Words we don't hear enough these days: "We're not going to do that."

A lawyer I knew who once worked for Tip O’Neill liked to tell the story of how the then-Speaker reacted to the clamor by Democrats to impeach Ronald Reagan over the Iran-Contra matter. According to the lawyer, O’Neill shot the idea down with these few words: “We’re not going to do that.”

We’ve seen less restraint since the days of Reagan and O’Neil. When opportunities like the one presented by Iran-Contra arise, “We’re not going to do that” usually seems to be replaced by “Go for it.”

That’s been the case with impeachment. When the opportunity arose to impeach Bill Clinton for lying under oath about his sex life, Republicans went for it even though there was no chance of removing Clinton from office.

When the opportunity to impeach Donald Trump for a statement to Ukraine’s president that was improper but nowhere close to an impeachable offence, Democrats went for it even though there was no chance of removing Trump from office.

In both cases, I believe the better call would have been, “we’re not going to do that.” (I admit, though, to thinking the Clinton impeachment was the right course at the time.)

The lack of restraint extends beyond impeachment. Thus, Barack Obama went for it when he issued Executive Orders on immigration despite previously acknowledging that he lacked the power to do it.

Democrats and their media allies went for it when they set out to sabotage the presidency of Trump by pursuing the Russia collusion conspiracy theory based on little more than unsupported claims in a scurrilous piece of opposition research.

Trump, for his part, went for it when he tried to pressure Mike Pence into violating his constitutional duty and, as part of the pressure campaign, called for a mass protest in Washington, D.C. that always held the real possibility of turning into a riot.

And recently, a handful of Republican House members went for it when they prevented the House from passing a spending bill that provided for an 8 percent reduction in federal spending — actual spending, not cuts in future growth. It’s true that negotiations with the Senate would have resulted in a less substantial reduction, but spending cuts there would have been. That prospect was good enough for most members of the House Freedom Caucus, but not for a handful of members.

As a result of that handful “going for it,” House Republicans and Democrats, in order to avoid a government shutdown, jointly passed a measure to keep the government open for forty-five days, and the GOP apparently has had to abandon its plan to seek cuts.

What the handful of Republicans seem really to have been “going for” is the ouster of Speaker McCarthy. I have no view on whether McCarthy should be Speaker. But when it came to jeopardizing real spending cuts in order to put McCarthy behind the eight-ball, the response should have been “we’re not going to do that.”

Lack of restraint is not a conservative value. And more often than not, it betrays a lack of respect for the institutions established by our Constitution that also is non-conservative.

However, we may be past the point when either side in what some call our “cold civil war” is likely to see merit in restraint. Tit-for-tat seems more appealing. (I’m not exempt from that appeal.)

And even when our side sees merit in restraint, important outliers like Trump and Rep. Matt Gaetz will not — with very bad results.