Issue 186 Free the Parks October 17, 2013

As part of the government shutdown the national parks were closed. One problem, many of those parks require zero federal funds to run and operate in the first place. As such, by closing them down the government is spending more money than it would to just allow people to go in and enjoy the parks natural vistas.

Those they shut down: They shut down Yellow Stone, Mt. Rushmore, and even the WW II memorial in Washington D.C. However, this is a problem. Places like Mt. Rushmore, and the Grand Canyon do not require any money to operate. Also, the WW II memorial is entirely maintained by private donations (including those from my own family). But the bureaucratic arm of the federal government wanted to make the shut down hurt. So they tried to block off the memorials and parks. They even went as far as chaining swings to the bars in parks in D.C. and attempted to shut down some State run parks. It has become ridiculous.

How they are enforcing this?: Unfortunately for us, they are enforcing this by having police officers block off these sites. They have even tracked down joggers who have skirted the parks on their morning exercise just to write them a ticket. In some cases, they have forcefully removed people from their own private property if that property sits inside a federal park. This includes seniors like on the Island that sits in Lake Mead (you can read about this more in detail in the "Washington Times" or at "The Blaze").

What can be done?: Simple, we need to let the parks loose from the grasp of the federal government. It is obvious that those in power are trying to force as much pain as possible on the American people, to put pressure on the Republicans in this case, to forcefully end the shut down. So we need to let the States have that land back. The federal government owns about 1/3 of the land in the United States with some States having well over half their land under federal control. As such, let us petition government to give the parks and the unused federal land back to the individual States. It will not take any money save the price of the paper and ink to write up the legislation. Once this is done, States can own the parks and operate them as they see fit (which will generally be free just like before) and the unused federal land that becomes State property can be used for any number of purposes. Such purposes include more parks, nature study areas, places for scientific research, mining and industrial purposes or even another launch site for the growing private space flight industry. All federal park rangers and personnel will be transferred to the State governments so they don't loose their jobs. A simple solution to an oppressive government that thinks it can make us do what it pleases.

Conclusion: A federal shut down, like the one that just occured, did not have to shut down a single park. Many of the facilities and even some of the businesses on them can or already are run privately or are supported through private donation. We do not need the federal government to maintain parks like Glacier or Arcadia. And we most certainly do not need them closing down any war memorial let alone the WW II memorial in D.C. So I say free the parks now!