“Seems like these ‘rangers’ aren’t the helpful and kind servants and conservators they like to portray themselves as. Nothing but a bunch of effing Nazi Government Goons, apparently.”
It all changes when you give them guns! Someone posted here the other day that “we should cut these people some slack because they are just a bunch of Biology Majors that love the outdoors and like to help people” My reply is “ just where did you leave your brain?”
It's very different after they get guns, exactly as you said. I worked for them seasonally and later, as a permanent. I noticed the stirrings of the jackboots way back in the mid-to-late 80s. The park interpreters and bio techs were usually more low-key, at least the low-level workers were (mostly seasonals who were teachers during the school year).
I left for the private sector a long time ago, but many of my friends still work there. It's only gotten worse. Just like when the rangerette Tazed a guy for turning away from her near SF. This was in a newly-fed-seized land area (about a year or two ago now).