Thread: As a State, No Smoking; As a Nation, No Deporting

PERSPECTIVE: As a state, no smoking; as a nation, no deporting

Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published: March 13, 2009

This week, Gov. Tim Kaine signed the bill that effectively bans smoking in restaurants and bars — and, for all we know, in shebeens.

During the debate we said that the issue relates neither to the rights of smokers nor to the rights of non-smokers but to the property rights of owners, who ought to decide whether to allow smoking in their establishments or to go smoke-free. Trends suggest that if left to their own devices (and to the sentiments of the marketplace), most restaurateurs and publicans eventually would snuff out smoking. A reliance on freely made decisions promotes the informal code essential to social happiness.

Our argument lost, as the signing ceremony suggests. The motives of the governor and of the legislators supporting the ban lie above reproach. We disagree with their means. Tonight we will toast them, possibly in a café listed as non-fumeur.

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Protesters recently descended on Farmville to oppose the location there of a detention facility for illegal immigrants.

The protesters made all the usual arguments, and some novel ones. One protester carried a sign reading, “We are indigenous with the right to migrate everywhere in our continent!â€

The argument that is usually made is that a particular family of languages is spoken not only in part of Mexico but in the American Southwest and the tribes which speak it lived here before there. They argue that since some of their ancestors passed through here they should be able to live here also. However the same family of languages extends through Mexico to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. The logical inference is that the Indian people of those countries have an inalienable right to live in Mexico. Do you suppose the Mexicans accept that as an argument.