How often do we hear that, especially on the Today programme? We face this problem – why doesn’t the government do something?

Rarely is the case made is that we have these problems precisely because the government is ‘doing something’ – something absurd. And that by far the best thing is that people sort out the problem for themselves, or just work round it.

Luckily we at least now have a brilliant analysis from Ace of Spades of the Do Something one-way ratchet to collectivism:

One of the most frustrating thing about the politically unaware is their unchanging belief that Something must be done! (all attempts to panic the public into agreeing that Something Must Be Done! are directed at this cohort), but they have little idea of what, specifically, should be done.

Something. You know, something. Something must be done, why are you not getting this?

One thing many conservatives never acknowledge is that, ultimately, a successful candidate must agree with this cohort that Something Must Be Done. They cannot be argued out of this position; they’ve held it all their lives. It’s not merely a belief, it’s an article of faith…

Then there are focus groups:

In other words, they have decided — they just think it makes them seem like smarter, more informed voters to claim they’re still deciding, so they won’t admit that. As they’re actually not very well informed voters — and I think they know this — this pretense becomes very important to them. They need some pretense to excuse away their complete disinterest in reading the news.

So they basically start insisting they want the candidates themselves to catch them up to speed, ignoring the fact that policies are spelled out on their campaign websites, and ignoring the fact that these positions are easily and readily discoverable, just by googling and reading.

But they don’t want to do any of that, so they just keep saying they’ll make their decision when a candidate "gives them the facts," which he already did (well, facts and claims and arguments and themes and spin, at least).

Finally the candidate proposes Something (which may be anywhere between Nothing and Anything) and then they feel happy. It’s all about the difference between active and passive verbs!

If you believe in laissez-faire economics, you shouldn’t say the government should not be involved in the private sector, as a matter of politics. You should say, as Romney does, that the government should "unleash the private sector."

See, that’s something. He’s saying he’s going to do Something. Something must be done, and that something is "unleashing the private sector."

Just something to keep in mind. The difference we’re quibbling about, in some of these ideological disputes, is whether we’re going to employ an active verb or a passive verb in describing policy.

Read the whole superb thing.

Such is democracy. Is it any surprise that after a few decades of this everything is getting more and more stupid?