Redstate
Fifty shades of Big Government
By John Hayward
October 4th, 2013

Today’s installment of Shutdown Theater includes the Obama Administration trying to rope off the ocean, as charter fishing boat captains and tour guides were informed by the National Park Service shock troops of His Imperial Barricading Majesty that Florida Bay is closed for the duration of the current “budget crisis.” (Disclaimer: no actual “budget,” or anything remotely resembling one, will be involved in its resolution.)

Given that we’re talking about over a thousand square miles of prime fishing ground, this sounds like one of those shutdown situations where it might require more manpower and money to close the area than it would to keep it open. The World War II memorial in Washington, DC stands as the most visible symbol of this vindictive lunacy, an open-air monument that isn’t normally attended by rangers 24 hours a day when it’s open, but requires squadrons of guards and tons of barricades (now wired shut to hold the heroes of Normandy and Iwo Jima at bay) to keep it closed. Quite a few of these Shutdown Theater productions are occurring on sites owned largely by state governments, or funded with private money.

One National Park Service employee who didn’t like getting drafted into the Shutdown Shock Brigade complained, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” That’s explosive talk, and you’d think the media would be keenly interested, but they’re still busy chasing the kid White House aides pointed out to them as a glowing success story of the ObamaCare launch, even though it turns out he didn’t actually buy any ObamaCare. Who’s got time to listen to a park ranger talk about how he was specifically ordered to make the American people suffer until Obama’s demands are met?

This isn’t really anything new. Obama’s philosophy, and the beliefs of his ardent followers, are driven entirely by the imperative to punish hated enemies. Liberalism is a miserable failure when it comes to making anything better, and Obama liberalism is expensive on a scale that even the Great Society bunglers would have found staggering, but that’s not the point. As long as the right people hurt, it’s all good. The modern Democrat voter is someone very comfortable with mediocrity, provided his beloved leaders do a good job of making some faceless rich bastards, religious fanatics, and Tea Party “anarchists” bleed.

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