Smoke and Mirror

So there is a war going on in blogsphere. Libertoons (here and here) are going nuts trying to describe their oppostion or support for Toronto's smoking ban.

Frankly, I am enjoying watching libertarians are having a hard time, twisting and turning themselves into various pretzel shaped objects trying to find an ideologically consistent way to deal with municipal laws.

The truth of the matter is that I am pro smoking by-law. Well, I should actually correct myself, I am pro-federalism. I believe that the federal government ought to be as small as possible, the provincial one as democratic as possible, and the municipal/local ones as authocratic as possible.

Here is my logic: if you don't like Toronto's by-law, then DON'T LIVE THERE. The question is not whether the bylaw works or whether it is "conservative" or "libertarian." (Of course it's neither, and PVLQ's attempt to make it so are just silly.) It is also not a question of political realism (and Aaron Lee Wudrick's attempt to make it one is also silly.) It is a question of a belief in the only system that has ever worked anywhere: federalism.

More on this later.