And now, may I have the envelope please ...

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 22 Jul 2001 12:29:16 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 15, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
And now, may I have the envelope please ...

Compared to the glittering Las Vegas Strip -- lying almost entirely outside city limits and thus outside the city's taxing grasp -- downtown Las Vegas has been slipping into geriatric shabbiness for 30 years.

Fortunately, the city has one ace left up its sleeve -- a huge, 61-acre, completely undeveloped parcel in the old Union Pacific railroad yards.

Imagine with me now the scene as the Las Vegas City Council brain trust gathers to deliberate how best to use this asset to boost downtown tourism and tax revenues.

"What unique assets does this parcel possess," the first mighty thinker asks. "Rolling hills? Breathtaking views of mountain or shore?"

No, actually, it's as ugly a stretch of dirt as you could imagine, hemmed in by highways and railroad tracks.

OK, forget the 18-hole championship golf course with million-dollar mansions nestled along the fairways. Still, those highways may not be so bad. They could bring in the tourists. If only this parcel were, you know, zoned for ...

Unlimited gaming? It is? Really? Well, hallelujah, brothers -- problem solved! We just send out a request for bids to every major world corporation that's ever expressed the slightest interest in the gaming industry, not to mention the Sultan of Brunei, every prince of the Saudi Royal Family, that guy who owns Harrods' in London, and the folks who built Disney World and the Mall of America.

"Surprise us," we dare them, "Knock our socks off! Give us a bid to develop the largest destination resort/hotel/casino in the world, not in Tunica, Mississippi, not on some Godforsaken Caribbean sandspit with no infrastructure where the phones and the refrigerators never work, but RIGHT IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN LAS VEGAS, NEVADA!

"You might, for instance, propose a huge dome covering the entire 60 acres, and under the air-conditioned dome an Emerald City offering its own jungles, waterfalls, zoo animals, multiple hotels, and of course, the Largest Casino in the World!"

How many folks would such a venture employ? Thousands, surely. What kind of tax revenues could it generate? Hundreds of millions? The hand calculators click till they jam.

And the genius of it is, you let private entrepreneurs raise all the money, do all the work, and take all the risks. The city just lays back and rakes it in!

And so it was, a week ago Thursday, that Mayor Oscar Goodman convened his Brain Trust, and revealed to a proud populace that the developer whose bid had been chosen to develop the last and largest parcel remaining in the United States, which is zoned for unlimited casino gaming yet which still lies totally virgin and undeveloped, is ...

This has to be wrong. Has someone slipped me the wrong envelope? The winning proposal is based around a MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL STADIUM? A stadium which not only won't generate net tax revenues, but which the sponsors admit can only be built with a tax subsidy? A stadium to house the Las Vegas 51s (previously the Las Vegas Stars, recently renamed by their new owners in what appears to be a fiendishly clever strategy to confuse and alienate what few fans the franchise still had) ... a minor league franchise that has trouble drawing 2,000 fans to a perfectly nice, paid-for, 10,000-seat stadium just a mile away?

Oh, and the plans also call for a line of Section 8, subsidized welfare apartments strung out along the railroad tracks? Are these people nuts?

No, just corrupt.

You see, the Las Vegas City Council isn't trying to maximize employment, tourism and tax revenues to benefit all Las Vegans. Their main loyalty, instead, is to a gang of existing downtown casino owners whose main goal is to see this parcel developed WITHOUT any new casinos which would compete with their existing, threadbare enterprises.

Why do you suppose these folks, with names like Binion, Behnen, Boyd, and Gaughan, prevailed upon their political hacks and front men to use the power of eminent domain to seize the downtown property of people like Chic Hecht and the widow Carol Pappas? Because they needed it for a parking garage?

That garage has sat half empty, ever since. No, the problem with allowing other property owners to retain pieces of property like the Pappas parcel, near the corner of Fremont and Las Vegas Boulevard, was that some new Bob Snow might come sniffing around at any time, offering to use such a site to build a COMPETING CASINO.

Don't think of the structure that sits there now as a "parking garage." Think of it as "Not a Casino." And that's exactly what the aging monopolists of Fremont Street now want to see built on the Union Pacific Parcel: Not Another Casino.

They'll get their way, too. Oscar Goodman and company will assure their own lucrative retirements by making sure the "development" of this parcel has about as much chance of outclassing the El Cortez and the Western as their predecessors' Minami Tower Hole-in-the-Ground, their own current NeoNecropolis "movie theater" Hole-in-the-Ground ... we all know the proud list of Holes-in-the-Ground by now.

Maybe it's not an entirely bad thing. At least the traffic will finally thin out.

Oh, the World' Largest Destination Resort/Hotel/Casino will still be built. Just in a different location, a locale where the political tides are moving AWAY from stultifying regulation, and towards a new birth of freedom.

Give it five years. It'll be built. Just not in the city of Las Vegas.

Maybe Havana.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

And now, may I have the envelope please ...