On Executing Architects

    Let me state for the record that I am not in favor of executing architects for bad designs.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/259383/north-korea-unveils-new-airport-executes-architect-daniel-greenfield

    No one likes to see their own executed (I know, there are exceptions to this rule) so when I got my periodic architectural missive from True Hue News about the North Korean architect killed because, it is said, Kim Jong-un didn’t like his airport design I was instantly ‘fear-cinated’.

    But the article turned out to be a scurrilous screed by one Daniel Greenfield of something called Front Page Magazine that lays the whole infrastructure envy at the feet of “Liberals” (first word in his article, btw). By the time I got to the Stalin-admiring-Liberals-who-will-doom-this-nation-to-the-same-fate-as-North-Korea I needed a drink.
    Here is the view from Milan:

    I never heard of Stalin-love from Liberals, but quite a bit of Mussolini-love (trains on time, etc.) from the Right. And while it is true the US underinvests in infrastructure it is hardly due to the pesky regulations Mr. Greenfield claims. We don’t have a train system because of EIS regulations? Our power grid is years behind Italy’s because it is over-regulated?

    North Carolina once had more federal highways per capita than any other state because Jesse Helms was an effective senator with a taste for pork. The fastest Amtrak trains are slower than the slowest Freccia trains in Italy because of the considerable funds invested in (diverted to) roads not rails.

    And while it is regrettable that Kim Jong-un has executed 70 people since in power, over a similar length of time (different time period) Texas executed 127 people. Just Texas. The US executed 177 people since Kim has been in power.

    My fave li(n)e from the article is:
    “And remember that if the left wins completely here, this is what we’ll eventually end up looking like [N. Korea]”. Apparently in some ways we already do.

    Capital punishment is not a deterrent to crime, nor to bad design.
    And apparently the truth is not a deterrent to Daniel Greenfield.