Edit: the state taxes and the state licenses. It has to permit the activity, that is the activity must be lawful before it can be licensed.
Yes. As I said, we safely can ignore the taxation part of your argument. If I'm understanding you right, you are saying that taxation presupposes permission and license (whether formally, vis-a-vis actual state documentation, or else, informally, in which case license is nothing but permission). Again, I've already shown why mere permission or allowance doesn't constitute cooperation. Permission, at least in the negative sense, implies inaction, not action.
So the problem doesn't arise in the taxation. It arises in the license (here, understood not as simple permission, but as formally expressed in State documentation).
It's arguing with half the point, which is the foundation for what follows.
And that half the point ultimately is irrelevent to the case. That's what I'm getting at. You can't argue "allowance" for the reasons I've already indicated. If your point is driven by arguments about "allowance," they're doomed to failure from the start. Simple allowances doesn't constitute cooperation.
No, taxation is the further profit from license, which is itself profitable.
Great. Then let's stick to discussion about license, and ignore the matter of taxation. I think, by now, it's evident that the taxation bit ultimately doesn't matter for our discussion. :idunno:
Well, no, not if you understand that they literally have a license to sell their product. You're thinking of license as permission, I suppose.
I understood it in the former sense. I understand you as saying the following: The government taxes cigarretes and issues licenses to cigarrette salesmen. Taxation of cigarettes presupposes the issuance of licenses.
What I am saying is that we can ignore the latter point, since the "force" of your argument ultimately comes, not from taxation, but from the issuance of the license. Taxation in and of itself doesn't get you the point that you want.
It was in the quote itself. If you can't operate a business without purchasing a license then your sale depends on that license.
Right. I still wonder whether this constitutes facilitation, though. Spoken differently, is the government actually doing something to promote the sale of tobacco? It seems to me that the purpose of State issuance of licenses for the sale of tobbaco is to restrict tobacco sales, not to promote it. In other words: "We won't make tobacco sales illegal, but if you want to sell it, then you'd better make sure that you comply with x, y and z regulations."
You may be right, though, that there is at least some degree of cooperation in issuing such licenses. I just don't know what degree that is. It may or may not be formal (though I really don't think that it's formal).
And again, what does the license do? Is it just a State permission to sell with no further benefit or State intervention?
If so, it seems to me to be disanalogous to the issuance of marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
1. By issuing a marriage license, the State is saying: "These people are married." I.e., the State is saying: "We recognize that these sodomites are 'married.'" That in and of itself constitutes formal cooperation.
2. The State attaches all sorts of rights, priveleges, benefits, etc. to being married. Not to mention the associated social/cultural connotations/approval. Again: formal cooperation.
Is a marriage license really comparable to a tobacco selling license? One strikes me as more of a simple permission (aimed at restriction and dissuasion), whereas the other strikes me as more of an endorsement and promotion.
I've never thought of it in those terms. Why not ask if a white lie outrages God? Else, I believe that knowingly harming yourself is contrary to His will and that seems sinful to me, however you couch the harm and God's reaction.
Every sin is an offense against God and incurs His righteous anger and punishment (not to be understood anthropomorphically, of course).
I'm suggesting it is virtuous to keep your body in good working order for the sake of your witness as a Christian, that those things which work contrary to that state work contrary to the good and God's desire.
"The virtue of temperance disposes us to avoid every kind of excess: the abuse of food, alcohol, tobacco, or medicine. Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others' safety on the road, at sea, or in the air (CCC 2290)."
I'm not sure what constitutes "abuse." I have severe doubts that smoking a single cigar less than once a month constitutes abuse.
My thoughts on this are the following:
Like most matters of temperance (i.e., food, drink, sex, and other goods of the body), most of these acts are not intrinsically evil (the exception being contraceptives, sodomy, bestiality and other such things which wholly frustrate the end of the faculty involved). In cases of temperance, degree actually does count. One piece of pie is fine. The entire pie? Probably not. 2 beers are fine. 12 are not.
And harms anyone who smokes, also contributing to deaths from associated effects.
158,040 Americans are expected to die from lung cancer in 2015, according to the American Lung Association. Additionally, "Smoking, a main cause of small cell and non-small cell lung cancer, contributes to 80 percent and 90 percent of lung cancer deaths in women and men, respectively. Men who smoke are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer."
A cursory google search showed me that all of those numbers ultimately amount to the following:
1 in 10 lifelong smokers get lung cancer.
Roughly 1 in 3 will die from a smoking related illness.
Note, these are lifelong smokers.
I don't think that a single cigar less than once a month will destroy your health.
Smoking is an attack on your own body, a body no longer your own and therefore an attack on the owner. Take a guess at who that landlord is.
You needn't even appeal to God. You could also make the argument that it constitutes a sin against justice against the political society. We are related to it, insofar as material individuals, as part to whole (contra the insistences of the libertarians).
No, it's an answer to, "What harm?" in part.
Fair enough.
Which wouldn't address the point that this act is both harmful and without any redeeming or offsetting moral value. You could die saving a busload of nuns and count it virtuous. But we aren't talking about that.
There could be "redeeming and offsetting" goods. Smoking a single cigar at a monthly party with your friends obtains goods of relaxation, social interaction, etc, whereas the harm to your health is probably negligible.
I mean, I don't recommend it, of course. I just doubt that it would constitute an abuse.
