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govt workers are very rarely fired...so they are not afraid of abusing the system like this

In the case of Groden it's sort of like the employer (taxpayer) being persecuted by his employees (public servants).

Wouldn't that be true for most people who commit crimes? They pay taxes and get persecuted by public servants.

You are making the assumption that criminals pay taxes. I'm sure some of them do, but I would be interested to see some real numbers on it.

If they aren't homeless, they pay property taxes, directly, or via their landlord.

If they buy anything in a state with sales taxes, they pay sales taxes.

If they legally own a car, they pay vehicle taxes. If they buy gas for that car, they pay gas taxes.

Nearly every man, woman, and child in the United States pays taxes.

Criminals are persecuted for their criminality. That's a whole different scenario to what was happening to Mr Groden where a law abiding citizen was being harassed because people in authority felt like it.

Taxation creates no employment relationship. Direction of money flow is orthogonal to power imbalance.

Here are some examples of patronage in order of diminishing accountability: Employer-Employee, Consultancy-Client, HugeStore-Customer, Government-Subject, Mugger-Victim.

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