This year's traditional "Silly Season" in politics has been, for the most part, decidedly unsilly. First there was a burst of legislative action, followed by a few bursts of executive action, and the midterm election primaries have been a lot more interesting than usual this August. Plus, there's the Trump Circus, which always seems to be in town. All of this has added up to me not being able to write any fun Silly Season articles. Until now, that is. You have been warned.

From today's New York Times comes this inside-Washington story:

For decades, hundreds of stones that were once part of the United States Capitol Building were abandoned behind a maintenance facility off an unmarked trail at a park in Washington, D.C., delighting visitors.

But no longer. The stones, about two centuries old and made of sandstone and marble, will be shuttled from their home in Rock Creek Park to a storage facility in Fort Meade, Md., and sealed from public view, a relocation that may take years, Bloomberg Government reported.

Fencing already blocks the stones from close view, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service said. The move has sparked the ire of local residents and history buffs accustomed to accessing the unofficial landmark, located about six miles from the U.S. Capitol.

. . .

The stones were dismantled from the East Front Portico after that side was restored from 1958 to 1962, according to The Washington Post. Before finding a resting place in Rock Creek Park, they were stored at the Capitol Power Plant, about a mile south of the Capitol.

Since at least 1982, the stones have been strewn in a secluded area of Rock Creek Park, a 1,754-acre park in the District of Columbia and the third in the nation to be granted national status, and now cover nearly 15,000 square feet of ground, The Post reported.

Over the years, the hidden ruins of the U.S. Capitol became an under-the-radar destination and even garnered a 4.3-star rating on Google Maps. One reviewer called the stones a "little slice of historical heaven." Another described a "very cool graveyard of the past pieces of the Capitol."

There's a photo at the top of the article (apologies if you can't see it due to their paywall) showing some of the stones. They are piled haphazardly in a forest setting, as if workmen weren't particularly concerned about the aesthetics of the arrangement, and they look exactly like what they are: stones that have been exposed to the weather for 40-plus years, after putting in over a century's service as part of a building. Stonehenge this isn't, in other words. It's a pile of used-but-still-perhaps-useful construction materials you might expect to find in a back corner of a secondhand-building-supply company's lot. A pile of big, heavy, not-particularly-interesting stones. [Editor's Note: Sorry, seem to have gone a bit crazy with the hyphens, there....]

Of course, there are those who want the stones to stay where they are. The nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives for the District, Eleanor Holmes Norton, is on this side, stating the stones should stay "in the location they have been for almost 50 years while causing no harm. Being stones, they're well-made to withstand the weather and children climbing on them, and access to historical artifacts can only be beneficial for visitors to Rock Creek Park and the District."

I'm going to sidestep the whole "should they stay or should they go" argument, though. I leave that fight for others. Instead, I'm just going to assume that the bureaucrats win the argument and that the stones will eventually be moved somewhere.

My brilliant idea is for what to do with them. They're obviously not going to be sent to a landfill somewhere or used creatively for another purpose (they're big, weighty stones, they could be used for any number of things). They're just going to pile up in a warehouse or on some forgotten corner of a lot on some federal property somewhere. So why not put them to work? Why not get some very appropriate use out of them?

My suggestion would be to send them to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. You know -- the guys responsible for all the federal prisoners in the country. I would direct the Bureau to clear out some space for the stones -- perhaps in an unused basement area or some small featureless room or some depressing outdoor setting. Ideally, it should be dank and foreboding, but anywhere would really do. They wouldn't take up that much space, there's sure to be some area that could accommodate them. I would have all the stones piled up in a pyramid-shaped pile... on half of the available area. The other half of the area would remain completely empty.

Why would I propose such a thing? For one very specific reason.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons oversees all federal prisoners. This includes, every so often, convicted former members of Congress. And other various former politicians who have either violated the United States Constitution or various federal laws passed in accordance with that Constitution. These are the ones who have violated the laws severely enough to receive prison sentences. I would move each and every one of these crooked politicians to the same facility as the stones.

Their task, from the day they enter prison to the day before they leave, would be a simple one: to move -- by hand -- each and every stone from the pile over to the blank spot on the floor, until the entire pyramid had been rebuilt in this new location. At that point, the prisoners would be provided with rags and mops and whatnot, so they could polish the floor where the stones used to be until it shines. Until you could eat your lunch off that floor.

The next day, they would begin anew, by moving all the stones back to their original position. The pyramid would be dismantled and built back up on the clean spot on the floor. But then, of course, when this task was completed, the floor where the stones had been resting would probably have gotten all dirty. So it would have to be cleaned.

Once this full cycle was complete, it would begin all over again. Rinse and repeat, for the entire duration of every prisoner's sentence. This, it seems to me, would be proper penance for violating their oaths of office. To carefully move stones that used to be part of the United States Capitol and treat the ground on which they laid with dignity and reverence.

It truly would be the perfect punishment.

Now, the photo doesn't show how many stones there are, just one part of what is likely an extensive group of piles (the article does mention "nearly 15,000 square feet of ground," though, which sounds like an awful lot of stones...). So perhaps there would be enough stones to build two such facilities. I would assume that federal prisoners are strictly segregated by gender, so you'd have to have a pile for former members of Congress or other politicians who are women, as well.

Perhaps there would even be enough to have a special pile (or set of piles, also for gender-separation reasons) that all the insurrectionists who have drawn prison sentences for attacking American democracy on January 6th could move back and forth. This would also be beyond appropriate -- them having to bear the weight of the United States Capitol that they attacked. It'd be beyond poetic justice, it'd be actual justice.

I really can't see anything wrong with this idea. To me, it seems not only a perfect solution and a perfect labor to assign to politicians who violate the Constitution, but it seems downright karmic in nature. If they hadn't felt the weight of their crimes when they committed them or had to answer for them in court, they certainly will for their entire sentence. Every single day. And there could be no more appropriate stones for such a redemptive and penitential task than these.

Call it my modest Silly Season proposal.

[Editor's Note: Please notice that I restrained myself from using any puns or quips with "stone" in them throughout this essay... although "everybody must get stoned" was pretty tempting, I must admit. I just wanted to explain the absence of "stone the crows," or "stone-cold," or "rolling stones," or "skipping stones," or the like. You're welcome.]

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant