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Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Occasional Wisdom of Standing Pat

A phrase I heard on the radio the other day is the title of a recent Wall Street Journal editorial and also of a book: "Don't just do something. Stand there."

As soon as I heard it, I wished I could take credit for it. It is brief, to the point, and very expressive of a simple truth that is too often forgotten: In the mad rush to "do something," all too often anything, to solve some problem, real or perceived, we are prone to forget the all-too-real possibility that we might make things worse.

"Possibility" is too mild a word when "doing something" means "government doing something." When government does something, the probability of screw-ups and dangerous unintended consequences is so high as to be a virtual certainty.

The reality is that often, even in the midst of a very bad situation, the best course of action government can take is simply to "stand there," recognizing that it is simply not suited to be the agency by which the solution comes. Sometimes it really is best to just stand pat.

2 comments:

  1. Bravo. You might like:
    http://www.mokurendojo.com/2006/12/progress-but-not-ballistic.html

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  2. T'weren't bad. I ain't a big poetry buff, but that weren't bad.

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