Eric Garner, father of six, was simply standing on a sidewalk selling individual cigarettes to pedestrians. The local merchants, who sell cigarettes by the pack and therefore must charge New York state’s exhorbitant cigarette tax, complained to the authorities about this “unfair competition.” The government sent six heavily armed tax collection enforcers . . . er, I mean, police officers . . . to accost Mr. Garner. They took him down and murdered him by choking him to death. The coroner ruled the death a homicide. The “grand jury” does what grand juries always do — they let the cops off with no penalty at all. Death by tax collector would be more accurate.
Deprive the state of . . . what — three or four bucks of tax revenue — and they may send armed men to kill you.
I’m old enough to remember how conservatives used to criticize the totalitarian governments of the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China, among others, for executing people on the street for committing “economic crimes against the state.” Conservatives today are either silent about this or actually defend the murderous, out-of-control cops. Eric Garner was murdered in cold blood, in public, for allegedly committing the “economic crime against the state” of selling tax-free cigarettes.
8:12 pm on December 3, 2014
