A Very Sad Day for America

Walter Pruden writing in The Washington Times:

[The Barack Obama Administration] has closed Washington down as tight as [they] dare, emphasizing the trivial and the petty in making life as inconvenient as he can for the greatest number. It’s all in a noble cause, of course. Access to most of the memorials is limited, and often in curious ways. The Lincoln Memorial is easy to reach, with the streets around it remaining open. But the Martin Luther King Memorial is made difficult to reach, relegating it, you might say, to the back of the bus. Not very nice. 

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. 

It is important to note that NONE of this was ever done during any of earlier government shutdowns.  No previous President ever wasted the hundreds of thousands of dollars it has taken to inflict this personal pain on the American citizens.

Mike Flynn, writing for FOX NEWS:

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was "closed" due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown.

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban. Of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business.

This is governing by temper-tantrum. It is on par with the government's ham-fisted attempts to close the DC WWII Memorial, an open-air public monument that is normally accessible 24 hours a day. By accessible I mean, you walk up to it. When you have finished reflecting, you then walk away from it.

At least that Memorial is an actual structure, with some kind of perimeter that can be fenced off. Florida Bay is the ocean. How, pray tell, do you "close" 1,100 square miles of ocean? Why would one even need to do so? 

This is not, most assuredly, the America I grew up in. America has become a divided country filled with hate, vindictiveness and envy. People no longer help one another. They look for the advantage, the opportunity to profit from other's loss, to win at any cost. 

I'm not talking about big corporations here, although they can be greedy, too.  I'm talking about people, citizens, individuals.  People putting politics above morality.  People no longer loyal to each other, to their communities and their country, but loyal only to their political party, their so called leader.

It is the kind of personal animosity, hatred of those who might believe differently from you, that has driven the middle east into constant, centuries old conflict. Northern Ireland suffers from the same mindless hatred. Serbia, the list goes on.

How much of this petty vindictiveness comes right from the personal instructions of Barack Obama and how much comes from "the folks" who think they are doing what he would want I can't say.  But I do know Barack Obama could stop it instantly if he wanted.  Clearly he wants divide, class envy, pettiness and hatred. 

If the Republicans are the cause of the shutdown (and that can be argued), President Obama is certainly responsible for this temper tantrum of implementation, as he is for similar acts during the sequestration. This is a sad day indeed.  I pray our next President will actually work to bring this country back together.