Jonathan Last quotes a reader:
Please read the whole thing.
The politically-motivated thuggery of the National Park Service is a shock and a disgrace. Public access to public land is intentionally blocked, by armed goons on the public payroll.
I'm a former NPS historian/supervisory interpretive park ranger from two parks (at Vicksburg National Military Park in Mississippi and the Steamtown National Historic Site in Pennsylvania.). I’m now serving as a historian for another Federal agency. For years I've monitored NPS vacancies, just in case the opportunity arose to return to the NPS as a historian. No longer . . .
I have never been more embarrassed to admit that I'm former National Park Service and I will never return. The Park Ranger has long served as an representative of good government, someone who the public looked up to and admired. Through this calculated, politically-driven hackery and thug tactics, the image of the ranger and the NPS with the American public has been broken, probably irrevocably.
I’m inclined to agree, for the following reason. In some ways, the Park Service debacle resembles the IRS’s targeting of conservatives in the run-up to the 2012 election. But there’s a big difference: Whatever you want to say about Lois Lerner, at least she was only persecuting people and groups who she perceived to be enemies of the Obama administration.
The National Park Service has every man, woman, and child in America on its enemies list.
It’s a demonstrable case of a civil agency retaliating against the American public as a whole—on behalf of a single political party.
Please read the whole thing.
The politically-motivated thuggery of the National Park Service is a shock and a disgrace. Public access to public land is intentionally blocked, by armed goons on the public payroll.
This is a country I don't recognize anymore.
What Obama is doing to this government should properly be called Gleichschaltung.
ReplyDeleteLittle John
Godwin's law on the very first comment!
Delete-KW
"Godwin's law on the very first comment!"
DeletePathetic.
Another memetics mimicking monkey.
Sorry control-freak, the idea is already out. You can't silence text. This is not your high school. Nazis were real, the comparison is valid. You have no response.
Y O U A R E A N I D I O T.
Since 9/11 the US has gone through an incredible transformation and seldom for the better.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be fun to go to the US for sightseeing and shopping, when customs greeted you with a smile. Nowadays, going through customs is like being questioned by the Gestapo, so I don't go anymore.
It seems to me the terrorists have won!
Pépé,
DeleteI could not agree with you more. I still, on occasion, have to travel to the USA for work and a loath having to to so. I still like the people. I still like the lay of the land.
I used to spend a lot of holiday time in the US. Many winter getaways, road trips, shopping trips, and long weekends.
No longer.
From the border crossing, to the INTERNAL checkpoints, to the general attitude of the civilian enforcement agencies, to the accounts I hear coming directly from forces personnel about nakedly political and unconstitutional directives.... no thanks.
These days our American family and friends come to see us and we holiday in places we feel both relatively safe and FREE.
I do not gloat about this, it makes me extremely sad.
As you note, Pépé, I once enjoyed my leisure time in the USA and had a great deal of respect for their government and laws.... not so much any more.
"It seems to me the terrorists have won!"
Indeed.
Here is a very sickening example of Canadians at the US border:
Deletehttp://youtu.be/Vo91XS5pVj8
I won't appeal to Godwin's law but the temptation is great!
France summons U.S. ambassador after report says NSA swept up 70.3M French phone records in a month
DeleteJeebus McLightworker's police state at work.
Pépé,
DeleteI had an old friend of mine go through something similar last year. He, his wife, and their 4 and 6 year old children were stopped at Watertown. They forced his children to strip and called his wife a 'fat bitch' because he objected to the tone and manner in which he was spoken to,
I myself have had it out with immigration people well INSIDE the US at an 'immigration' (ie illegal drug search) checkpoint. Luckily the Colonel I was following was able to intimidate the rude, arrogant, little Hitler into 'releasing' my vehicle.
No thanks.
Adm draft dodger:
DeleteJeebus McLightworker's police state at work.
Good to see you dropped the "Lackwhite" reference to your president. Perhaps you learned something from the Council of Conservative Citizens, formerly known as the Council of White Citizens.
BTW, I know you're slow, but you do realize that the NSA has been doing this for decades, right? Ever heard of ECHELON? Google it.
It goes beyond the recent "shutdown" thuggery. National Park Rangers have morphed into a eco-cult police, and have turned into armed thugs running around on public property intimidating visitors.
ReplyDeleteAs matter of history, The Roosevelt Arch at the North Entrance of Yellowstone Park (the first national park in the world), its cornerstone laid down by Teddy Roosevelt himself, is inscribed with these words: "For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People". We've come a long way, baby. Parks have become reliquaries for radical eco-cultists.
Here's a perfect example:
In 2012, several Yosemite campers were infected with hantavirus, and some died. Hantavirus is incurable, and "[C]an lead to severe breathing difficulties and death. Early flu-like symptoms include headache, fever, muscle aches, shortness of breath and coughing." It is not believed to be transmissible between humans.
The problems began when the Park Service installed double-walled tents. Deer mice, common rodents which carry the virus, quickly infested the tents' inner wall space. Many detailed studies have confirmed that mice will opportunistically occupy the inner wall spaces of human dwellings (cf. "Tom and Jerry", Cartoon Network, 2013).
Humans can be infected with hantavirus by breathing the air where infected deer mice urinate or defecate. In fact, in an ironic twist, the more fastidious one tries to be, the more likely one is to disturb the mouse waste by sweeping or cleaning, thus raising the likelihood of infection.The only way to eliminate the threat of infection is to exterminate the mice.
In response to the early cases of the deadly disease, the Park Service responded thusly:
When authorities first identified the Yosemite hantavirus outbreak, rangers balked at the idea of trying to exterminate the deer mice, arguing that the mice play an important role in the Yosemite ecosystem.
--- Reuters
In fact, as has become routine for the government since President Jeebus Lightworker's inauguration, the government blamed the park visitors, whose "role" in the "ecosystem" is apparently less critical that that of the deer mice. The Park Service "theorized" that weather (they had some) and - here it comes - VISITORS bringing in food (the horror, the horror) were at fault.
So, at some point between the construction of Roosevelt Arch and 2012, the Park Service morphed from a public agency whose mission was dedicated to managing the parks to maximize the people's "benefit and enjoyment" into an armed police force whose mission is to protect the government's parks from the people. That's change you can believe in.
On a related theme:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l02E4cj4Vvo
First the Tea Party threw a fit and forced a government shut down, now they turn around and complain that the government actually shut down, demonizing parks service employees who were doing the jobs in accordance with the laws passed by Congress.
ReplyDeleteHey, buster! No recreating! It's the law!
Delete"Pardon me, sir, were you looking at that monument?"
DeleteYou really have no idea how much work goes into policing those memorials, keeping them clean, and otherwise maintaining them on a day to day basis, do you?
DeleteAre you really that stupid, Anon? Or are you a shill?
DeleteHow much did Barry save by setting up barry-cades and cordons of riot police to keep veterans out of war memorials?
I have not met a single American (till this moment) that agree with what has happened here.
I hope they paid you well for your soul.