Derbyshire on Monkey, Zen, stimulus

Compare my Presidents' Day post on Coolidge with this by John Derbyshire at The Corner:

In his press conference last week the President chided "a set of folks who … just believe that we should do nothing." This got loud protests from various quarters on the right that, no, there are no such folks. We all want the government to do something.

Well, I'm for nothing. Perhaps not quite nothing: If Congress were just to go on a 12-month vacation, that would be a good thing; but even better would be if they were to spend 12 months doing nothing but repeal bad, stupid laws. (Repealing the CPSIA would be a good warm-up exercise.)

Like Monkey, they just can't sit still. This preposterous "stimulus" package is just one particularly big and obnoxious instance of a malign phenomenon — too much government action. Don't just do something, guys, sit there. But that, of course, is the one thing they can't do.

Monkey? What monkey? You'll have to read the whole thing to find out. It's short.

One of Derbyshire's readers responds, with a suggestion for another $150 billion of "stimulus."

I mentioned "Yes, Minister" syndrome a while ago.