In his State of the Commonwealth speech on January 11, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin acknowledged:
As well as, Virginians – not the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] – ought to personal the wealthy and vibrant agricultural lands God has blessed us with.
That’s the reason I’m asking the Normal Meeting to ship me a invoice to ban harmful international entities tied to the CCP from buying Virginia farmland.
The stakes are too excessive and the implications are too nice.
Buddies, that’s simply frequent sense.
I hope all through our time right here, that as we attain moments of deadlock… whether or not on who ought to personal Virginia farmland, methods to shield the privateness of our youngsters on-line, or whether or not Virginia regulation must be written in Virginia or California… we’ll discover the braveness and the arrogance to decide on commonsense.
His “Virginians” level within the first sentence is simply an empty rhetorical flourish; he has no intention of prohibiting folks from Maryland or Georgia or California from proudly owning farmland in Virginia. As he makes clear, he desires to ban “entities tied to the CCP” from buying Virginia farmland.
Why? What are the stakes? What are the potential penalties? Youngkin doesn’t say; he says that it’s frequent sense.
However, as Charley Hooper and I say in our e-book, Making Nice Choices in Enterprise and Life, frequent sense “is just not all that frequent.” I feel that is an occasion.
What’s he afraid that entities tied to the CCP would do in the event that they personal farmland? Would they take it out of manufacturing? That might damage customers, however it might additionally damage the house owners of the all of a sudden unproductive land. Would they make the farmland much more productive? That might assist customers. It could additionally damage competing farmers, however that shouldn’t be a priority of somebody who, not less than often, makes noises in favor of free markets.
Land, furthermore, goes nowhere, actually. So no matter entities tied to the CCP would possibly do, the land is an extremely good hostage that provides the U.S. authorities leverage in coping with the CCP. I’m not advocating that the U.S. authorities use that leverage. My level is just that politicians who’re that destructive on CCP affect ought to understand that they’ve that leverage.
The image above is of Virginia farmland.
