I’d like to make a serious proposal that could bring a better perspective to those tasked with executing the laws of our fair land. A new Cabinet Officer , appointed by congress, to serve in the executive branch as a liaison between the Legislature and the Executive.

Its title would be – ” The Department of History” – or — “The Bureau of What Happened the Last Time We Tried That”. The best historians in the country will convene, as the need arrises, to review any new code, regulation, law, plan or program that our representatives dream up, delve through the archives and find the same or similar efforts to address earlier manifestations of the ‘Eternal’  problems that plaque mankind. ‘There is nothing new under the Sun”, and this would serve to remind us all of that fact.

If a new tax on , say tea , is proposed, our intrepid historians could remind us what happens when a hundred tons of Earl Grey gets dumped in the ocean; the insurance rates on shipping goes up, making transported goods more expensive [ unless you live next door to the factory]  causing people to buy less, leading to a decline in profits, loss of jobs, and a reduction in tax revenues which is what you were trying to raise in the first place.

We have records of the efforts of governments to solve the same problems over and over again, going back six thousand years. Want to increase the money supply by debasing the currency? Learn what Elizabeth 1st was taught by a wise councilor on that very issue. Think you can pay off our enemies to buy a little safety? Better limit the examples to a few hundred or so of why that NEVER works. Think you can lift up the poor by pulling down the rich?————–

All you need to predict the likely outcome of just about any scheme our political “Best and Brightest” [pardon me while I wipe the tears out of my eyes] come up with is there in the long weary history of this sad old  Earth. There are countless examples of the ways those who think they are qualified to rule their fellow-man can pile crushing burdens on him and call it ‘Compassion”. And we never seem to learn.

On second thought, never mind.