Recent History
Nevada favors a highly individualistic political culture, giving it a libertarian conservative political philosophy in an open society. Wealth from mining and gambling reinforced the individualistic ethic that early settlers brought with them. The libertarian ethic appears in the opposition of most Nevadans to big government, big labor, and big business. Labor unions, especially the SEIU which organizes hotel and casino workers, thrive among the minority workers in Las Vegas. Belief in limited government leads to an electorate that backs a pro-choice position on abortion while opposing the Equal Rights Amendment for women. The state's ongoing battles with the federal government involve the longstanding water rights dispute between Native Americans, backed by the federal government, and Nevada's ranchers; and the decade-long fight against the establishment of the nation's first permanent nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain.
In 1998, the largest industries were services (40.7% of earnings), construction (11.6%), and state/local government (10.0%).
- Nickname: "The Silver State",
- Motto: "All For Our Country" (1866)
- Flower: sagebrush (1917)
- Tree: single-leaf pinyon (1953)
-
- (the 1929 flag used the words "Battle Born", and "Nevada" was added in 1991).]]
Read more about this topic: History Of Nevada
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)