What’s going on with the National Park Service? And the country?
Commenter “Ymarsakar” puts his finger on one of the more disturbing developments that has come to light because of the shutdown:
…[T]he park service [used to be] your friendly friends at parks.
Until Obama ordered them to put the rod down on the peasants, and many of them obeyed, though not all.
It has struck me that this is an indication of both human nature (see Milgram’s research on obedience to authority) and what our country has become in recent years. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Greatest Generation would have been nearly as compliant.
First the IRS, then the NSA and the NPS. The more we learn about any specific department/bureau, the worse it gets.
As I said some time ago, I think the reason True the Vote was offered a deal to end their lawsuit was because it would expose the abuse of even more agencies: EPA, FBI and ATF in addition to IRS.
It’s beginning to look like the whole government is bad, not just a few bad apples.
http://www.copblock.org/
www bookwormroom.com/2013/10/09/is-the-national-park-service-the-new-gestapo/
Are good things to read on this subject.
A lot of what I think should or shouldn’t be done about the park rangers is written in the comment section of the second site.
A lot of people have wondered in the past if organization A (Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, police, FBI, TSA, SEIU, ACORN, etc, etc) would obey orders to “round up people” and “send them to X”. People normally gave me crazy looks when I brought that subject up.
This also relates to Germany in WWII, once again. It’s just that humans need a hierarchy, it’s what our evolution tells us we need for survival. That’s not always the case, but for most people it is the absolute truth.
So there’s a lot of factors that go into making your own identity and dealing with external influences.
One of the sources “On Killing” used was a test of students where they were to push a button and then hear the screams of the person, which they cannot see, that has been electrified as a result of the button. Even as the student or test subject, is stressed again and again to the breaking point and asks/begs for the test to stop, the scientist just has to say next to the ear “increase the voltage and hit it again” and people will… Obey
They Will Obey
Even when the voltage was at lethal levels, They Obeyed.
Even as the screams stopped (dead silence), They Obeyed.
People who are resistant to interrogation, resistant to authority, resistant to hypnosis, form a certain minority in the human race/species. You can acquire this resistance through training or other factors. It’ll never be an immunity though.
A person that has long term abstract goals for fighting and short term goals he personally wants to see fulfilled, is very hard to dominate and very hard to be forced into obeying orders which that person finds unjust or wrong. But most people merely obey the orders from what they consider rightful authority. This conflict of loyalties is something I’ve seen a lot in depictions of wars and civil wars, coup de tats, and revolutions.
Following orders doesn’t turn human atrocities into acts of justice, but it is an explanation that works.
What that means for me is that we should highlight the times when rangers refused to obey orders or found ways to sabotage or go awol, and praise such behavior or people. While personally assassinating the character of sadists that enjoy following the orders. Personalize, not generalize.
Because even in an organization, it’s still people and their motivations that get the work done.
Oh, I should add:
ATF was previously in hot water over Fast and Furious.
FBI over Benghazi and its non-investigation thereof.
EPA over its “war on coal”, et. al.
Those have plausible deniability. They could be “simple mistakes.”
The use of those agencies to target True the Vote cannot be explained away. And as the polls show, the public is not in a forgiving mood over it.
Agree; they USED to be your friendly park rangers; I now see them all in a different light. That light shining on them is more along the lines of “don’t trust them they’re the same as other government idiots.”
Now, I get that many of them were trying to save their own jobs (do as you’re told or be fired). But, the extent that they shut things down is so out of bounds that they are now Obama’s thugs.
Agree with Ymarsakar:
“What that means for me is that we should highlight the times when rangers refused to obey orders or found ways to sabotage or go awol, and praise such behavior or people. While personally assassinating the character of sadists that enjoy following the orders. Personalize, not generalize.”
Comparisons to the Nuremberg defense of “just following order” should be made regularly.
However, under the current regime we know there will be no accountability.
I see a lot of Democrats, cannonfodder, or political neutrals talk about “we have to have police, we have to pay for them, we need them to be armed to protect us”.
I can’t help but stare at these unresisting sheep and think “if only they knew”.
They think our “anti government” posture is the same as anarchy, the jungle, and being left to die out in the woods. They think we need the police’s protection, just like them, but we’re so “selfish” we don’t want to pay for it or are too proud to kneel down and Obey Obama.
They have no idea. No idea.
There is a certain segment of humanity that doesn’t need authority or larger organizations to exist. They are the loners, the small groups, the frontiersmen and women. Yes, sociopaths can also count in that classification.
What authority they obey is based on a consensual and mutually beneficial relationship. Much as the Left likes to talk about consensual sex, choice of abortion and all that, they don’t really believe in something like “free will”. They believe in Obedience.
Also, beware of group Othering at work. It’s not just “them” over there that is susceptible.
Your family, your neighbors, EVERYONE you know is like this, to one degree or another.
If they were ordered to turn you in, if they were ordered to sell you out, if they were ordered to lead the death squads to your child’s school or safe house… do you think they would refuse?
I am gradually coming to the conclusion that government workers are an extension of the Democratic party. That is where their money comes from. It is the source of their security.
The Park Service has spent decades and a lot of effort to create their “brand,” represented by the cute, friendly “Smoky the Bear” character, there to protect, inform, and to guide you toward having a happy time, usually with your family, and it only took Obama a couple of days to ruin that image and perception.
Henceforward, many, if not most of us–if we have been paying attention–will now see those Park Police and Rangers as government minions, no different than any others, there to do the government’s bidding and to screw the public in any way that the government commands; a petty, mean spirited, spiteful, low rent Gestapo.
I’d say the best way to make our feelings as citizens known–besides ignoring the barricades and the yellow tape–is to call our congressmen and to demand that they introduce legislation making drastic cuts in the Park Service budget and a corresponding large cut in their manpower as well.
Along with the unfortunately self-evident corruption of the FBI, IRS, ATF, DHS, NSA and a whole host of other government Departments and Agencies, yet another indication that Obama & Co. are well along the way to fashioning the government bureaucracy into a tyrannical instrument of oppression and control.
The public is getting a glimpse of what i have been saying for over a decade is coming. but too slow for the average person to realize it. after all, theya re not Szliard.
you dont get that the wealthy can go on those lands
and all they are doing is restricting the volk and the unprotected volk.
this is red terror…
your afrraid to go to the park, t hey may arrest you
MORE so if your a white male.
heck, ny city parks are illegal for males if there is a playground there…
but you guys dont want to beleive the dupplication of most of the nazi laws since you dont know the nazi laws.
lets just say that the volk were the favored protected classes… and those who were not volk were either party members… or the scapegoats…
in termany, the scapegoats were the old, the sick, the mental, the jews, etc…
in the USA, the scapegoats are white males (almost all jewish men are white), and they have much of the same laws that hitler created put agains them. but unlike hitlers laws, these are slower, and hidden by the fact that wealth can allow you to bypass their limits.
so i the early days of the german progressive state, jews were forbidden from state parks and other places of recreation… the point was this was state property, and not peoples property.
in germany, jews were not allowed to own small businesses and run them… in the USA, the 8A program reserves huge amounts of reverse racism stuff that means a white male non volk cant start a business.
the supreme court just ruled (AGAIN) that the academics cant use race to put people in the colleges, and holder just wrote the collges and tol them to ignore the supreme court.
[ergo why i am not a researcher after going to bronx science, and my son just took a naval commission rather than get a phd after all the schooling and honors degrees!]
funny, but the germans did similar..
want as cholarship… jews, i mean white males dont have any. go to the website of “the jews hospital” and you will find almost no jewish people there any more, as its all women and minorities, and the only white males are those with money (gives them the best selection of women too).
want to avoid the obamacare problems?
just quite chrstiantity, rounounce judaism, and become islamic… then you have a pass not to be part of obamacre.. bet you guys didnt know that muslims are exempte
there is so much more, but neo will just delete it
the liars advantage is its short.
refutation is never smaller than the lie…
A lot of people have wondered in the past if organization A (Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy, police, FBI, TSA, SEIU, ACORN, etc, etc) would obey orders to “round up people” and “send them to X”. People normally gave me crazy looks when I brought that subject up
they dont have to.
the commanding officers can be replaced by leaders of the civilian corps…
obamas writ of king says they have equal rank to military and so he only needs a higher rank, to give orders in that, and that can gtive orders to the rest.
so, in short order all the commanders of the militar can be replaced by obamas civiliancorps.
of course, this is crazy, after creating sucha an abilty, they dont intend t use it.
Random thoughts about King Barack’s phony shutdown
By Coach Collins, on October 10th, 2013
By Kevin “Coach” Collins
http://www.coachisright.com/random-thoughts-about-king-baracks-phony-shutdown/
In all of the lies, phony “polls” misreporting, failures to report and Democrat name calling since this shutdown started, one essential point is being buried: The federal parks and other installations and services King Barack has closed or discontinued are NOT his private property to close. These treasures are owned jointly by We The People.
do they belong to the people?
isnt posession 9/10ths?
who possesses the parks, and can deem who can be there or not… that is the owner…
I would rather die having spoken in my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet in law ought any man use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees before his pursuers, he may escape death, if a man is willing to say or do anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs deeper than death.-Socrates before the Athenian death panel
Socrates did not bend knee to the command of the Athenians. He chose death instead, which many ridiculed him for as they didn’t expect it.
This ability to resist authority, this ability to teach kids how to think for themselves and obey their own conscience, not somebody else’s orders on what constitutes justice, is why he was a threat to the status quo.
One of the reasons why I believe the Democrats wanted Iraq to fail so badly wasn’t due to politics or power, though that helped, but because they didn’t want to see a single additional free person or nation on this planet. If they have the power, they’d rather force the people of Iraq to Obey Saddam. An example of free Iraq would be a dangerous precedent for Americans at home. So they had to kill the baby in the womb before the birth, and if that doesn’t succeed, they’ll finish the job after the birth.
The Left programs the children of America to obey. Two girls were put on stage before their peers and ordered to kiss each other, in order to show “diversity” and “tolerance” for homosexuality.
When they grow to be adults, they will be “programmed” and conditioned to kill when authorized to.
A person like Socrates that has his own thinking, that believes intensely in his own value and work, is hard to dominate. Since they’ll either kill you or themselves before they are enslaved.
Americans need to find something to believe in, enough to kill or die for. Only that is the defense against tyranny. Guns are just a labor saving device.
In what looks like a spiteful move, the NPS even removed handles from water spigots along the Chesapeake and Ohio canal where bikers and joggers exercise as well as along the Great Allegheny Passage, just to ensure people don’t get any water from them.
Instead of saving money, the NPS is expending additional resources to go out of its way to close such locations and to make people miserable
f/n/a NPS
k/n/a the federal DMV….
I intend to say something about this from now on whenever I encounter a national park ranger…
D’oh!
That should have read:
f/k/a NPS
n/k/a the federal DMV…
‘Elmo’ sent to jail as Times Square characters raise concerns…
I imagine it creates a good deal of cognitive dissonance to work for and be paid by an organization, such as the National Park Service, that orders one to do things that he or she considers wrong.
There are to ways to relieve the discomfort of that cognitive dissonance: change one’s behavior (and not work as directed and risk not being paid) or change one’s belief about what is wrong (and believe the orders are right and good).
Most persons in this kind of situation are more likely to modify beliefs than behavior. And so most will not acknowledge, even to themselves, that the orders they are carrying out are wrong.
It is this change in beliefs that facilitates gradual acceptance of a totalitarian government.
the new smokey the bear
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LG7k5s-LwhU/UlbWcutOrMI/AAAAAAAABCY/bcI9nRpn8ms/s1600/Stokey+Says.jpg
they all have their nuremburg defenses ready too
“I was only following orders” – Adolf Eichmann
I cannot recognize the verdict of guilty. . . . It was my misfortune to become entangled in these atrocities. But these misdeeds did not happen according to my wishes. It was not my wish to slay people. . . . Once again I would stress that I am guilty of having been obedient, having subordinated myself to my official duties and the obligations of war service and my oath of allegiance and my oath of office, and in addition, once the war started, there was also martial law. . . . I did not persecute Jews with avidity and passion. That is what the government did. . . . At that time obedience was demanded, just as in the future it will also be demanded of the subordinate.
just think
they only had to have a debt limit fight to get OWS out of the parks…
Park rangers don’t live in the Beltway as, say, the IRS scumbags do.
They live among those they see in parks, or who know what the rangers are up to.
It will be hard for the rangers and their neighbors and former friends to look each other in the eye.
Old technique for building an anti-society force; make them do that which cuts them off from the rest of society and which means the only people they can feel comfortable with are the others who’ve done the same thing.
I grew up in a town dominated by the NPS. In those days, 1933 – 1954, the parks were not that heavily visited. People did not have the money or time to travel to the parks in flyover country. The NPS payroll was the only reliable source of money in town. The rest came from the summer residents (Mostly wealthy farmers and business people from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri.) and the few tourists that came to visit the National Park. The rangers mostly provided interpretation, maintenance, and emergency services. It was a pretty laid back time. The rangers were not politicized to any extent and none of them ever carried guns.
In the 1970s when I returned to Colorado, the picture had changed. The National Parks were being heavily visited. Unfortunately, some of the visitors had little respect for the preservation of the environment and some were thugs. The Park Service had morphed into a police force. Most rangers who were on patrol (Back country enforcement, highway patrol, campground supervision, etc.) carried guns. Additionally, as the environmental movement gained traction, many of the “Greenies” were attracted to working in the National Parks as rangers.
I can tell a long, sad tale of trying to establish a memorial fountain at a National Park trailhead. It would sit on a plot of land 50’x50′ next to the trailhead parking area. It took 3 years to overcome all the objections by the Greenies in the NPS. Even today, it is a fight to keep the fountain in place – but that’s another story.
Now the NPS is dominated by Greenies. The story about the tourists in Yellowstone being treated like POWs did not surprise me. They are a bunch of humorless, ideologues. If they had their way, the National Parks would be locked up and only true Greenies would be allowed in.
IMO, most of the Federal bureaucracies are loaded with lefties of similar characteristics. It doesn’t auger well for the future. They do think they are the masters and we are a problem.
art.
I prefer this one which went along with an AT article… I like the subtlety of the Hitler mustache.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/national_park_service_wolves_in_service_dog_harness.html
“Now the NPS is dominated by Greenies. The story about the tourists in Yellowstone being treated like POWs did not surprise me. They are a bunch of humorless, ideologues. If they had their way, the National Parks would be locked up and only true Greenies would be allowed in.”
Wow. Makes sense though.
physicsguy at 4:41PM:
Thanks for that link, I almost spewed my iced tea onto the keyboard!
Gotta save that one for future use.. .
}}} Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t think the Greatest Generation would have been nearly as compliant.
The Lamest Generation (formerly known as “Boomers”) can’t imagine why one would not comply.
I suspect Gen-Xers are not quite so compliant, but we can’t test that just yet, since the Boomers still hold too much power.
Thanks for the AT piece, physicsguy. Def. putting that up on FB.
I just received this by e-mail from a friend:
“I have worked in the government on and off for 40 years. During that time I became quite familiar with requisitions, bidding, awarding contracts etc. It is a time consuming process with bean-counters and pencil-necked bureaucrats every step of the way. The simplest request takes months not days or hours.
In less than 8 hours of the shutdown, miraculously, professionally printed 3X4 foot signs appeared all over the country in the tens of thousands saying-“this [park, facility, etc. with custom logos] closed due to government shutdown.” There has not been a government shutdown in 17 years. These signs were designed, specifications were determined, signs were then requisitioned, bids were posted and vetted, government contracts were awarded. The materials were then ordered and the signs manufactured then distributed by U.S. Mail or freight companies.
This shutdown was orchestrated and planned well in advance at least 6-8 month ago. Millions of tax dollars were appropriated and spent in this process. There is a paper trail a mile long. Does it lead to the White House?”
This makes it pretty clear that the shutdown was planned an executed by the dems and administration. However, they may have made a tactical error. That American Thinker article makes the point. People are surprised to find how out of touch with the “folks” (HT O’Reilly) these people are. And the folks are not taking it without complaint.
The Greatest Generation was growing up in FDR’s 30s, the closest we have come to fascism at any time before the present. Many of them have been inclined to trust government.
I agree that greenies are in the NPS. It is government service, and that alone appeals to many on the left. Further many environmentalists appreciate NPS. If you are a liberal fascist with green views, NPS seems like a great place to work.
I’m sure many would love to lock out those pesky human visitors.
As a Westerner I recall the Sagebrush Rebellion. My dad was a rancher and miner. He hated the Sierra Club and had a poor view of rangers and BLM.
Ranger types tend to hate mining, offroading, and similar activities.
Now, there are good rangers. But there are many with an agenda.
As part of a general house-cleaning, heads need to roll at the National Park Service. Beyond that, it’s clear the civil service system is kaput and corrupted, and needs to be reformed. If and when we ever get a conservative or libertarian leaning president.
Ymarsakar:
The experiment you are describing in your comment at 12:19 PM is a version of the Milgram experiments in Obedience to Authority that I referenced in my post. There were many various on the theme, but they were done by Stanley Milgram.
One of the reviewer comments at amazon for Milgram books, described something similar, with a twist.
Found that out after I wrote the comment though.
IGotBupkis, “‘Faeces Evenio’, Mr. Holder?” Says:
October 10th, 2013 at 6:47 pm
Gen-Xers are entering middle age now. The Millennials are still young, and young people have a tendency to rebel against authority. I guess we’ll see.
Game wardens too have been subverted by greenies . They’ve always been armed and we now have green fanatics roaming hunting and fishing areas.
I actually heard one of these wraiths discussing the rights of coyotes .
Strauss-Howe generational theory posits that THE generation to save us will be those now emergent as adults.
Obamacare falls brutally upon just that generation.
It’s Barry’s attempt to eradicate the Whites, as a Class, — following his father’s programming. (FMD)
We are in S-H Crisis.
Just look at what’s in the news… the total corruption of truth on an epic scale… on a global scale.
Even the Swiss have thrown in the towel. They’ve linked their currency to the Euro; which itself, is a fantastic fraud.
It’s a rubber-banded fiat.
Future generations will shrink in horror how hundreds of millions could be so taken — by ‘authority.’
In this BRUTAL over-reach, the authorities have so corrupted their moral authority — their connection to reality — so as to cause the ULTIMATE re-set — if humanity survives such folly.
Humanity has been here before: August 1914.
The experts NEVER see it coming. If they did, it wouldn’t be a hyper-crisis.
The historical role call of folly is stacked in tomes of history.
What’s cute is how the collective intelligence has been so drastically debased — that Barry is ‘deemed passed.’
One of the reasons why I predicted US civil war in 20 years if Obama was re elected and US civil war in 50 years if he was not, was simply because of things like this.
All of the Left’s power infrastructure is already here. But who knew about the park service and allowed the public to know about it on a public level? How was it hidden? It was hidden much like most other things would have been under a Republican President. Civil war is inevitable because these power infrastructures are not going to be removed, no matter how many people clamor for it.
Yet under Barack, they will expose the usage of these machines of thought control, so while they can hide them it won’t be so easy. Thus 20 years instead of 50 years. In 50 years, the park service and TSA may have tanks and nukes, given the rate they are progressing. At that point, they will either have to use em or lose em.
Right now, they use em and thus lose the deception for a singular moment. Under a Republican, the Democrats may just go into hiding once more and appear several decades later, with a “surprise”.
Civil war, no matter what happened in 2012, is inevitable.
@Ymarsakar
Civil war, no matter what happened in 2012, is inevitable.
That is a bold prediction. Bold, because I can easily see two ways in which these institutions are neutered without war:
1) Obamacare is such a disaster in implementation, and the administration is so tone-deaf, that ALL the independents vote R next election, and the one after that…and some of the young and Ds switch sides, too. Theoretically possible.
2) The elites let shit get so bad that our finances are ruined, whatever fate befalls Obamacare. America is already one of the highest-taxed nations in the world, so it’s not like there is a lot of free money out there for the government to take. In that case, government cuts are necessary. This response is actually less likely than #1 above…still possible though.
Another one:
3) Financial crisis occurs, and government seizes IRAs etc. just like in Cyprus (and Poland). The result is a MAJOR backlash bigger even than in example #1.
The thing to note is that most Democrats are not Jonestown-type cultists like some people like to believe. We’ve had enough threads about what motivates them here…I believe it’s safe to say a good many are just hypocrites.
When shit gets real, and it’s THEIR OWN MONEY being taken, they aren’t going to take it with a smile.
Hyperinflation is the predicted result in a decade or 3.
Milk costing 500 US dollars. People that hoarded gold and silver will be able to buy up entire cities and states for real money.
@Ymarsakar
Quite possible, with Yellin at the Fed. (soon, we’ll all be yellin’ at the Fed…HA! Financial collapse is fun!)
The only question in my mind is whether she thinks $85 Billion in money-printing per month is enough.
hope somneone is still reading this thread cause this is funny
the left liberal socialists had anotehr hitler stalin moment!!!
DUmmies Slam WWII Vets Before Changed Liberal Talking Points Arrived
Apparently the DUmmies revealed their TRUE selves when they slammed WWII vets for going through the WWII Memorial barriers before they had a chance to review the liberal talking points memos that came out later. See, according to the liberal talking points, the vets were prevented from entering the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C. because the EVIL Republicans caused the government shutdown. …
The thing to note is that most Democrats are not Jonestown-type cultists like some people like to believe. We’ve had enough threads about what motivates them here…I believe it’s safe to say a good many are just hypocrites.
When shit gets real, and it’s THEIR OWN MONEY being taken, they aren’t going to take it with a smile.
Given the reaction of some Democrats to having their own money taking for obamaCare, I think they are death cultists.
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