Posted on 12/06/2014 7:48:41 PM PST by SeekAndFind
In comparison to the Michael Brown shooting, the death of Eric Garner—and the similar decision not to indict the cop who killed him—has drawn outrage from across the political spectrum. Many conservatives, including Breitbart's John Nolte, The Federalist's Sean Davis, and The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis, agreed with anti-police-brutality libertarians and liberals that Garner's killer should have faced charges. The consensus is that the video evidence definitively established wrongdoing on the part of the officer (unlike the Brown case, which relied on conflicting eyewitness testimony).
But because that's no fun, right and left had to find some way to tear each other apart over this. And so the contention—made by some libertarians and conservatives—that punitive cigarette taxes are a contributing factor in Garner's death has driven many on the left into a fit of rage.
Some background on that contention, courtesy Reason's J.D. Tuccille:
Here we have Garner, a guy allegedly selling loosies—single cigarettes—which are a perfectly legal product. Why is he supposedly selling loosies? 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.
On his show last night, Jon Stewart mocked Sen. Rand Paul for making that point. When asked about Garner's death, Paul said: "Some politician put a tax of $5.85 on cigarettes, so they have driven cigarettes underground by making them so expensive, but then some politician also had to direct the police to say, hey, we want you arresting people for selling a loose cigarette."
Stewart's response: "What the fuck are you talking about?"
BuzzFeed's Adam Serwer also criticized the point (though more kindly), in a Twitter argument with Reason's Scott Shackford. "I think 'it's the cigarette tax' is comforting because then we don't have to deal with the racism, which we know isn't getting fixed easily," wrote Serwer.
Media Matters was as nasty as could have been expected, publishing an email update on the matter under the vindictive headline: "Right-Wing Media Parrot Rand Paul's Absurd Assertion That Cigarette Taxes Are To Blame For Eric Garner's Death."
And the most eloquent critic of the cigarette argument, The New Republic's Danny Vinik, wrote:
In other words, Eric Garner is not dead because New York City imposes high cigarette taxes. He’s dead because a cop put him in a chokehold, in violation of NYPD rules, and held his head against ground. To their credit, conservatives have widely denounced the grand jury’s decision. If they want to argue against cigarette taxes, though, they should make that full argument—including that the law can cause violent confrontations between police and civilians. But pointing to Garner’s death as evidence that those taxes are bad policy isn't meaningful.
Look, police brutality has many underlying causes. One of them is undoubtedly racism; black people are disproportionately arrested and imprisoned. An encounter between a cop and a civilian is more likely to be unpleasant if the civilian is black. In fact, it's more likely to occur in the first place if the civilian is black, because many cops racially profile suspects.
Another cause is the police incentive structure. Police have far more legal protections than non-police. They can get away with so much more. Indeed, while the cop who killed Garner evaded indictment, a civilian who recorded the incident on his phone was indicted on a separate weapons charge. It's difficult—often impossible—to punish police for bad behavior, which gives the bad apples free rein to abuse people.
You know what's also a cause? Overcriminalization. And that one is on you, supporters of the regulatory super state. When a million things are highly regulated or outright illegal—from cigarettes to sodas of a certain size, unlicensed lemonade stands, raw milk, alcohol (for teens), marijuana, food trucks, taxicab alternatives, and even fishing supplies (in schools)—the unrestrained, often racist police force has a million reasons to pick on people. Punitive cigarette taxes, which disproportionately fall on the backs of the poorest of the poor, contribute to police brutality in the exact same way that the war on drugs does. Liberals readily admit the latter; why is the former any different?
If you want all these things to be illegal, you must want—by the very definition of the word illegal—the police to force people not to have them. Government is a gang of thugs who are paid to push us around. It's their job.
A well-meaning liberal who doesn't want people to smoke but also doesn't want the government to kill them for doing so has plenty of other options, by the way. There are countless organizations and products dedicated to helping people quit cigarettes voluntarily.
But anybody who wants it to be a matter of law must accept that resistance will be met with fines, prison, and death. As Bloomberg View columnist and law professor Stephen L. Carter put it:
It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the death of those the police seek to arrest. It’s every law. Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right.
There are many painful lessons to be drawn from the Garner tragedy, but one of them, sadly, is the same as the advice I give my students on the first day of classes: Don’t ever fight to make something illegal unless you’re willing to risk the lives of your fellow citizens to get your way.
Any subsequent conversation about ending police brutality should include strategies to combat racism, reforming the criminal justice system and police incentive structure... and taming the maniacal leviathan that is the modern regulatory state.
Gentle Ben and Garner are both victims of the commie libs’ war on tobacco. Commie lib politician greed.
Emotional thinkers need a different set of Laws...
““Do you really think we want those laws observed?” Said Dr. Ferris. We want them broken. You better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against - then you’ll know this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that’s the system Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Part 2, Chapter 3, Page 404
I can not imagine how any one could be as confused as the twit who wrote this article.
The first question I would ask him is how he would put cuffs on a guy that big who was determined not to be cuffed.
How?
As for his asinine comments on the tax: Of course the tax is the cause of a lot of crime.
But how did these cigs get to Garner? By courtesy of the mob.
Bad guys steal them and bad guys sell them on the street.
It is really very simple and easy to understand once you quit listening to the BS.
I don’t hijack trucks. I doubt that the wimp that wrote the article does. I doubt that anyone on FR does.
But the mob does. And Garner was hooked up with the mob or he would not be peddling them.
With liberals, it never is about freedom but about mandate hidden behind freedoms, such as the abortion mandate of Obamacare making people paid to have abortions with the insurance contributions of others and other taxes.
They go from incentives to outright one child China policy mandate.
funny story.....we discharged a young woman from a drug detox stay today at our hospital...after she left, a nice set of athletic shoes was found left behind.....we called her, and they belonged to her boyfriend, who told us not to worry, they were stolen shoes, and he had stolen them, so don’t worry.......geesh..
Oh, please. The only people making money on this are the criminal gangs. These cigarettes aren’t magically “tax free” - they come from the gangs that supply stolen or smuggled cigarettes, which are two groups: the Mafia and Middle Eastern jihadi groups. These people either smuggle them through the shipping routes or hijack trucks and then sell the cigarettes to people like Garner.
All states and the Feds tax cigarettes. Are the taxes too high? Yes, but that’s a different issue. Are the taxes too high in NYC? Yes, all taxes are too high in NYC. But that has nothing to do with this case.
The bulk of the price is TAX.
The BULK
Stewart’s response: “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Conservatives did not argue against punitive taxation on tobacco which has driven a new drug black market. They were mostly tickled pink. At the time, some were warning that the high taxes would drive sales underground and they were right. A lot of people have been seriously harmed by this little witch hunt.
Liberals could care less about sin or unhealthy behavior. If they cared, they would not be importing illegals and Africans with contagious disease and promoting anal sex to other people’s children.
So what is with their hatred of unhealthy smoking? They support pot smoking and that’s unhealthy - including second hand smoke. It is the love of taxes - period. Most of the tobacco tax money comes from lower income people. It’s been pushed so high by greedy liberals, the black market is a reality, now which means more “criminals” and dangerous interaction with police officers.
Conservatives who get off on a good, mindless witch hunt mob and support this kind of nonsense can kma. They are coming after you next, fatty...fundamentalist... gun owner...veteran...mental health drug taker, home schooler. All these and much more, are deemed unhealthy behavior by the moral high grounders who levy sin taxes but who live in the gutter and who love and promote sin.
The choke-holding revenue enforcer should get the death penalty.
Could have tazed the dude. But that’s probably not macho enough for the roid-ranger.
Not to excuse Brown and Garner but, Amen.
All I know is it is unfortunate, and without crazy taxation it would have never happened.
Do you know what NYC does when they bust untaxed ciggies?
They confiscate them and stamp them, then sell them as legit without paying any tax themselves.
Criminals all around.
Yes, but that’s true everywhere. “Vice taxes” (alcohol, cigarettes, etc) are always high, and they’re insane in NYC. But that’s a separate issue.
Garner got and could sell the cigarettes “tax free” because they were either smuggled or stolen by organized crime - and truck drivers have been killed in these heists.
If you want to take up the issue of taxes - which the convenience store owners actually pay on their legally purchased goods - that’s great! But it does nothing to defend Garner’s actions or discredit the cops.
What the excessive taxation does is gives guys like Garner a market from people that would normally just pay the legal tax.
I bet half the people that by his product think the 711 operate is ripping them off.
At the price of loosies, how hard would it be to personally buy the cigarettes in a low tax zone and bring them in.
711 operate? Seven-Eleven stores? Or what?
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