DISCOURAGING: Still no Hippocratic oath for architects

Monday, February 2, 2026

https://jeffjacoby.com/31233/the-drawing-that-killed-my-father-family

The drawing that killed my father’s family
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
January 25, 2026

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Unlike the medical profession, which established the Nuremberg Code in the immediate wake of the Nazi doctors’ trials, architecture resisted establishing ethical standards for decades. Not until 2020 — nearly 80 years after Dejaco drafted the whiteprint that paved the way to the Final Solution — did the American Institute of Architects adopt new ethics rules. But those rules specifically address execution chambers and torture facilities. They say nothing — certainly nothing explicit — about designing concentration camps, deportation infrastructure, or industrial-scale crematoria like those Dejaco created.

“There is still no Hippocratic oath for architects,” van Pelt told me.

I went to Los Angeles wondering, as I so often have, how educated professionals — architects, engineers, lawyers, railway administrators — could have facilitated the Holocaust. The whiteprint doesn’t answer that question, of course. It underscores it: an artifact of how ordinary professionalism can be bent to monstrous ends.

There is no evil so monstrous that people cannot be induced to do it, or to avert their gaze while it is being done, if it serves their professional, social, or ideological interests. Dejaco’s drawing is evidence. So is everything that happened afterward.

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“There is no evil so monstrous that people cannot be induced to do it”?

Yet, usually on Facebook, I read stories where ordinary people took great person risk to save people they didn’t even know.

The Greek Island where the Bishop and the Mayor gave the Nazis the demanded “list of all the Jews” with only their two names on it. 

Or the woman who smuggled Jewish babies out of the ghetto.

Or the fellow who pretended to be a Spanish consul to write out passes.

Or the Japanese guy who wrote passes in direct disobedience to his superiors.

Or the priest who turned a seminary dorm into a hide out.

Maybe there are a few good souls that can be counted on?

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ECONOMICS: DJT needs to embrace the chainsaw revolution also

Friday, May 24, 2024

https://jeffjacoby.com/27794/in-argentina-milei-exhilarating-chainsaw

In Argentina, Milei’s exhilarating chainsaw revolution is underway
by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe
May 19, 2024

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Through it all, Milei keeps “making the argument,” as Matthew Lynn wrote recently in The Telegraph. Underneath his brash style he is committed to serious economic and philosophical ideas —about free markets, individual liberty, and a smaller state. Like the economics professor he was for 20 years, he wants people to understand the case he makes for the efficacy of competition and the harms caused by overbearing governments. Everywhere politicians are addicted to subsidies, price controls, deficit spending, and corporate welfare. It is exhilarating to see a national leader who has a radically different vision and champions it unapologetically.

Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.

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One an only hope that this catches on with “We, The Sheeple”.  “Soft landing” might be possible if we get rid of all the mochers, parasitic politicians, and useless bureaucrats!

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VOCABULARY: “Whataboutism” to absolve bad behavior

Thursday, January 19, 2023

https://jeffjacoby.com/26689/when-whataboutism-is-appropriate

When ‘whataboutism’ is appropriate
by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe
January 15, 2023

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“Whataboutism,” a term much in fashion in political circles these days, is a pejorative reference to a very old and familiar argument: A’s bad behavior can’t be condemned because B engaged in bad behavior too.

The term dates back to the Cold War. It was the label given to a tactic perfected by Soviet propagandists. If Western critics blasted Moscow’s crimes in Afghanistan, the persecution of dissidents, or the horrors of the Gulag, trained Soviet flacks would respond with knee-jerk “whataboutism”: What about racism in America? What about Watergate? What about riots in US cities?

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Sorry, but you can’t distract from the point being made about your bad behavior by pointing to someone else’s bad behavior.

Each “counter example” may be worthy of its own discussion, but stick to the point at hand.

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EDUCATION: Time to separate Gooferment from “education”

Thursday, January 12, 2023

https://jeffjacoby.com/26666/the-school-that-sabotaged-its-standout-students

The school that sabotaged its standout students
by Jeff Jacoby The Boston Globe

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It is hard to overstate the outrageousness of this betrayal, but it reflects the school district’s stated determination to “produce equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” Taken literally, such a policy requires the dumbing-down of classroom expectations to the lowest common denominator. It means that high-scoring students must on no account be encouraged to excel.

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“Catholic school taught them that it was their obligation, and could even be a mortal sin, if you didn’t use all your talents to the greater glory of God.” — “Chapter Fifty — Samaritans going to Jericho / Monday November 5, 1962 – Church Day + 17 (continues)” CHURCH 10●19●62 Volume 1 Page 296

I was never a willing student, but I was always “encouraged”  — sometimes with physical violence  — to do my best.

Now, seven decades later, I realize how important that encouragement is.  We don’t have “corporal punishment” like in my day, but sometimes  — to refer to the old joke about the farmer and the stubborn mule  — sometimes “you need to get the student’s attention”.   I like when the student is encourage to learn what they want and when they want to learn.  Maybe we have lost the American ethic to “work hard and smart”.

I admire the Asian family influence over children and the importance of education.  It’s a shame that black students equate being educated with “acting white”.  We’ve failed them.  The late Walter Williams came from the segregated Philly school system where poor performance was just unacceptable.  He attributed his success to the encouragement he got then.

Bottom line for me is that the Gooferment has take over “education” and “achieved” diminishing results and an ever expanding cost.

In the tax revolt of the 1970 in the Pepuls Republik of Nu Jerzee, I urged a “Forty Year” plan to move from the current system to a free market solution.  The first 20 years was a series of 5% liberations of students from the requirement to attend a local public school with a “green voucher” to but whatever education is best for them.  The second 20 years was a series of 5% reduction in the amount of those vouchers.  At the end of 40 years, the problem would be solved.

But, as ususal, politics and the “teachers’ union” was impossible to overcome.

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