For the Benefit of the Bureaucrats and the Spite of the People

Remember when park rangers were nice people who would go out of their way to help you if you needed it? Neither do I, but it now appears they are going out of their way to hinder you even if you don’t plan to visit a national park. Moreover, at least some these orders come from “above the department,” meaning the White House.

It is well known that the Park Service is closing access to parks and monuments that cost little or nothing to allow access to. For example, it has posted guards around things like the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial to make sure people don’t enter, because otherwise it would have to post guards in the memorials themselves to make sure people don’t do inappropriate things like (gasp!) dance inside one of the memorials.

But the Park Service is also attempting to force the closure of state parks, apparently on the theory that some state parks have received federal funding in the past. At least one state governor has refused to go along with this.

On top of that, the Park Service has ordered private businesses in the parks to close even if they operate without any government funds. At first, the Forest Service was allowing private businesses to stay open in national forests, but one of those business owners reports “that people ‘above the department’, which I presume means the White House, plan to order the Forest Service to needlessly and illegally close all private operations” on federal lands.

You can easily find cheapest buy viagra sale kamagra online from kamagrafast. In case of patient suffering from ED, but who’s desire to have sex, in these cases cialis professional for sale has outclassed other options of treatment. Most of the tourists go for elective procedures like hip and knee replacements or dental procedures and cosmetic surgery, which are not covered by insurance plans. buy cialis line This step is the start of process of hunting down the culprit viagra on line of your tinnitus problem. The Park Service even tried to close Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home, which is entirely private and privately funded. According to the news article, the Park Service maintains Mt. Vernon’s parking lot, for some reason, and so tried to barricade it from public entry even though it would cost nothing to let people in but it costs something to close it.

And I didn’t even mention how the Park Service’s absurd policies have trapped tourists in Cooke City, Montana. The roads to the east have been blocked by snow. The road to the west is plowed by the Park Service, which only allows Park Service employees and residents of Cooke City to use it. About 15 tourists are stuck in Cooke City. Unless the snow to the east melts, it could take an act of Congress to let them out. Other Yellowstone tourists report “gestapo tactics” on the part of park rangers to make sure people aren’t “recreating” in the park.

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” a Park Service employee told the Washington Time. “It’s disgusting.”

To add injury to injury, the House voted last week to pay government employees during the shut down, even if they aren’t working. So no one in the Park Service will suffer any pain from the shut down. Instead, they are trying to pass the pain on to everyone else.

The Antiplanner has long believed that the Park Service was run by a bunch of thugs who think nothing of destroying people’s businesses or lives to expand their empires. Now it appears that the Obama administration is gleefully using that thuggery to promote its goals.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

8 Responses to For the Benefit of the Bureaucrats and the Spite of the People

  1. aloysius9999 says:

    The Park Service acts like thugs because the thug at the top has them between a rock and a hard place.

  2. Sandy Teal says:

    Not to mention the National Park Service trying to close an ocean…. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/05/Feds-Try-to-Close-the-OCEAN-Because-of-Shutdown

    And driving across sacred battleground with sirens blaring to chase off people walking through Gettysburg Battlefield. http://twitchy.com/2013/10/08/catch-us-if-you-can-gettysburg-visitors-defy-spitehouse-cones-and-barrycades-pics/

    This is a disgusting use of government thuggery that actually makes the Republicans look like the least worst people in this fight. I feel sorry for the NPS people who are being ordered to do this.

  3. JOHN1000 says:

    And while the White House is preventing citizens (including veterans) from using parks and visiting memorials–it has given special permission for illegal aliens to hold a rally on the same property that has been declared closed.

    I believe strongly in immigration and have no problem with non-Americans visiting our parks and memorial sites. But to declare that ONLY illegal aliens can use these sites–while threatening to arrest and use the powers of the state to stop citizens from such use, is beyond outrageous.

  4. bennett says:

    John,

    I would love to see a reference. I did a quick Google search and the only hits that came up were from debunked conservative email forwards.

    As for the NPS and their barriers, I think it’s about time for some critical mass. http://www.examiner.com/article/exclusive-break-the-government-barrier-week-to-defy-national-park-ban

  5. Ohai says:

    It’s not really spiteful, it’s simply the law as defined by the Antideficiency Act.

  6. Frank says:

    Strike two. There were no national parks when this act was created in 1870, so unless it has been amended to specifically address this, how the National Parks should operate under a government shutdown is subject to how this act is interpreted. Closing national parks is not mandated by the Antideficiency Act nor is “ailing to close a national park to public access a violation of the act. Since providing emergency services and the protection of property is allowed under the act, the NPS can continue staffing with the same amount of rangers, fire response, and maintenance personnel on staff and they are good to go to allow at least some access to the public. Also consider that Congress passed a bill authorizing back pay and it becomes even more clear that this is just a political ploy. There is no real justification for shutting parks.

  7. Frank says:

    “Remember when park rangers were nice people who would go out of their way to help you if you needed it? Neither do I”

    This line made me chuckle. I was one of the rangers who would actually go out of my way to help. It often got me in trouble with career management, though. I worked with a few who would go out of their way, but many were openly disdainful of the visitors they were supposedly there to serve.

    This was particularly true of law enforcement rangers, rangers who hired a fee collection ranger solely on the basis that she sounded “hot” during her phone interview. Rangers who threw up in a seasonal housing bathroom and didn’t clean it up for the entire season. A ranger who left his loaded 9mm on the living room floor. Rangers who kept “hippies” out of Yosemite by shorting taillights. There is more. So much more. You get the point.

  8. bennett says:

    Since the government hasn’t really shut down they had to do something symbolic to give the illusion of a shutdown. That’s all it is really. As far as I can tell the government is open for business.

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