Not at all, I'm not referring to the existentialist universe of 'free will' (nor to the foundation of traditional theism - ie that there is a personal, transcendent God who performs magic and possesses free will), but to the pomo capitalist construction of 'personal choice,' [essential to capitalism's functioning] which entails rationalizing some interiorised, psychologistic interpretation of the world over one which emphasizes the real of social and political power, the latter actually determining such 'personal' choices. And we can indeed think without the concept; in fact, we must do so, if we wish to avoid reason giving way to mysticism.
[How is personal choice 'technically' a myth?]
I was equating personal choice with free will (hence why I criticised you for reducing the concept to it's New-Labour-apologetic sense. But I see now that you understand 'personal choice' in the latter sense so I'll treat it that way.) I was raising the possibility that free will may be a myth in that even though it may not - technically - exist, it certainly serves us well to believe it does. But let's stick to personal choice and not go down that road now...
Why would you want to - theoretically - separate them? What interests - other than power - does that serve (such a schizophrenic failure of cognitive mapping)?
Can you explain what you mean by a schizophrenic failure of cognitive mapping?
The reason I would want to theoretically separate them is to preserve the distinction between intention and action, between thought and its consequences. The smoking ban may have been instigated by the same people who are now pushing the health privatisation agenda, but it may still be considered to be right thing to do, given the application of *other* criteria for 'right action' than the (as you rightly point out) deeply suspect notion of personal choice currently being peddled by governments and businesses worldwide. You can accept the rightness of one without necessarily accepting the rightness of the other - I do, and this is why I say they are theoretically separable. Don't you think it's better to consider a proposition in terms of the likely consequences for those whom it affects than to base your judgement solely on who thought it up and why? I'm not saying the latter isn't important, but I do maintain that there is more than one way of looking at things. I defended the smoking ban before in terms of rights - the right to breathe clean air, the right to not be harmed - the flip side being the responsibility of smokers to not harm others around them. Alternatively, you could conceive of it as the maintenance of safe public spaces in which no-one has to physically suffer just for being around other people. Sure, you might also phrase your argument in terms of personal choice (as I, stupidly as it turned out, did upthread) - but only as a means of appealing to currently fashionable ways of thinking. The arguments themselves are more solid than that.
Anyway, you need to justify allowing people to continue smoking in public places rather than just attacking my defence of the ban... Can you do that?