Rand Paul blames Garner's death on cigarette taxes

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

People saying "not wrong." Can you envision a world where NY has a $5.85 tax on cigarettes, and police enforce that law without using violence or killing people who break it? Yes? The reason Paul is wrong is because he's focusing on the tax, not the violence.

The fact that Paul is literally correct that without the tax, this specific incident would not have taken place is wholly irrelevant to the problem of people dying needlessly in incidents with the police.

Also, he's being a senator from Kentucky here, not a thought leader.

And what in the NYPD's long and ah rather tainted history suggests they are capable of this fairy tale non-violent enforcement you speak of. Its NY, and if they could, they would be smashing people's sculls like the good old days. It seems like tha never edning story of incidents followed by sensitivity training and new procedures only to see it happen again and again and again. At some point you realize it is the culture and nothing short of firing every one of them and replacing them all at once will fix it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Taxes are not to blame for everything that goes wrong in the world. Rand Paul is incredibly stupid.

Democrats are so adorable. The drug war has failed but the creation of black markets for cigarettes is a great idea.

America is in awe of such intelligence.

(Edited to remove reference to a deleted post - TF)

Excellent point. The left has been on the warpath vs cigs but thinks pot is the bees knees

Ah, yes, the cigarette tax pioneered by noted Democrat Michael Bloomberg.

I sense a pang of sarcasm.

It may not be well noted now but I am pretty sure Bloomberg was a noted Democrat until he decided he didn't want to go through a Democratic primary to become Mayor.

Also his present affilitation aside, he is clearly at the very least center left in the American political spectrum, not to mention decidely statist in an era when the right is defined by opposition to gov't. I should note, that one of the last ads Tillis ran against Hagan was that she supported Bloomberg's attempt to take away the average Joe's guns whilst Billionaire Bloomberg is protecred by armed guards. Don't know how accurate it is (probably not at all), but it probably had some impact considering the final result.