As I have nothing to say, I’m going to borrow wholesale from Sadly, No! an entertaining blog.

First, some set up. Glenn Reynolds, a kind of conservative law professor and well known blogger, cites with approval the following passage:

>LEE HARRIS ON UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: “It is simply a myth to believe that only interventionism yields unintended consequence, since doing nothing at all may produce the same unexpected results. If American foreign policy had followed a course of strict non-interventionism, the world would certainly be different from what it is today; but there is no obvious reason to think that it would have been better.” posted at 02:21 PM by Glenn Reynolds.

This remark produces the following hilarious retort from Gavin M. of Sadly, No!:

>Well, that’s certainly one way to look at things.

>For that matter, if I hadn’t accidentally flushed my wallet down the toilet, who’s to say that some maniac wouldn’t have come along and flushed it down a toilet anyway? It would almost certainly have been a different toilet, but there is no obvious reason to think that the result would have been better.

>It is simply a myth to believe that only self-wallet-flushing yields unintended consequences, for doing nothing at all may produce the same unexpected results. Say, can I see your wallet for a second?

I suppose the unfunny thing I would have said was that this is what you call the argumentum ad ignorantiam–i.e., when one turns the lack of evidence for a belief into evidence for it. If that sounds too dumb to be true, just reread Reynolds’ original post.