stoutfellow

I have never thought of my home town, State College, as an abode of saints, but it seemed to be decently governed. I do remember my younger brother telling me (and the rest of the family, I think) a story of how Officer B*** had harassed a friend of his, and then lied in court about what the teenager had done. Still, I wasn’t aware of any great level of corruption or police misconduct, and never had any trouble with the cops myself.

Now, however, if seems that the State College Police Department has qualified for a brickbat in Reason magazine. It is also a bit disturbing that there were so many rapes in town, although, given the number of students at Penn State, the number, spread over nine or so years, isn’t that enormous; I suspect that these would typically have been date rapes, with not too many break-ins and rapes by strangers.

I used to read the columns of Daniel Hannan, an astute British observer, in the Washington Examiner. Baron Hannan, as he now is, had an article in Reason about Greenland, MAGA, and America’s prospects. He quotes those famous words, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

There’s an article in Reason about California’s proposed tax on the wealth of billionaires, which would tax assets, not current income. The whole article is worth reading, but something which particularly struck me was the statement that covered assets “exclude real property and some pensions and retirement accounts.” Almost fifty years ago, California voters enacted Proposition Thirteen, which cut the property tax, and in particular slowed the rise of assessments on property which remained held by the same owner; the assessed value could still rise when a new owner bought the house and ground.

And now this. Suppose that billionaire Brendan is a descendant of a nineteenth century robber baron who acquired vast landholdings in California by means best not examined too closely; Brendan still owns land worth a fortune, and collects the rents. His landed estates would not be hit by the billionaire tax.

Billionaire Bernard started with much lesser advantages, but had a good idea, helped start a firm in Silicon Valley, worked hard, and is now quite rich, owning a major share of a productive business. His shares would be taxed, and if he controls part of the company by owning preferred stock, his preferred shares would be taxed at more than their actual market price. Productive Bernard would be mulcted, and may even now be moving to another state to avoid the threatened tax.

If California were to learn from the Prophet of San Francisco, it would instead tax land values; Brendan would not be able to respond to such a tax by carrying his acreage to Texas or Florida or Idaho.

And now, I hope to get back to sleep.

When Martin Luther King was assassinated, I was three years old. Surprisingly, I do have a memory, not of first hearing about the murder, but of the aftermath. I remember seeing the cover of Newsweek, and I may also have seen rioting on the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, which my parents watched. Anyway, I remember asking my mother who Martin Luther King had been, and whether he was himself black or white; she told me that he was a black man who had been trying to help other blacks.

Whatever his personal faults and errors, he appealed to what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature, and worked, at great personal risk, to set grave injustices to rights. Let us honor him accordingly.