Fifteen Stubborn Ironies for the New Year

The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day typically conforms to the 80/20 rule: it’s mostly used for reflecting on the past year, even though a few brave souls venture a prediction or two for the upcoming year.  Nonetheless, with apologies to Vilfredo Pareto, I’m throwing his rule out the window.  This will be a brief reflection on 2006, followed by a substantial prediction for 2007—and I’m 99% certain that my fifteen-part prediction will come true.       

What I relearned in 2006:
Most blog visitors like posts that are short and to the point.  They do not like lengthy dissertations.  Example: The most-visited page by far, in the two-year history of this blog, is the Pie Chart of Who Owns the National Debt.  I’m guessing it’s because it blows away, with one simple picture, the popular misconception that China’s share of our national debt is a mile-high tsunami headed our way.  In any case, one picture is worth a thousand words. 

Prediction for 2007:
Liberals and conservatives will take many positions bristling with irony and self-contradiction, and they’ll do it without batting an eye.  The reason I’m 99% confident it will happen is because it’s already been happening for a long, long time, and there’s still no end in sight. 

Today, while pondering the state of political and economic rhetoric, I ended up making a list of things that strike me as ironic.  As it turns out, the list is fifteen ironies long: five are typical of liberals, five are typical of conservatives, and five are nondenominational.  I had intended to explain all fifteen, one at a time, in this article, but then I remembered what I relearned in 2006 (see above)—so I decided to turn it into a series of five articles that will cover three ironies each.  Five bite-size chunks, one per week, is my plan.  To immunize myself against any accusation of bias or unfairness, each of the five articles will pick on liberals and conservatives in equal measure.  [Good thing I’m not running for office; this is no way to become big-man-in-caucus.] 

I’ve already thought of a title for each of the fifteen stubborn ironies, as well as a numbering scheme to help me keep them straight.  Each week, I’ll explain one irony from each category, and will target Monday or Tuesday for publication.  Here they are, grouped by category (L=liberal, C=conservative, N=nondenominational):

Fifteen Stubborn Ironies that will persist in 2007:

L1 - Intelligent Design Liberalism
L2 - Pro-poverty Liberalism
L3 - Pro-corporate-greed Liberalism
L4 - Anti-Keynes Liberalism
L5 - Pro-corruption Liberalism

C1 - Anti-defense Conservatism
C2 - Anti-America Conservatism
C3 - Pro-government Libertarianism
C4 - Anti-finance Conservatism
C5 - Anti-investment Conservatism

N1 - The Savings Bond Paradox
N2 - The Math Bias
N3 - The Forgotten Goal
N4 - Sanctifying the Forecast
N5 - Buying Off the Beast-around-the-corner

Look for the first in the series early next week.  In it, I’ll cover Intelligent Design Liberalism, Anti-defense Conservatism, and The Savings Bond Paradox. 

In the meantime, Happy New Year to you, your family, and your friends.  Notwithstanding what we keep reading in the headlines, we truly have a lot to be thankful for and optimistic about—largely because of investments and sacrifices made for you and me by Americans of the past.  I was reminded of that when I visited the Reagan Library last week; here’s a souvenir I brought back.  Click to enlarge.

Comments

[Mike]

Hey Steve,

So, you won't run for political office, but would you accept a advisory position to a president if one wanted to appoint you? I personally think you or someone like you could do wonders in that kind of position. It's a shame it's not easier to inundate our political leaders with these ideas to a degree that they cannot ignore. Wishful thinking I suppose...