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.
Who told them this?
Any politician who is engaged in acts of deliberately "making life difficult" for the American people NEEDS TO BE REMOVED/RECALLED FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY-TODAY!!!!!
They were not elected to office so they could abuse the people and the Constitution.
The list of outrages keeps growing:
WWII vets denied entry to their memorial, Viet Nam Vets denied their memorial , Catholic military not having Mass said.
All this to increase the pain on the American people to force the healthcare bill on them.
Really America? You want to put these people in charge of your health? The people who cause pain to WWII vets on purpose. Can you see where this might be a problem?
They did that as part of the shutdown? That’s crazy.
In Philadelphia, the administration closed the City Tavern. The City Tavern was re-opened by a completely private company. All transactions are private. The ground was acquired by the park service in the past. They are using that to close as much of the country as they can to exert a pressure on Republicans to fund Obamacare. Never before on any shutdown was this done. But never before did we have somebody as deceitful as Obama in control.
They’re practicing for Agenda 21 permanent closures to “protect” the tree frogs, fairy shrimp, or whatever other ruse they can dream up to keep humans out. You will be able to see big screen videos of the parks as you take your euthanasia shot ala Soylent Green.
I have a friend who's probably the last conservative left in the agency. She tried to transfer to the Border Patrol but came in second for the job, so is now just biding her time to NPS retirement.
Anyway, according to her, every single person she works with and knows (and it's a small agency) is a BO lover. I believe it, based on my years in the NPS. So, I believe most of them are reveling in locking the owners of the parks out.
That’s sad but not unexpected. I believe it’s the same way with local cops. If a group came to a local police station and said “We’re with the federal division of LOL and we have a right wing extremist we need to go pick up. You will be authorized to use deadly force.”
I doubt many of them would ask “What are the charges?” I doubt if they’d even ask what LOL stands for. They might ask if there will be any dogs they can shoot. Most of them would be on the phone calling their wives telling them “Turn on the TV! I’ll probably be on!”
That’s how much faith I have in local cops. And the few good ones who don’t agree with their fellow cops will keep quiet.
I’m not sure about our local cops — I think the ones in our conservative, Christian ‘hood are okay. I mean, I’m not naive or anything but from the conversations I’ve had with them, they seem alright. (NOT so with the Pima County Sheriff’s Dept that guns down innocent people in their homes, and accuses the tea party of horrible things.)
However, I do agree with you about the NPS LEs. They are largely wanna-be urban cops who couldn’t make it in the big city (imo). Their attitudes are — if the feds take some land over one month, Taze anyone with a dog off-leash the next month.
I can tell you’ve never tried to fire anybody.
Why shut down the service?....Sincerely, What do they do?
Not advocating shutting it down. This fight is among the people and the clowns we call elected officials.
I’m just saying that if the front line ranger, the one that deals with the public just said, NO...I’m not going to do that. What would the supervisor do? Put a camera in his/her face right then and there and have them explain to the public why they are following orders like a Nazi camp guard, instead of using some sense.
If they started doing that, obama and his minions would fall apart.
It’s a little known fact that Dennis is Hillary and Wilt the Stilts “love child.”
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