Eric Garner Choked, and Now BernedVictor J Massad (exclusive to The Briefing Room)
On July 17, 2014 a 44 year old black man by the name of Eric Garner was choked to death by police officers who were enforcing the cigarette tax for their socialist mayor. A year and a half later, Garner’s daughter Erica is using her father’s death to promote the political campaign of a socialist running for president.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Syln8IkOIqc&feature=youtu.beI’d like to say that Bernie Sanders’ new ad featuring Erica Garner in her “I Can’t Breath” hoodie is the most duplicitous thing I have seen in politics this year, but in a year in which the candidates seem to have abandoned even the façade of ethics in their pursuit of the presidency, it is not. Nonetheless, it begs the question: who will collect Bernie Sanders’ taxes, and what will Sanders’ enforcers do when honest taxpayers defy him by exercising their right to keep what they earn?
Eric Garner was murdered by big government because he dared engage in free market capitalism. He simply wanted to improve his standing against a system that was keeping him down. The system keeping Garner in poverty needed big revenue to enforce its mandates, and so it taxed cigarettes at an exorbitant rate (a tax, by the way, that falls disproportionally on the poor). Predictably, this created a black market for cigarettes. Garner attempted to exploit the opportunity by selling “Loosies” outside a convenience store. Is there a better example of the irrepressible nature free market capitalism? Of course, free market capitalists are untenable to the socialist bosses, and so they sent out their enforcers to stop him. That is why Eric Garner died.
I am sure Sanders’ supporters think they are turning the tables on big business and the increasing wealth disparity in the USA. They are hoping to use their collective voices to force the billionaires to wear “I Can’t Breath” hoodies. Well, good luck with that. African Americans might better ask themselves what is the common thread running through Detroit, Ferguson, Chicago, Baltimore and the other places where blacks are kept passive by strong arm tactics? They are all cities governed by de facto socialists. Maybe it is time African Americans questioned their assumptions.
The only difference between the cops who choked Garner to death and thuggish goons who work for loan sharks is that the cops had the legitimacy of law. Bernie Sanders represents an ideology which will give the enforcers more authority, not less. And yet, it seems the lessons of history have been lost on the delusional progressives.
The opposite of freedom is socialism.
