Eric Garner, the 43-year-old asthmatic black-marketeer who, for selling untaxed cigarettes, was choked to death by police, and whose death was ruled a homicide, exposes the rotten core not only of law enforcement run amok but also, just as significantly, of government laws, regulations, and taxation, and its unintended consequences.
Eric Garner was selling a (for now) perfectly legal product — cigarettes — and he was selling them as singles (or “loosies,” as they’re called). Why was he selling them?
“Because New York officials inflict on their long-suffering subjects the highest cigarette tax in the country at at $4.35 per pack, plus another $1.50 levied in the city itself. It’s not a popular tax, with smuggled smokes making up 60.9 percent of the market. So the powers that be unleash the cops to enhance revenue by tracking down shipments of smuggled cigarettes and, on occasion, putting the occasional small-time street vendor in an illegal chokehold.
Which is to say, Eric Garner was murdered for the purposes of revenue enhancement.”
(Link)
It will be fascinating to see how the Religion of Leftism, which worships at the shrine of taxation and bureaucracy, reacts to monstrous injustice.
Graphic video: