I’ve been reading a lot of Dave Barry lately. I always look for his books at used bookstores and library sales. Not only are they funny, they’re informative. Right now I’m reading “Bad Habits,” a collection of his columns published in 1985 (some of which I think appeared in other collections) I picked up at the Old Book Store in Northampton. It’s a great store and I highly recommend it.

Anyways, a lot of the columns were about then-current events in the mid-80s, and from what I’ve read, they were a lot like today’s current events. Republicans were masquerading as supporters of spending cuts and less government interference while simultaneously increasing its size and expenditures; the federal budget deficit was dominating the news and everyone was convinced education in this country was worthless.

True, there were a lot of differences between 2011 and 1985, such as the Clinton and Bush wars, a $3.00 difference in gas prices, 9/11 and the Internet. The president was an old Republican instead of a youngish Democrat, and the Democrats had controlled Congress for the previous 40 years, but the similarities are striking.

In fact, reading Dave Barry I sometimes get the feeling that history is just repeating itself again. Or rather, as John Peterson, my Advanced Placement United States History teacher, would say, “History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.”

His theory was that every so often – I think it’s about every 20 to 30 years – there would be broad similarities in the issues and solutions of the day. Some philosophers think that those similarities can be explained by thinking of history as a force – sort of like an existential version of The Force from “Star Wars” – that controls certain people’s destinies. If only philosophy had more similarities with Star Wars it might be more popular. Philosophers would also be better remembered if they had telekinetic powers. In fact, many of us would live in constant fear of them.

Regardless, the early 20th century philosopher George Santayana once said something that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill later stole: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

A lot of history teachers I’ve known really love that sentiment – it certainly is a great argument for more funding for history classes. I think Percy Bysshe Shelley was aiming for the same thought when he wrote in “Ozymandias:” “Look on my works ye mighty and despair.”

The ancient kings like Ozymandias, also known as Ramses II, were always building monuments and having inscriptions made that talked about how powerful they were and how they were the greatest, but they never learned that there would be times when their monuments were stripped or torn down for housing, or that the language their inscriptions were made in would be forgotten.

It’s ironic that a politician popularized the Santayana quote. I think that one of the reasons history rhymes is because politicians would rather pretend to solve problems than actually solve them. Actually solving problems could cause change, could catapult politics into the unknown. The scientists who built the first computer probably couldn’t have dreamt of laptops or wi-fi or smartphones, but the very first senators and representatives in 1789 would see that there have been no real changes at all in our political system.

The leadership of this country could have done something about education back in the 80s, but instead, the big debate was over school prayer; they could have done something about the budget, but they spent billions on a bunch of useless weapons systems. Honestly, our political establishment is like Nero, fiddling while Rome burns, and they keep trying to convince us that Rome isn’t burning with bread and circuses. They take loud stands over unimportant issues that should and could probably be settled at the state level while important things like the Patriot Act and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are allowed to become complex bills so large they have their own gravitational pulls.

I guess all we can hope for is that the lions, freed from their cages by the fire, will eat our representatives – now that’s entertainment.

Matthew M. Robare is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].