Posted on 10/04/2013 6:50:53 PM PDT by chessplayer
When and how did the National Park Service become “the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy”?
The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II Memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a national memorial. The feds closed access to the parking lots this week, even though the lots are jointly owned with the Mount Vernon ladies. The rangers are from the government, and they’re only here to help.
“It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”
Sad to say, but there’s precedent here. The extent of the barricade mentality may have deepened over time, with some memorials being shuttered now that stayed open in ’95, but the NPS has apparently always been a lead actor in shutdown-theater pageantry. Andrew Stiles interviewed former Bush Interior Secretary Gale Norton about it, and she said it’s nothing new:
“The National Parks Service has a long history of dramatizing budget issues by inconveniencing the public,” she says. ”They often choose the most dramatic type of action in order to get their message across. It’s something I had to guard against when I was secretary — not letting them play budget games.“
NPS has engaged in such behavior for decades, Nortons says, recalling at least one occassion during the Reagan administraiton, in which she worked as an attorney for the parks service, when NPS decided to close Skyline Drive, a scenic highway running through Shenandoah National Park, in order to make a statement during an appropriations fight on Capitol Hill…
“Given the fact that they have closed so much, and acted so broadly, I imagine that decision was made at the highest levels of park service leadership, in cooperation with department leadership and the White House,” she says.
He is showing himself for who he is. No more pretenses.
No more president of "all the people".
honestly don’t many fedgov people do this without explicit orders everyday?
What a spiteful little man he is.... not at all Presidential!!!
The NPS has been pulling this crap for decades. Doesn’t look like His Highness is making a list for them of things to close down. Remember to spit on the next NPS ranger you see if you visit D.C.
Let them have a taste of what the private sector has been through for the last 6 years. Keep the government closed for a year and watch the economy of DC and northern Virginia (currently the wealthiest and most prosperous part of the country) crash too.
Someone needs to remind these people that they work for us!!
I don’t really know if that is all that wise a policy: after this is all over the Parks will still be there, they’ll still be there, and we’ll still be there. They are not 0bama’s employees, they are ours. That point may need to be hammered home, and unfortunately the ones needing the hammering most won’t be the ones in front of us. That does not mean the ones in front of us won’t profit from a little hammering on their own. Bad will lasts a lot longer than any temporary funding issue. Be nice, employees, because we’ll be back.
We own those National parks and pay those rangers salaries with our tax dollars. It’s time for us to stop paying taxes until they begin to understand that again. By denying the American taxpayer access they are stealing from us.
Why shut down the service?
Have all the park rangers just say, NO. NO, I won’t prevent WWII veterans from visiting the monument built in their honor. And by the way Mr Supervisor, I feel like you’re bullying me and I’m going to file a complaint against you for harassment with HR.
Simple, they’re civil servants, they can’t get fired anyway.
Oh, and PS - no more government testing as in FAA exams. Last day was the 4th. If some pilot needs an exam, tuff, have to wait until Obamalamadingdong says so.
“Public land” what a stupid name for federally controlled land.
You got that right. Ask Utah how national parks and monuments has worked out for them. They are lucky they have any state land left at all.
We The People can return the treatment come 2014, ya think?
Now THERE's a (Galt) shutdown.
My son and I were planning our annual deer hunting trip tonight. We checked the website for the National Forest we hunt in and it says it is closed but law enforcement will be working. Sigh.
That is the excuse the park rangers gave when they blockaded the privately run Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway after owner Bruce O'Connell decided to reopen his dining room, gift shop and country store at noon Friday for lunch. The federal government had forced the inn, in a leased building on federal land, to shut down at 6 p.m. ET Thursday at the height of fall foliage — and tourism — season.
A business that actually pays into the federal government is forced to close (obviously under threat of arrest) for no good reason other than a bully-mentality administration says "If I can't get my way, I'll make EVERYBODY hurt!"
. Agreed Wrencher...agreed! Time to be taking names (since they already have ours)...
Close the damn parks!!!...If it means my freedom from Obamacare...NO PROBLEM!
The penalty this year is small - next year it gets MUCH larger... that trend continues until they've caused enough pain to break most of us. Dems are jerks - the way they've handled the shutdown showcases them for what they are... they're bullies.
Think about the men and women who have died around 0bama. The clean reputation that is in fact completely fake.
Frankly, I wonder if 0bama hasn’t pulled the trigger or watched some of the killings of people himself, just to see how it felt.
I’ve told the story several times here, but it bears repeating. As my sainted mother was dying and drugged up, I was helping her to the kitchen one time when 0bama showed up on tv before the 2008 election. She pointed a bony finger at him and said, “I am afraid of that man.”
I laughed.
I wonder what she saw. She was, after all, more ‘there’ than here on Earth at the time.
I remember that moment well, and how odd I felt about it at the time. I laughed like she’d said something silly, but then I looked at him, too, and wondered what she already knew.
The man is a monster.
It would be nice to see tourists boycott NPS operated tourist attractions in D.C. for a year. The NPS depends on tourists filling their coffers, so dry up the money flow from tourists and see how the NPS likes it. The NPS has shown they won’t hesitate to hurt tourists as much as they can.
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