National Parks Closed because of Covid-19. Open Them!

Correction: “Keep Up This Wall!” Why Park Closure Rules Make Sense

My husband Dave’s recent post about silly Covid-19 pandemic rules was wrong. Turns out that closing vast tracts of public park land to people wanting to get fresh air and sunshine is NOT silly when We the People are irresponsible, when we violate our sacred trust.

He complained about public park closures, using as a case in point the #ChickamaugaNMP in NW Georgia. That Civil War battlefield is 5300 acres of National Military Park with roads, trails, vistas, fields, woods, nature, sunshine and fresh air … but all roads through it are closed. He thought it was to protect people.

Wrong! It was to protect the park from people.

He learned from park volunteers that, as Covid-19 hit, hundreds, even thousands of people, came to this Civil War battlefield, this sacred space. Many walked the trails, meditated, enjoyed nature and honored this hallowed ground, as they should. BUT others held parties, set up BBQ grills near monuments and tent shelters in fields. They caused traffic jams. They left garbage all over. Some even got out their metal detectors, searching for and digging up Civil War artifacts … which has been illegal for decades.

In short, they trashed the Chickamauga National Military Park. And so the park superintendent took responsible, care-giving action, and shut down not only the visitors center, but all access to the park.

In his first post, my husband Dave said: “The park’s land should be available” …. But now, in this video, he says that when We, the People can’t take care of sacred ground, places that are entrusted to us, then those types of places should be shut down.

We the People can do better. We the People MUST do better … or we deserve to have these national shrines and treasures closed, even when we need them the most.

National Park closures during Covid-19 Pandemic are justified
Blame Game vs Personal Responsibility

Episode 21: Mass Shootings and Personal Responsibility vs The Blame Game

Mass Shootings and the Blame Game – We have a bad habit of playing the blame game in America. We want to blame everyone but ourselves. Everyone but the person who committed the crime (or the mass shooting). We don’t have the luxury of playing that game in our free nation – a constitutional republic.

The point of a free country is that each person is responsible for his or her own actions. Only in a dictatorship or a monarchy or oligarchy (where people are not free and forced to do things) would the leader of a nation be responsible for the actions of citizens.

Our problem in this nation is we’re abdicating our personal responsibility and constantly blaming others (or the government or the president or the gun) for our problems. Until we teach personal responsibility and stop shifting blame we will never solve the problems in our nation. The eventual destiny of a nation that abdicates personal responsibility is slavery.

Our current President is no more responsible for El Paso than the last President was responsible for Sandy Hook. These things have been going on for decades regardless of administration. The problems are deeply rooted in our society. If we want to solve them, we have to own the root causes of the emotional and mental disturbance in our young men.

This episode of Front Porch Sense explores some of the ways society could be hurting our young men and creating a seedbed for this type of violence.

Personal responsibility is the key to freedom. It’s the key to peace. It’s the key to safety. Teach people correct principles and they govern themselves. The answer isn’t big government. It’s self-government.

There’s a good article exploring some of the possibilities for what is happening to our young men in America here.

Featured Image: Copyright: Elnur / BigStockPhoto.com