> Someone want to explain to me why my tax dollars should go towards protecting target and Walgreen’s inventory? When they have one security guard in their entire store? When police could instead be spending that time finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away?

As saying the police should not prosecute theft in Walmart at all.

That seems an extreme and unjustified reading - a "straw man", if you will.

I read it as a complaint that these stores are not paying enough for their own security, so why should should cops help Walgreen’s inventory when they don't even help "finding the driver of the truck that smashed into my car and drove away" even after "I gave police the license # of the truck that hit me, but they said it was an out of state plate so they said there was "nothing they could do."" (quoting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38763356)

jliptzin pays taxes, so should get support from the police for property damage on the order of hundreds of dollars, just like Walgreens/Walmart can get support from the police for shoplifting something which costs a few tens of dollars, right?

I also wanted to focus on the question "probably more than you do?" at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38759837 . In terms of "taxes per acre", jliptzin almost certainly pays more than Walmart. Choosing to prioritize total tax revenue vs. taxes per acre gives a very different metric about which of those two crimes - car crash or shoplifting - to prioritize.