns was asked,
"How's your wife?" He answered, "Compared to what?" That is
what we have to realize each year. When we do a year in review in some ways we
are often comparing to other years.
Can we learn from 2015? Yes, but we must
want to learn. We may have to change some of our elected politicians if we want
real change. Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789, "Whenever people are well
informed they can be trusted with their own government."
We have many well-informed citizens
but everyone loses when truth is politically inconvenient and so is absent from
our society.
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