As any number of libertarian writers have pointed out today, the destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore early this morning by a Hyundai-built, massive container ship destroyed not just a key (pun intended) icon of Maryland, but delivered a horrific blow to the economy of these States.

Bridges are important, economically, militarily, socially, and even politically.

A few months back, a railroad bridge north of Pueblo, Colorado collapsed onto I-25 blocking both roadways. It took months both to restore traffic on the freeway and to replace the bridge and allow the only rail line supplying fuel and raw materials to Portland cement plants, the steel plant, and other operations in Pueblo while adding millions in extra costs for everyone from daily commuters to significant retail, wholesale, and manufacturing businesses.

In World War Two, Allied plans to defeat Germany before the harsh winter of 1944-45 were defeated when the last of a series of bridges in the Netherlands could not be captured and held: it was indeed a bridge too far. I’ve been there in Arnham.

In that same war, Wehrmacht failure to destroy a bridge across the Rhein in the Spring of 1945 allowed American forces to rapidly strike deep into Germany by crossing over the bridge at Remagen. But despite the best efforts of Army Engineers, the bridge did finally collapse. But other bridges were in place by then to allow the conquest of the Ruhrgebeit and Germany itself. I’ve been there.

During Cold War I, (1945-1991) hundreds of bridges were prepared for rapid demolition in West Germany by NATO forces to slow down a feared Soviet advance across the North German Plain to occupy Western Europe. In the days when NATO made at least some sense. I’ve seen those bridges and their pre-chambers, not just there but in Switzerland.

Today in Crimea, a single key Russian bridge is considered key to allowing Russia to defend that vital peninsula, and so has been the repeated target of Ukrainian air attacks. Aided by NATO forces in various ways in what is a war of aggression against the Russian people of Crimea.

I was stationed at Fort Scott, California, of which Fort Point is a part:

Fort Point is the fortification literally under the Golden Gate Bridge. The design of the GGB was done to preserve that 180-year-old fortification which guarded the Golden Gate itself. After the Bridge was built in the 1930s, it tied together the fortifications protecting the entrance to San Francisco Bay and its huge ports and naval facilities. The Bridge was guarded carefully as causing it to crash down and block the Gate would have crippled American operations in the Pacific Theatre of WW2.

Bridges are important.

While bridges are paid for by government, they are seldom (if ever) actually built by governments. It is private businesses that actually have the skills and equipment to construct and maintain them. Although TPOL often points out the problem we have with Beltway Bandits and other companies who contract with the FedGov, State and local government, they do things that government cannot. And because of that, they are paid out of “taxpayer” or borrowed money that the bureaucrats and officials and other government parasites don’t get to keep for themselves. So they are disliked.

The idiotic mainstream media has done its usual stupid job of concentrating on the human tragedy and the touchy-feely nonsense of how people in Baltimore are being emotionally drained. Do not get me wrong: the lost of 20 or more lives in a few seconds is a tragedy. But the bigger tragedy in the short and long run will be the destruction of the economy of Baltimore and Maryland – and the massive disruption to the economy of all the States due to the closure of Baltimore’s critical port. (After all, Maryland does (or did) have an economy other than being a bedroom community and overflow government office space for DC.)

Now, if we didn’t have stupid politicians in charge, it would no doubt be a matter of days to at least get enough of the fallen spans of the bridge out of the way and open the shipping channels in and out of Baltimore and into Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic. (Although a major part of that effort could be done with the workforces of civilian firms and deployment of military and civilian assets of the US Army Corps of Engineers and US Navy Seebees and UDT (Underwater Demolition Teams) to clear the wreckage.) That would repair or at least mitigate much of the damage.

Rebuilding the bridge will take billions: billions which the insipid and pathetic mayor of Baltimore has already demanded that the FedGov pay for entirely. After all, his city hasn’t made billions from the shipping trade and the massive taxes (“fees”) the city charges. Sadly, it appears that Uncle Joe has no problem with DC footing all the bill – even while he talks nonsense about riding the train over the bridge between DC and Delaware for decades. (Hint: it was NOT a railroad bridge.)

So all the graft and corruption and political posturing and pandering is already kicking in – and it all means delays and more delays. If people thought that California’s garbage high-speed rail fiasco was expensive, take a deep breath. Maryland and Baltimore will milk the other 44 States for billions. That might seem to “save” their economy. (If you believe in the “broken window fallacy.”) But that is a forlorn hope: it will not make up for the tens of thousands of jobs lost, the hundreds of millions of indirect costs, or the increased rape of American taxpayers, present and future.