Legislation is the polar opposite of a one-off repair that has to happen in the field under strict time and resource constraints. It generally applies to everyone, permanently, and inaction is equivalent to delegation to decentralized decisionmakers so you can take as long as you want to be deliberate and correct.

When the farmer fixes the tractor with baling wire and chewing gum, you give them credit for making do. When the tractor maker systematically does the same thing in the factory, it's time to get your tractors from someone else.

> This is not the world we operate in unfortunately.

The is/ought dichotomy is no excuse when you're the one deciding what to do or who to support, because it's you choosing what is with the opportunity to do as you ought.

In one case you do things having thoroughly considered them and refrain from issuing mandates when their net benefit isn't large and unambiguous. A government that acts cautiously and deliberately and refrains from acting when that isn't possible is not one that never takes any action at all. You can be careful without being infallible.

In the other case you pass sloppy rubbish based on rhetoric and populism, don't solve the problem, create new problems, waste resources and divert attention from better solutions, often make the original problem worse and generally just make a hash of things because you're proposing something loud instead of something good.

And issuing no central mandate doesn't inherently mean the problem doesn't get solved, it just means it gets pushed to someone else who may have individual preferences or better context and allows different people to make different choices.