Resolutions are a common tradition at the beginning of a new year. Less popular is the idea of reflection — looking back so the view looking forward is clearer. Writer and teacher Margaret J. Wheatley expressed the importance of reflection this way: “Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences and failing to achieve anything useful.”

According to polls taken in 2023, the majority of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. In January, an NBC poll indicated 71 percent were dissatisfied. In June 2023, the AP-NORC poll reflected 85 percent dissatisfaction. In November, an ABC News/Ipsos Poll found 76 percent of Americans disapproved of the country’s direction.

This level of dissatisfaction by Americans for government policies is noteworthy. Reflection is needed to determine how the country has veered so far off track.

What were the ideals and principles that made this country great? What was unique about this country that provided economic and quality of life opportunities to its citizens? Is it possible to hit reset?

The notion of property rights is key to the uniqueness and success of the United States. This means everyone has a right to the fruits of his or her labor, the right to own both physical and intellectual property and the right to make determinations about that property. Capitalism, the economic system under which America has thrived since its formation, is predicated upon the right to own property. Our founders established a government whose responsibility was to protect the individual property rights of its citizens.

These days, individuals appear to have been relegated in importance to groups. Individual responsibility, effort and merit are rarely recognized as positive characteristics. Groups of people perceiving themselves as bound together by race, lifestyle choice or discrimination have lobbied for and received special treatment at the expense of individuals whose rights are often trampled in the process. The Declaration of Independence speaks of individual rights, not group rights. Failure to recognize individual rights takes the journey in the wrong direction.

Poll results indicate displeasure with most aspects of American leadership. They’re a response to individual rights, taxation, immigration and economic policies. There’s a recognition something is dreadfully wrong in America.

Larry Reed, president emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education, presented to high school students attending the Western Slope Economic Leadership Conference at Colorado Mesa University in November his seven principles of free enterprise. Reed said these fundamental truths serve as the foundation for a free enterprise system:

Free people aren’t equal. Equal people aren’t free.

What is yours you tend to take care of. What belongs to everybody (or nobody) falls apart. The importance of property rights and protecting those rights is key.

Think of the long run, not just the short run. Think of all people, not just some people. This is the law of unintended consequences.

If you encourage something, you get more of it. If you discourage something, you get less. People respond to incentives and disincentives. Creators shouldn’t be vilified.

Nobody spends someone else’s money as carefully as his or her own.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.

Character makes all the difference in the world.

The founders of the United States placed governance in the hands of the people by designing a representative system in which citizens have the power of the ballot box. If the country is headed in the wrong direction, the blame must be placed squarely on we the people. When voters abandon the principles of free enterprise in exchange for the government picking winners and losers, rewarding some groups at the expense of others, wasteful use of taxpayer funds and growing government and indebtedness, it’s little wonder the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

Serious reflection on where we’ve have been and where we’re headed is important. Now to the last question. Is it be possible to hit reset? Perhaps not.