The Craft of Political Forecasting–Get In the Game!

I am a very happy subscriber to STRATFOR, and I have had the pleasure of having a few conversations with CEO & Founder George Friedman.  I am currently reading his book The Next 100 Years, and his focus on the “impersonal forces that shape geopolitics” is exactly the kind of grounded insight I need to stay objective when I look at the threat of massive economic meltdown in the country due to our unsustainable and rising debt levels.

I can wholeheartedly recommend STRATFOR and The Next 100 Years.  But more foundationally, I not only recommend but absolutely want to compel every reader here to consider political analysis a craft, a skillset that demands years of focus, objective evaluation, and iterative adjustments.  Once you develop a methodology for breaking down the issues within a broader frame of reference (which I would hope is rooted in our Constitution and its outlook on man, government, tyranny, and liberty), then one can move from political analysis to political forecasting–projecting your data-driven understanding of key trends into the future to make educated guesses on where things are going and what threats we need to be preparing for now.

I’d argue that the culture of compromise in Washington has been allowed to increase our national debt levels into the stratosphere because we the people have not had visibility into Washington’s machinations, and also because we have outsourced our political analysis to either the left or the right in the great left-right game.

As a Christian citizen, I am starting to see it almost as a sin to adopt the common left vs. right perspective of events.  At a minimum, adopting that frame of reference tends to produce certain temptations to judging one’s fellow citizens as beneath you if they sit on the other side of the partisan divide, and that kind of attitude is certainly sinful.  To minimize the inherent human dignity of anyone created in the image of God is a form of assault on the majesty of God Himself, at least in my limited opinion.

More than producing a temptation to self-righteously judge others, outsourcing one’s thought on politics to the leading voices in the left-right game (whichever side you choose) is, in my mind, an abdication of one’s sacred calling to be a faithful citizen and steward of our nation for the next generation.  Think about that.

And if you want to begin on the hard path of taking back your mind and your sacred duty from those in our political media culture (whether politicians or pundits), I suggest you begin with choosing to develop the craft of political analysis for yourself, with helpful guides like George Friedman.  A good place to start is with understanding STRATFOR’s own methodology and adapting into into your perspective, starting with what Friedman lays out right here:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92NlIr4BnVE]