No politically literate person who's informed on this issue would deny that certain Democrats, appointed and elected, drive the assault on ecigs. Democrats not particularly avid on the issue will still likely support them. Especially in DC - when we get to states and counties things get a bit more blurry.
No matter what party we affiliate with, that's the affiliation of the power-people we're opposing here. That's just a plain fact.
I don't find it unusual or incoherent to oppose those half-baked opinions and deplorable actions on the part of fellow Democrats. I disagree with various Democrats all the time, sometimes very intensely; Republicans obviously do plenty of that, too. Those rigid boxes are constructed by the powers who benefit from division, and are fed to us by media.
I've never known anyone, not even the staunchest and most loyal party member, who actually agrees with their party all of the time - most spend as much time railing at their own as at the opposition, on both sides. Doesn't change the basic affiliation, usually.
Everyone (so far as I can tell, and I might be mistaken) in here agrees on one thing: we don't want the FDA or anyone else to interfere with our right to use, purchase, manufacture or sell this product. We oppose persons, actions and agencies insofar as that's what they're doing. Beyond that, we've got diversity of opinion, like it or not. How we deal with that in an issue-focused forum is an ongoing, prickly discussion.
Whatever our POV on gun control, health care, gay marriage, church and state, corporate regulation, tax structures, Israel and Palestine, NSA, drones, the general character of the current president, immigrants at the border, even other policies endorsed by those who need to be opposed on this one, etc etc etc, we're all angry at the this absurd and oppressive debacle and want to do what we can to fight it.
To me, focus on the need for solidarity trumps the right to contentious self-expression that accidentally or deliberately lumps other members into a perceived enemy camp - in this forum. The whole wide world is the venue for those conflicts.
As for Bill mentioning Obama in that excellent piece - well, Bill's larger political agenda might not square with mine, but I didn't and don't see him opining tangentially. It was a fact he landed on, and one utterly relevant to the cause. Obama signed that. To the extent that he's responsible ultimately for every agency decision that he signs onto, he owns it. It's not been made right, and it's something to be angry about whatever anyone's opinion on his other policies. IMHO
I should always add IMHO because sometimes I think I write like a pompous ... and I'm really not. :/
