John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 145-46, under the heading “Knee-Jerks.”

When some sort of economic or social problem arises in this country, what’s the first thing you hear? What happens when a motorcyclist is killed because of a faulty crash-helmet; or some people are stranded overseas by the collapse of a cheap travel agency; or some manufacturing companies are bankrupted because someone overseas develops a better and cheaper product? The first thing you hear is the knee-jerk:
— “the government should do something …”;
— “there ought to be a law …”;
— “they ought to be banned/controlled/licensed/registered …”;
— “we demand a subsidy/enquiry/benefit/tariff/new department …”.

The reflex reaction of a society conditioned to believe that our benevolent Big Brother government can cure anything and everything. Long-term consequences, associated complications, morality — these are promptly forgotten in the rush for the modern cure-all — government action of some form.

And, of course, the governments, composed as they are of professional politicians, ever eager to enhance their own power and influence, encourage and feed off this tendency like parasites and vultures. The result is a vast amount of ad hoc legislation, the growth of numerous government departments, committees and enquiries, and the growth of a lobbying industry. The muddle thus caused in turn generates new problems, which bring forth the inevitable, knee-jerk reactions, and finally more legislation, departments, committees, and so on.

But this cannot go on forever. Mother Nature is a cruel mistress. As Albert Jay Nock said:

Any contravention of natural law, any tampering with the natural order of things, must have its consequences, and the only recourse for escaping them is such as entails worse consequences. Nature recks nothing of intentions, good or bad; the one thing she will not tolerate is disorder, and she is very particular about getting her full pay for any attempt to create disorder. She gets it sometimes by very indirect methods, often by very roundabout and unforeseen ways, but she always gets it … It would seem that our civilisation is greatly given to this infantile addiction — greatly given to persuading itself that it can find some means which nature will tolerate, whereby we may eat our cake and have it; and it strongly resents the stubborn fact that there is no such means.

Knee-jerks are the political equivalent of the cleaner who sweeps the dirt under the carpet; the car dealer who fixes the car so that it holds together until it’s driven out of the yard; the real estate agent who paints over the white ants and doesn’t mention the collapsing foundations. These are the irresponsible, evasive, sneaky, short-term expedients. They make no attempt to understand the problem or solve it.

That knee-jerks are so popular with politicians today is an accurate reflection of the calibre of men who inhabit our parliament and on us, who put them there and let them get away with it.