The Patriot Post® · Cigarettes Are Bad. Somebody Might Die.

Columnist Robert Tracinski makes a sardonic point about New York’s overbearing nanny-state laws: “The thing that strikes me as most important about the [Eric] Garner case is how stupid the reason was for arresting this guy: he was being busted for selling single, ‘loose’ cigarettes in order to evade heavy taxes on tobacco products. Basically, he was arrested for doing something that, in a previous era, thousands of people would have been doing in New York on any given day: selling goods on the streets of the city without any particular permission. It’s a low-grade form of entrepreneurialism. But not in the nanny-state New York of today. In a city where everything is taxed and regulated and you can’t put trans-fats in your food or buy a soda that’s too large, it makes perfect sense that they would harass a guy for selling cigarettes on the streets without permission. After all, they’re bad for people. Somebody might die.” More…