Most folks who make New Year’s resolutions begin today. The first three items on the official U.S. Government web site are: lose weight, pay off debt, and save money. But of course these goals don’t apply to the federal government. (Nobel Prizes are given to economists who explain why these goals are antithetical to modern government.)

While most individuals fail to honor their resolutions, many are successful. Here is a modest suggestion that should foster civility and respect for strangers while reducing negativity and bitterness. I’ll start with a story involving a friend from the East who occasionally visits Montana.

My friend is an extremely successful, well-respected individual with a truly first-class education. Further, he sincerely tries to do good. But he needed help understanding how he may offend strangers. Here’s the context.

My friend is a thoroughly urban person. He doesn’t come here to explore the outback. New York’s Central Park is his primeval wilderness. He is not a good prospect for the Sierra Club or Defenders of Wildlife and probably can’t name an acquaintance who is a member of either organization. Were you to call central casting and request the prototypical middle-aged, totally urban male with a big smile, he’d qualify.

You’re prepared to like him, yes? Well initially no, especially not if meeting him wearing his “Endangered Feces” shirt. Here’s the shirt’s catalogue description: “Twenty different ‘specimens’ of North American endangered animals are identified and labeled with the names of their perpetrators.” The scat depicted on the shirt includes grizzly bear and Florida panther.

In his innocence he thought the shirt funny and cute, a blend of earthy humor and scientific accuracy. I found it offensive, boorish, and insensitive. Here was my good deed for the day: I asked him to take it off and I explained why. He did and was appropriately embarrassed. I prefer to believe he never again wore it, surely he didn’t in my presence.

I don’t mean to exaggerate the value of my simple request, but consider the good that may have been accomplished. First, imagine the people who may have been quite upset had we dined at the Co-Op, him wearing this shirt. Harm was prevented.

Second, consider the good folks who would not care to meet a smart, most interesting man who advertised disdain for creatures we cherish. Both parties would have lost opportunities to engage and exchange. Third, by wearing a billboard disparaging values many hold dear, he coarsens society.

You can probably add to damages of this relatively trivial assault but let’s extend the lesson and formulate a New Year’s resolution.

Early this year the BBC reported: “Harry Says Sorry for Nazi Costume. Prince Harry has apologised for wearing a swastika armband to a friend’s fancy dress party.” And the event was just prior to Holocaust Memorial Day.

Now consider sporting a Che Guevara T-shirt in a public venue like Bozeman’s Ridge Athletic Club. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has recurrently castigated naïve progressives for their infatuation with Guevara and Castro. Noting the Che T-shirt that performer Carlos Santana wore to the Oscars, Cohen asked, “What was he celebrating? Firing squads [for political opponents]?”

A totalitarian thug analogue to Che is Horst Wessel, the Nazi Brownshirt “martyred” in the early days of Hitler’s rise. He was immortalized in numerous fascist books and films, just as Che is mythologized today on T-shirts and posters.

Though Nazism claimed only one-tenth the lives of communism, imagine the obscenity of Wessel’s portrait adorning a popular clothing line. To many intelligent and discerning folks who really do understand history, Guevara’s dashing countenance is equally offensive.

Here’s my proposed resolution. If you see a friend sporting a symbol of evil and depravity, help him and others. Some folks demonstrate the ignorance, arrogance, and insensitivity required to proudly display the hammer and sickle. Help her just as I helped my friend. Explain the affront to victims.

Communists and Nazis have killed more than 66 million people. Many of their victims’ kin are with us, e.g., Chinese, Hungarians, Poles, Romanians, and Hmong. It’s mean and coarse to flaunt symbols of communist or Nazi totalitarianism.