Love Skips stuff but, he's a supporter of Progressives who love to NANNY the American public. Once again love Skips stuff but kind of interesting once it goes in a progressive pocket how their tune changes.
Not to belabor this point, but you are right that Skip makes excellent cigars. He is also one of the most available, intelligent, and thoughtful people in the whole Industry. I don't really take kindly to your assertion that he is somehow selling out his principals by pursuing the exemption for premium cigars that we all want. A blatant mischaracterization of the process here.
Again, this whole idea of a "nanny state" is just a figment of some imaginations. The government creates limits to your freedoms all the time. Ever since the writing of the Constitution, in fact. These things that limit your freedom are called "laws." Limiting your freedom do to things without negative consequences is what a law is. A law against murder limits your freedom to kill with impunity. A law against heroin limits your freedom to make, buy, sell and take heroin without arrest, prosecution and incarceration if you are caught.
And a law against children using tobacco is the same thing. This particular ruling was initially written too broadly. We are taking smart, competent, reasonable steps to get this amended. This is not an excuse for anti-governmentalists to stand on their soapbox and yell about the "nanny state" or "freedom" or anything else. It's an opportunity to make a course correction, and not explode things out of proportion. At best, it is a chance to show the world that cigar lovers and their preferred industry are people like Skip: thoughtful, smart, and willing and able to work to make things right for everyone. Let's not blow that chance by being reactionary hotheads.
Read my first post again, please, and the links I embedded. Essentially, there may be much less to worry about than has been trumpeted in this and other forums, even with *no* changes to the existing ruling.
It's the principle of the matter here. Not going to go into a lengthy diatribe, but suffice it to say, it's not the government's place to save us from ourselves. Liberty is typically lost incrementally -- not all at once -- until one morning you wake up, no longer a free man. 
