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What the hell is going on?

This will be my last column for 2025, unless something really interesting or dramatic happens between now and the 5th of January 2026.

It's time for a bit of a look back at the past 12 months and a feeble attempt to work out what has gone wrong with the world during that time.

I'd love to be more positive but honestly, things aren't looking that flash right now, especially if you're someone who values your rights and your freedoms as all good ex-hippies from the 1960s do.

In fact, the past year has been an astonishingly bad one from the perspective of the rights of the individual and the rise of paranoia within the halls of power.

In fact I'm pretty sure that if Western governments were an individual, most would have already been committed to a mental health facility for treatment.

In recent times, but most notably during the past 12 months, a dramatic shift in the relationship of government to people has taken place and it's not a good one.

For decades, government has acted as a servant of the masses. A group of people who were elected by the citizens of a nation to take care of "essential business". Things such as policing, justice, healthcare, infrastructure development and maintenance, etc, have been the core responsibility of these governments and that is where the vast majority of taxes have been spent.

There was a quaint term that has long-ago fallen out of use: public servant.

That title was assigned to anyone who was effectively in the employ of the taxpayer and was thus working for the public and paid by the public.

Sadly, in a world where using the wrong terminology has become a crime (no more master/slave computer setups!), we're no longer allowed to use the word "servant" when referring to anyone in employment. Not that it would matter because it seems that those who we elect and employ to *serve* us have now become rulers and administrators.

All too often, these public servants do not consider themselves to be in our service but in command and in control of us.

Even governments themselves have corrupted some of the most basic relationships with those who elect them.

The governments of a growing number of Western nations now operate on the basis that "the people" are their enemy, not their employers. Rampant paranoia has set governments against the very people they are elected to serve.

The principle of "innocent until guilty" has been cast aside infavour of the presumption that everyone is guilty of something unless they can prove otherwise.

Fueled by this paranoia and suspicion, governments are rolling out ever-more-intrusive forms of surveillance and tracking. Digital IDs will play a major role in the future, stoked by the fear that every individual is a bad actor just waiting to engage in dissent or inflict harm on their fellow citizen.

Things have gotten so bad that in the UK, citizens are being arrested for simply voicing an opinion, a blatant breach of the human right to free speech. In Australia they're rolling out laws that will prevent people congregating in numbers during public holidays -- because they know they've messed up the fabric of their society so badly that bad things are likely to happen.

We're seeing knee-jerk reactions from these governments as Australia seeks to further restrict the availability of firearms and the UK effectively declares the George Cross and Union Jack to be symbols of extremist right-wing hate speech. Australia likewise is clamping down on what it considers to be hate speech in a misguided attempt to quell public outrage.

These idiot politicians seem unable to grasp the concept that simply removing the right to free speech doesn't solve the problem, in fact it is likely to see that problem grow and thrive until such time as it explodes in a very violent way. That's how explosions happen -- pressure is confined until it reaches such a level that it can no longer be contained and then it errupts with violence.

If the trends of the past 12 months continue into next year I can see nothing good coming of it.

I'll do a "New Year's predictions" column when I return after the festive break but right now I can tell you it's not looking good and that saddens me immensely.

In the meantime, forget all that (including what I've just written). Focus of friends and family. Enjoy the break, appreciate all the good things that life has to offer and spend some time just marvelling at the world around us and its beauty... while you can.

I wish one and all a very Merry Christmas (if I'm still allowed to be so insensitive to non-Christian members of our society) and a very happy New Year.

Carpe Diem folks!

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