As were many, I was sickened by the news of Eric Garner's incidental homicide at the hands of an NYPD patrolman.
While everyone wants to equate this with racism, the problem is bigger than that, much bigger.
Since the Branch Dividian raid in Waco and Elian Gonzalez, we have seen an ever-growing atmosphere of the police-state. While I, like most Americans want to feel safe in our cities and towns, it seems that more and more the idea of what is "safe" is being lost on sociopaths who are increasingly making it to public office.
Eric Garner was killed in New York City, a city run by a disciple of the Sandinistas and therefore, no stranger to the idea of "might makes right". Mr. Garner's crime was selling loose cigarettes to people who either couldn't or didn't want to pay the confiscatory taxes demanded by "the state" for a full pack of smokes. Never mind the question of whether or not anyone deserves to die for this "crime", is this really the best use of NYPD resources which we are told are very limited in capacity? Does anyone really feel safer now that this "crime" has been stopped?
Even before the current Mayor was elected to office, the city was run by an even more menacing sociopath named Michael Bloomberg who saw it necessary to enact laws about soft drink cup sizes, salt content in food and trans fats (which were a creation that came about because of the now-disproven theory that eating too much natural fat was making us obese) to make the city "safer".
And of course, since he I'm sure he knew that that stepping on a few toes for the "greater good" would result in some potential push back, the Mayor also became a strong advocate of making sure that only criminals and the State (and his own private security detail) could own guns.
Hopefully we can start to wake up to the fact that Eric Garners death had little to do with his race as far as the police officer was concerned and more about the fact that the officer felt compelled to arrest a man (white or black) for selling loose cigarettes and not collecting the city's tax. We need to really start examining the purpose for any law, whether it will make us safe and whether it is even enforceable on a broad scale or will it only be used as a method of entrapment.
If not, than we will soon be living under the same conditions the citizens of Eastern Europe faced before the fall of the U.S.S.R. where laws are no longer written to protect the citizens, but to keep them under control.
The Common Misconception of Good and Evil
