Foreign Tourists, Senior Citizens Treated To “Gestapo Tactics” While Touring America’s National Parks

Police State USA

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

That’s what one National Park Service ranger told the Washington Times.

With the recent furlough of “nonessential” federal workers, the White House has been attempting to artificially inflate the impact of the absence of 800,000 bureaucrats.  They’ve been accomplishing this by barricading national parks, kicking veterans out of monuments, forcing people out of their homes, locking down agency websites, and other unnecessary measures that do not reflect cost savings, only spite.  Americans are quite capable of walking through wooded national parks and viewing statues without the federal government holding their hands.  The Regime is on a purely political mission to put pressure on Congress to reinstate the full bureaucracy; attempting to thwart efforts to downsize the central government.

The instructions to make life difficult for people, combined with the already thuggish demeanor of many of the federal government’s Pretorian caste, has left a volatile situation for many people in the midst of this “shutdown.”

Last week, thousands of tourists were subjected to “harsh treatment” by the federal agents who were instructed to kick everyone out of National Parks.  Tour buses were loaded up and ejected, people were bullied for taking photographs, some groups were even detained for hours under armed guard.

One 41-passenger tour bus partaking in a 9-day visit to various western national parks told of the hostile tactics used on them while in Yellowstone National Park.  The group was lodged at the Old Faithful Inn and had planned to visit the famous “Old Faithful” geyser on the afternoon of October 1st.  The hotel was within walking distance of the geyser, but federal enforcers had barricaded all of the boardwalks and access points to it and even forced people to go back inside the hotel and wait, under penalty of arrest.

The tour director, Gordon Hodgson of Utah, was upset that his passengers — many of them elderly or foreign — were being frightened, detained, and even led to believe that they were under arrest.  Montana’sLivingston Enterprise interviewed Hodgson, who said:

“[The federal agent] told me you need to return  to your hotel and stay there.  This is just Gestapo tactics. We paid a lot to get in. All these people wanted to do was take some pictures.”

Not seeing the logic in why a bankrupt government would blockade a forest , he continued:  “The national parks belong to the people.  This isn’t right.”

Newburyport News followed up on the story and shed some light on the hostile tactics in an interview with Pat Vaillancourt, a tourist from Salisbury.  She gave extra details about the hostile disruption to their vacation.

“They looked like Hulk Hogans, armed. They told us you can’t go outside,” she said, describing the agents who detained her and other tourists in a hotel. (No offense, Hulk!)  She continued, “Some of the Asians who were on the tour said, ‘Oh my God, are we under arrest?’ They felt like they were criminals.”

In another incident, their brief attempt to photograph some wildlife was cut short by an aggressive park ranger.  As Newburyport News described:

The bus stopped along a road when a large herd of bison passed nearby, and seniors filed out to take photos. Almost immediately, an armed ranger came by and ordered them to get back in, saying they couldn’t “recreate.” The tour guide, who had paid a $300 fee the day before to bring the group into the park, argued that the seniors weren’t “recreating,” just taking photos.

“She responded and said, ‘Sir, you are recreating,’ and her tone became very aggressive,” Vaillancourt said.

Yet another incident from October 3rd left the foreign passengers vowing to never return to the United States.

As the bus made its 2.5-hour journey out of Yellowstone, the tour guide made arrangements to stop at a full-service bathroom at an in-park dude ranch he had done business with in the past. Though the bus had its own small bathroom, Vaillancourt said seniors were looking for a more comfortable place to stop. But no stop was made — Vaillancourt said the dude ranch had been warned that its license to operate would be revoked if it allowed the bus to stop. So the bus continued on to Livingston, Mont., a gateway city to the park.

Hodgson said that all their subsequent stops to nature parks had to be cancelled, and was “not a happy camper.”

And to think, these bullies were among the crop of federal workers who were deemed essential and didn’tget furloughed!

It remains unclear what gives a park ranger the authority to threaten the revocation of someone’s driver’s license.  Surely NPS supervisors will get right after that abusive report right after their paid furlough/vacation is over.

While the tactics employed may have been used in an effort to cause Americans to grieve the federal furlough, it may well accomplish the opposite.  Instead of missing the rest of the NPS staff, maybe taxpayers will realize that there is no reason that the federal government should maintain control of land it can neither afford or manage properly.  Perhaps the states should control their own parks without Washington politics getting in the way.  In the meantime, tourists had best be advised to steer clear of America’s mismanaged federal parks this season, and instead direct their dollars toward state or private destinations.

Sources :

1. Police State USA
2. Image Credit

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