Some recent news items don’t make much sense

By Brian Greenspun (contact)

Sunday, April 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Perhaps it is advancing age.

I don’t claim to be the hippest Baby Boomer on the block. In fact, I know there is still so much about practically everything there is to know that I still don’t know. And I understand that the challenge of life is to live and learn long enough so that the gap between what we do know and what we don’t becomes small enough to make us feel our time on Earth has not been wasted.

So it is in the spirit of wanting to comprehend that which I most certainly don’t understand that I ask the following three questions. If you know, I mean really know, the answers, my e-mail box is nearby and I would appreciate the knowledge. Otherwise, I am doomed to a life of continued frustration because of an inability to learn as I approach my own middle age.

First, since when in this great democracy does one side in a presidential race get to overwhelm the country with his narrative about how democracy works?

This is not a political judgment about Sen. Barack Obama. Rather, it is an indictment of the rest of us who have bought into the idea that with more than 4,000 delegate votes to be pledged heading into the Democratic National Convention, if one candidate is ahead by 100 or 150 — without reaching the majority needed for nomination — that he or she deserves to win. And yet that is the case being made.

The way I count, being ahead, but still behind the votes needed for a majority, by less than 2 or 3 percent of the total vote, is not the kind of landslide that should cause the entire Democratic Party, no matter how naive the Democrats want to be, to go rushing to one side or the other.

Likewise, being ahead in the popular vote by less than a couple of percentage points when all the votes are not properly counted — that’s a dig at the 2000 election when the U.S. Supreme Court prevented Florida from counting all the votes (tell me that’s not happening again) — doesn’t seem to create a compelling need for the Democrats to rush like lemmings to the water’s edge.

This is not about whether Obama or Clinton should be the party’s nominee; it is about concepts such as majority rule, independence of thought and the rule of reason trumping the rule of the mob. Forget who you like, please explain the logic.

Second, am I the only one who heard a report that the United States is not in the position to send any more troops to Afghanistan to fight al-Qaida or find Osama bin Laden this year? And that means we are not in any position to defend America in another war or on another front should the need arise.

I am not suggesting that we find another war to fight. It is just that when we tell the whole world how weak we are, and we refuse to do anything about our inability to field a fighting force, it doesn’t seem as if we are doing all we can to protect and defend the United States.

Again, I may be wrong or just getting too old to understand the new thinking, but please, if someone can explain why we don’t have enough fighting men and women when we know we need them, why should we tell our enemies and why don’t we do something about it?

And third, and much closer to home: I am all for developing this community in the highest and best way possible. But I am not sure that building another city hall for Las Vegas is the way to go about it.

I tried to understand the published reports and the new math that was taught at the last City Council meeting, but it just doesn’t compute in my aging brain how spending at least $100 million — and probably twice as much — for brand-new digs for the same old government will spur billions of dollars in new development.

It seems to me if the city fathers and mothers of Las Vegas want to do something really wise and fiscally sound, they would sell that building they are in downtown, and all the land around it, for the $50 million to $80 million they think it is worth, and give the money to Clark County.

That money would be used for two purposes. First, a small portion of it would be used to pay for an addition to the county building — say to house two or three new Clark County commissioners — and the rest would be put into a sinking fund that would offset whatever disparity there may be between city taxpayers and county taxpayers.

Yes, I am suggesting a latent Baby Boomer idea of consolidating city and county governments — again. Especially at a time when spending is being squeezed and services are disappearing as a result, it seems to me that consolidating government will save the taxpayers millions, billions and trillions over a few generations. It will also streamline government and spare us another fancy government building downtown.

Instead of all those phony initiatives being put on the ballot designed to hoodwink voters into thinking there really is a free lunch, why not ask us if we want to pay the cost of two governments when one will more than adequately do the trick?

So, there you have it. Am I really so far past my prime that I just don’t understand the new ways? Or am I finally old enough and wise enough to have figured a couple of things out?

I am certain someone will let me know.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.