History of the no brainer

The people who say some policy is a "no brainer" either haven't engaged their own brains or do not want you to engage yours.

The fixed election date was one of those policies that was promoted mostly as a no brainer.  We were not supposed to be skeptical about it or explore deeply into its potential consequences. It was a no brainer, just implement it.  Somehow taking powers away from parliament is always good, even though parliament's ineffectuality is always the problem we come back to.

Now we have fixed election dates established in law in Canada and most of the provinces, though indeed the laws are frequently revised and often evaded for partisan convenience. Here Chantal Hébert starts the counter revolution, observing how they have made our politics worse in all the ways they promised to make them better.

What other ideas in this area get promoted as no brainers? I think the leading one is proportional representation, the idea that we should deal with the malign influences of excessive party dominance by giving the parties even more power over who sits in the legislatures.