Opinion

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic floor leader, last week got some attention for praising his colleague Rand Paul of Kentucky, a symbol of libertarian conservatism.

The Nevada Republican Party is preparing a bid to bring the 2016 Republican National Convention to Las Vegas, and some party figures are concerned that the — how do I put this? — unconventional or non­traditional lifestyle of Nevada’s largest city could steer national GOP officials to a safer venue.

Twenty-­four years ago, conservative columnist George Will wrote, “One state’s welfare is uniquely woven into gambling, but Nevada has an excuse: The silver was gone, the soil was lousy, and the would-­be divorcees were bored. After the Comstock Lode petered out, Nevada eventually discovered divorce as a way of making money. Nevada crushed the competition of a few other states in setting the shortest residency requirement, and then looked around for a new way to mine money from the law and found gambling. Now, one Nevada is kind of nice. But there is something sinister about more and more governments becoming more and more addicted to money from what was until recently considered a vice.”

A few days ago, the Nevada Supreme Court refused to intervene in a court case to correct a case of religious bigotry.

When some deputy district attorney wants to taint the jury pool against someone suspected of defrauding worker’s injury insurance and so he invites a television station to come along to shoot footage when they are observing the suspect loading some furniture into a truck, it can be very easy to believe that such fraud is rampant.

When I was small I did not think there should be homework. Actually, I still feel that way. I analogized it to adults — when they came home from work, they read the paper and watched television. A dry cleaner didn’t spend evenings at home dry cleaning.

During the Cold War, the U.S. government assembled a huge propaganda structure in its messianic efforts to combat communism behind the “iron curtain.” Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were the best known of these tools.

Last week a reporter for KLAS News in Las Vegas reported, “Vaccines have been debated for years in the medical field. While some doctors believe they are vital to a child’s health, other doctors believe in a more natural approach to disease prevention.”

Recently one of my colleagues at our newspaper wrote a piece about the efforts of some Nevada beekeepers who are attempting to deal with neonicotinoid insecticides as a possible cause of honey bee colony collapse. The article had nothing to do with the University of Nevada, Reno, but one reader took the opportunity to post a comment about the campus:

Keeping the lines straight on free expression is a constant battle. Government always strains to regulate it. Civil libertarians get nervous when it does. But there are no clear-cut lines. These groups sometimes take stances that can appear inconsistent.