The Daily Press reports that Historic Jamestowne — a privately owned entity — is being prevented from operating by the National Park Service:
Despite an arrangement worked out with the local National Park Service to get around the federal government shutdown, the private side of Historic Jamestowne did not re-open as planned Wednesday morning.
“We hoped to have the private side open today, but Washington told us no,” said an apologetic Preservation Virginia employee set up in a tent 100 yards from barricades put up by the Park Service.
Claude Moore Colonial Farm came to an arrangement with the federal government under similar circumstances, but this is not the only park that is under lockdown. All of Virginia’s Civil War battlefields are necklaced with Obamacones and Barrycades, while our national parks along the Shenandoah are likewise sequestered from public enjoyment.
Here’s a random thought.
Our landmarks and heritage might be administered by the National Park Service, but they are owned by the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Solution? Send in the Virginia National Guard and reopen our parks, our landmarks, and our heritage.
Picture this. Governor Bob McDonnell holds a press conference and announces that enough is enough, and that Virginia’s heritage is not to be arbitrarily banned by the federal government. Fredericksburg and Manassas, Yorktown and the Shenandoah, Old Rag to Historic Jamestowne. These are ours.
…and so in rolls the convoys.
…and Virginia’s National Guard re-opens our national parks.
Then waits.
Could the governor do such a thing? Most certainly — it would be the boldest and most audacious move of his political career. Such a move would certainly erase a good many concerns about the transportation tax hike and Giftgate, and would pit him against the Obama administration in a big way.
Moreover, it would create a showdown between the National Park Service and the Virginia National Guard that would require one of two responses from Washington: compliance… or something else.
A modest proposal indeed. But is there anything more insulting to the character of Virginians — who arguably built this nation of ours — to surround our historic treasures with Obamacones and Barrycades? As if we needed government in order to walk in the woods, tour our sacred battlefields, or visit such places as Yorktown?
