Yes, we’re between presidential elections. Yet congressional elections are set to occur near the end of 2014. This gives America a few months to redress the largest issue plaguing its psyche today: desensitization to government scandals, lies and corruption.
And what better time is there than the dawning of the New Year to begin such a process?
Granted, most overly optimistic New Years’ resolutions end in forfeiture and varying amounts of disappointment, if only because most resolutions, such as losing weight, lack legitimate incentive. (It’s a polar vortex, people! A little extra body fat can only help you.) But this doesn’t mean you should give up on making resolutions altogether. On the contrary, as the student body represents the next generation of professionals about to enter the American workforce — and as a campus community that claims to be socially and politically aware — the University of Wisconsin students have a duty to make one particular resolution.
In light of the eye-opening events with the National Security Agency’s massive domestic monitoring, the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service, the cover-up of the attack on the United States embassy in Benghazi and the unprecedented scouring of Associated Press records by the Department of Justice, it has become an absolutely necessary for Americans to wake up from their stupor and realize that such incidents have repercussions. The severity of what these events imply about the direction America is moving under the current government cannot be stressed enough. No matter what your party affiliation may be, it’s an undeniable fact that America is currently caught in a critical period of transition.
The only problem is that no one seems to care. Once the favorite news channel turns off, that’s it. Even if you do happen to care by chance, so much so that you express your concern with other Americans, your conversations will be completely ineffectual. No matter who you cite anymore, your opponents will always discredit your report no matter how valid your source of information.
This is partially a product of the self-defeating epidemic of bias within the media. Mostly, however, Americans (and college students in particular) are lost in party mantras and affiliations. This is completely nonsensical. This is not where America’s problem resides. Stacking up accusations against one party does not make the issues facing the American people go away. Rather, it causes them to proliferate. As soon as parties become the only determining factor in who does or does not receive your approval, then ethical principles are completely useless — as is your party affiliation. Unless your intentions are to join a cult, then I think you’re heading down the right path.
I ardently believe the best way to combat this plague of apathy and blind loyalty is through a renewed hunger for history. History is chock-full of lessons: Like parents, it persists in the hope that the next generation will learn from the older ones’ mistakes. Also like parents, as soon as you realize history is (to apply my metaphor) “a real person,” you’re naturally forced to look at the events of today more objectively. History holds invaluable examples of the justice that comes from fighting on the behalf of ethical principles, but it also shows the bloodshed and tyranny that can result when a country only fights for its political parties.
In 2014, our goal should be to put an end to the blind political affiliations, the bickering, the name-calling, the fact-bending. We need to do a severe self-assessment. Moving forward will we, the next generation of American professionals, do what’s right and demand the truth, admit when we’ve been wrong and join together to ensure the principles this country was built on — faith, hope and charity— are reinstated into the government from which they are rapidly disappearing?
Theresa Cooley ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in English.
