We have no rights in the eyes of today's government. We are merely "workers" who are to be herded and controlled for the "Greater Good".
As long as we continue to produce and consume, and don't make any REAL stand, governments are indifferent to us... and tobacco is a big money maker.
SO MANY people support all the little things that lead up to the ultimate dissolution of our freedom, seat-belt laws, smoking bans, health insurance mandates, alimony, drug laws, anti gay movements, sodomy laws, anti prostitution laws, anti gambling laws, tax shelters for the rich, gun controls, and on and on and on... But then the minute something begins to have a direct effect on their own lives they wonder where it all went wrong? I don't get it... Someday people will wake up and realize that we were not meant to be slaves and we cannot allow the ILLUSION of safety to infringe on the freedom we were born with.
As long as people continue to vote for (or sit at home and not vote against) laws and regulations that legislate morality, removing freedom in the name of safety, religious belief, righteousness, and the patently ridiculous notion of the "greater good", we will continue to become less and less free (not that we have many freedoms left).
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself." ~Thomas Paine
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." ~Abraham Lincoln