America faces a triple threat

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2013 | 2:01 a.m.

America faces a triple threat global environment with which we are ill-equipped to deal. Threats range from old school, 20th-century weapons of mass destruction and failed state issues to 21st-century global terrorism, bad actors who don’t wear identity uniforms, and the insidious nature of cyberwarfare that steals our best secrets and could shut down our economy on command.

Too many elected officials — whether they are local, state or national in scope — can be collectively categorized as deadwood. Their genesis is old school, low tech and out of step with reality. In other words, they lack the skills 21st-century elected officials find necessary to successfully lead.

It’s not all their fault. They are a product of a society where money rules and therefore drives our best and brightest minds to Wall Street, not Main Street. The political arena is left with glib, well-meaning folks from whom we must choose as leaders. Now into our second decade of this century, they continue to spend enormous energy on repetitive local issues such as how to slice up the same trash pickup and business tax pies, thereby making themselves more appealing to voters, while at the national level our limited resources are deployed for months, asking the same stale, irrelevant questions such as, “Benghazi: What did the president know and when did he know it?” Operating with an 18th-century, slow-moving, deliberative government in the face of current threats requires that we either elect people much better able to think on their feet or adapt the current system so that it moves faster to counter the real threats to our way of life. Hope springs eternal.

Richard Rychtarik, Las Vegas