As an avid outdoor enthusiast, I have a great deal of respect and fond memories of my interactions with Park Rangers.
Those feelings, however, are eroding. During the government shutdown, the National Park Service seems to have completely lost it’s little hive mind in various parts of the country:
- Locking veterans out of the World War II Memorial, but allowing an illegal alien rally;
- Using armed guards to detain tourists into their rooms at Yellowstone;
- Refusing to allow the same tourists to stop at public restrooms as they were bussed out of the part;
- Erecting barricades to keep people out of Mount Vernon – a privately owned and privately managed venue;
- Removing handles from drinking fountains to stop people from drinking the valuable (and free) water;
- Using many more resources to keep people OUT of parks than it takes to keep them open in the first place.
According to a widely-published quote from an Park Service Ranger, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”
Since when did the NPS, which is part of the executive branch, become political thugs and the asshole enforcement division of the Obama Administration? Who in the National Park Service is responsible for the idiotic political agenda to make life difficult for park visitors? As Mark Stein asks, “When and how did the National Park Service become the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy?”
From Mark Stein’s article in the National Review:
“…just because it’s a phony crisis doesn’t mean it can’t be made even phonier. The perfect symbol of the shutdown-simulacrum so far has been the World War II Memorial. This is an open-air facility on the National Mall — that’s to say, an area of grass with a monument at the center. By comparison with, say, the IRS, the National Parks Service is not usually one of the more controversial government agencies. But, come “shutdown,” they’re reborn as the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy. Thus, they decided to close down an unfenced open-air site — which oddly enough requires more personnel to shut than it would to keep it open.”
From an article posted on Hot Air:
“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.
Even Catholic Online has penned an article:
These sites belong to the American people and nobody should be barred from entry. Notably, the citizens of this nation have paid for the maintenance of these sites by their taxes, and there is no rebate or reduction forthcoming. Since the American people are being charged full price for these locations in spite of the shutdown, they should also enjoy access.
It’s time for the National Park Service to be investigated, and for those who have ordered – and those who have executed – these monuments shut down to be fired, and banned forever from the properties that Americans have bought and paid for. They’re bad people, and they have forever tarnished the National Park Service through their illegal actions.
You can read Mark Stein’s article HERE.
You can read the Hot Air article HERE.
You can read the Catholic Online article HERE.
You can read all about the NPS removing drinking fountain handles on Liberty Unyielding HERE.