Yet to some people, it also seems federal officials are going out of their way to make the shutdown painfully symbolic. Many of the open-air monuments currently barricaded were not closed during earlier shutdowns. Some, including the World War II Memorial, were closed by express orders from the White House, according to the Park Service.
At Gettysburg, park officials barricaded pulloffs on a public road so people couldn’t stop and view the monuments from the public right of way. Such pulloff barricades suggest to experts like Mr. Reynolds at the University of Tennessee that the cones are simply there out of spite – an evocation of the power and necessity of the federal government.
At Valley Forge National Historical Park, a man named John Bell entered the monument through what he said was an ungated entrance, but was ticketed by two rangers when he returned to his car. At Maine’s Acadia National Park, rangers have also been issuing fines to campers, bikers, and hikers who have jumped the barricades.
On Monday, the US Sportsmen’s Alliance joined the fray, sending Mr. Obama a letter protesting the shuttering of public hunting lands and inland fisheries at the cusp of the hunting season.
The letter stated that the closures are happening on lands deemed by law to be “priority public use,” which sportsmen argue supersedes any quibbling over the federal budget. The lands were not closed during government shutdowns in 1995 and ’96, notes USSA president Nick Pinizzotto, in a press release.
“Not only are these closures unnecessary, they run contrary to law,” he said. “This is ‘political theatre’ at its very worst.”
Article Appeared @http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/1008/Defying-government-shutdown-national-park-visitors-play-catch-me-if-you-can-video/(page)/3