If you can’t live your life sensibly, you’ll just have to live it as a cautionary tale for others. Witness the recent political upheaval over the budget and debt ceiling in Washington and the backlash against the Republicans who perpetrated the debacle.

What might be the takeaways from such an embarrassing episode? This is important, class, because sometimes our legislators justify acting foolishly by saying that the other party did it first. I would like to think that won’t happen some time when the liberal wing of the Democratic Party wants its own way so badly it is tempted to cripple government functions and threaten a national fiscal default. Dems should let the debacle of the 16-day federal government black hole be a lesson to us. What rules might we consider?

Rule #1: You’re in government. You’re the face of government. Don’t become the poster child for downsizing government. Cartoonist Matt Bors illustrated this adage with four panels showing things people like more than Congress: head lice, used car salesmen, the rock group Nikelback and root canals. No offense to head lice. This is based on Public Policy Polling of 830 Americans in January. Also more popular than Congress were colonoscopies, traffic jams, Genghis Kahn and Brussels sprouts.

Rule #2: Remember the Law of Unintended Consequences. It’s ironic that the Republican Party became its own case in point, and after the partial shutdown, many Americans want to downsize that bunch. A Post-ABC survey showed the party with 32-percent positive, 63-percent negative public standing. The Tea Party fared worse with a less-than-25 percent approval rating.

Rule #3: Don’t call it a shutdown. It was a brownout, like when a city’s utilities are failing, the lights dim and blink. They don’t go black. Much of the federal government kept limping along. Veterans’ hospitals stayed open, Social Security checks got mailed and active military members, postal workers, air traffic controllers, border control officers and federal prison guards went to work. Tell the truth—you’re willing to maim but not kill public services. That would make you look even worse and people would realize you don’t really want to downsize government.

Rule #4: Do call it hostage-taking. The hostage was the American economy. The brownout wasted billions of taxpayers’ dollars. The research firm IHS estimated about $3.1 billion was lost in services to the public. The U.S. Travel Association says about $152 million per day was not spent on travel. National parks lost about $76 million per day. In the Washington, D.C. area alone, about $217 million was lost in wages in federal and contractor payments. Federal workers will be paid back, but contractors are likely out of luck.

Rule #5: You also hurt the ones you love. Yes, if you close portions of the government, some of the things you favor will be shuttered. The National Park Service closed more than 400 of its sites, including the Statue of Liberty, Valley Forge and the National Mall, where visitors protested after metal barriers were erected on Oct. 1

Ironically, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz asked protesters, “Why is the federal government spending money to erect barricades to keep veterans out of this memorial?”

Um, which part of shutting down non-essential services didn’t you understand, Sen. Cruz? More than 300 NPS service workers who maintain the park had been furloughed, and park police who were guarding the memorials during the protests were not being paid.

Rule #6: National priorities will be skewed. You can never predict what people will list at the top of their outrage column. While some protested and made headlines for not being able to visit national parks and monuments, support for the Women, Infants and Children program, which provides food and health care referrals for 9 million pregnant women and new mothers, was scheduled to be cut off by the Department of Agriculture if the Congress did not approve a budget.

How many more were affected because the Center for Disease Control had to suspend its flu prevention program, federal financing for small businesses was hampered, tourism took a hit, and Head Start programs began closing?

Rule #7: Your actions will be remembered by voters, because you will have touched many of them. During the brownout, I was in Duluth for a symposium sponsored by the International Wolf Center. The 500 attendees noticed that six or so of their associates—wildlife experts from across the country—were absent due to the federal budget mess. This was a miniscule sample of the public. Imagine how many voters were touched by the 800,000 “non-essential” federal employees who were furloughed from Veterans’ Services, the Justice Department, the Center for Disease Control the Department of Labor and dozens of other agencies.

Rule #8: No matter what you say, no matter whom else you try to blame, the voters will remember your true motives. In this case, it was about stopping a law that helps low-income Americans buy health insurance.

Let’s let the Republican outcomes be a lesson to us all and take the story as a cautionary tale. No need for Democrats—or Republicans—to ever repeat this disaster. The outcomes may not stop anyone from holding the budget hostage again. If not, life will just keep giving us that painful lesson until we get it.