Buttons and Bumperstickers
An underappreciated art form--in some ways closer to poetry than to prose. The goods ones make an argument or tell a joke or story in an impossibly small number of words.
Consider one of my favorites: "What If They Had a War and Nobody Came?" Nine words to sketch a profound and debatable point--that there is no "they," that state action always comes down to choices by individuals. Auden did it in eight--"There is no such thing as the state"--but not as well. The same point is, I hope, one of the ideas implicit in the novel I have forthcoming from Baen this spring--but it took me a lot more words.
Or, another favorite of mine, "Don't Commit Suicide: It is Illegal to Destroy Government Property." My wife offers, as a different example of the same art form, the title of an essay by Thomas Sowell: "Pink and Brown People." And, for maximum offensiveness in minimum words: "Nuke the Whales."
Herewith two of mine, both for specialized audiences. One, intended as a button to be sold at events of the Federalist Society: "Lochner v. New York was Rightly Decided." The other, a bumper sticker for those of us who spend too much time in multiplayer online games: "My Alt is a BMW."
Commenters are invited to post their favorites.