Mark Twain once said “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.”

Twain’s wit highlights the very concept of doing something well-intentioned but creating a bigger mess than what was originally made.

Politicians and leaders have done this repeatedly in world history. Take the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, for instance. The intent was to protect American farmers and manufacturing in hopes countries would invest more in American manufacturing, thereby boosting our struggling economy.

That did not happen as it caused a trade war, which destroyed American exports and worsened the depression. We can even examine the Prohibition Era of the 1920s as another example.

With the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in early 1919, t

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