The New Year is here, and it makes for a perfect opportunity to start fresh.  No, it holds no magical powers.  It’s simply a natural break in time, which many need to motivate them to gather the strength to do something they have been meaning to do but just couldn’t get off the ground.

Norm has chosen to make New Years Resolutions, which mostly revolve around being nicer to kittens and puppies.  I have made no such resolutions, and plan to continue to do what I’ve done up to now.  I have nothing against kittens and puppies, but also find no reason to change the way I treat them.  If there was something that I needed to change about myself, I would have already done so.  I’m not inclined to put things off.

Most of the country will be fast asleep as I write this post.  Some will just be putting their head on their pillow (or someone’s pillow) at this moment.  My New Years tradition is to go to sleep at the same time I do every night.  I don’t go out to Times Square and wear funny glasses or hats.  I spend it with my family.  I can’t think of any group of people with whom I would prefer to ring in the new year. 

But this isn’t a blog about my life, and so I won’t bore you with any more about my traditions.  The renewal of the New Year brings inspiration to many, particularly those who believe that we have a duty to improve the world around us by being better people and helping the lot of others.  Most people believe this.  They just differ on what constitutes being better. 

In a comment to my Happy New Year post, Carolyn Elefant wrote:

And thank you Scott, for all of your opinions, and more importantly, for showing, by example, how lawyers can strongly express an opinion while still acting respectfully towards those espousing opposing views. And doing it all with an “alarming” amount of speed and grace! Happy New Year

It was a very kind comment.  Carolyn is a kind person.  I’ve always been inclined to express straightforward opinions.  Many people fear offending others by having a point of view, and their desire to be liked stifles their willingness to express their views.  This is less true on the internet, where people can vent their spleen anonymously, and thus avoid the consequences that they fear if they did so under their own name. 

It’s not that people we know don’t feel strongly about things; they just won’t tell you what they think.  There are no people without opinions.  There are only people whose opinions you don’t know because they won’t say.  I’ve chose to express my views on a variety of subjects.  On the whole, they generally fall into the category of being fair to all.  I seem to challenge certain groups with frequency, cops and prosecutors mostly.  This isn’t because I have something against cops and prosecutors per se, but that I take note when they do something that I perceive as unfair.  I also go after criminal defense lawyers from time to time when they fail to live up to their responsibilities.  None of us are perfect, but that doesn’t mean we can strive to be better than we are now.

I’m not so sure that I’ve generally acted respectfully toward people who disagree with me.  Sometimes I’ve learned of opposing views that I hadn’t considered, or adequately considered, and I adjust my views accordingly.  Sometimes, comments will deal with a minor tangential point that was mentioned but not fully (or particularly well) developed in a blog post.  The medium doesn’t always lend itself to thoroughness.  While I may have explained things better in a 70 page brief, nobody wants to read that much here.  I know I wouldn’t read it.  So, I sometimes touch on a point and move on.

But my tangential point may raise a red flag to someone with a different focus than mine, and they will go after it with a vengeance.  This tests my tolerance, and I think that I often fail to live up to Carolyn’s observation.  I plan to come up with a better way to deal with this in 2008. 

Stephen Gustitis wrote  a very nice post reflecting on 2007.  He thanks many members, including me, of the practical blawgosphere for their “link love.”  Great phrase.  Link love is how we navigate the internet.  Norm  doesn’t care for link love, but he gets it from me anyway.  I guess that makes it unrequited link love? 

There are a few predictions that I feel comfortable making for 2008.  We will elect a Democrat of either a different color or sex than our current President, and waste a lot of words on how we have broken through barriers.  But our government will continue to function along the lines that it has over the past two decades.  The federal government will continue to usurp power and authority to intrude on our freedoms in the name of order, and we will let it happen.  Our new Democratic president will gather and retain power like our old one. 

The Blawgosphere will grow and the distinctions between the academics and the practical will blur.  The academics will fight it, but they will have no choice but to acknowledge our existence.  What this means for those of us who spend our time writing this stuff remains unclear, since I doubt that the internet will become the great shopping mall for legal talent that the blogging businesses keep saying it will.  But that doesn’t really matter for many of us, since we aren’t here to open an online storefront. 

I think many new bloggers will become quickly disenchanted with the internet when they find out that it doesn’t pan out they way they thought it would.  Kevin keeps  whipping his horse in the hope of winning the race, but the more entrants, the more losers.  But he will have some winners, and they will deserve to win and be a welcome addition. 

2008 will bring a paradigm shift in police culture.  They will stop seeing themselves as a separate entity, apart from all other people, and as a part of our society as a whole.  This will fundamentally alter their compulsive need to subjugate others, to cause others physical pain and harm, simply because we have given them permission to use force without consequence against people.  They will realize that the person they are about to taser is no different than their mother, or brother, or partner.  Just people, some doing foolish things and some just unclear how or why they are the target of an armed person’s angst. 

There will be a sweeping change toward diffusing hostility rather than inflaming it, and engaging in communication instead of making demands and giving commands.  Thousands of people will live, will walk away unharmed, will avoid needless arrest and imprisonment, will come to understand that the forces of power exist to make our world safer, saner, more pleasant and more fair for everyone.  They will finally hold a vested stake in the preservation of civility, rather than feel stigmatized and alienated from the rest of society. 

These same people, on the cusp of being a contributing member of society or disrupting the flow of ordinary life for someone they don’t know, will decide to take the chance of working within our norms because a police officer treated them with respect and kindness. 

Even if they do something wrong, make an impulsive and foolish decision to place their self-interest above the interests of others, they will come before a judge who will show them that the rules that we must all live within are fair and just.  They will not feel like the perpetual losers and outcasts of society, with nothing to gain by trying to be a part of a group that wants nothing to do with them.  Even the most jaded judges will cease their intemperate diatribes and use their power to demonstrate that there is room in our society for all of its citizens rather than drive the wedge deeper between us, guaranteeing that there is a permanent subculture for which our society offers nothing.

Welcome to 2008.