The Emperor has no Clothes…but will his subjects notice?

When the government shuts down, the president decides which functions are essential and which should be exempt. From the closure of the WWII Veterans’ Memorial to the isolation of Mount Vernon, and the closing of the privately operated Claude Moore Colonial Farm, the face of the Obama Regime is now revealed. It isn’t pretty.

For recent public school graduates, Mount Vernon is the former home of George Washington. The Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association owns it. It receives no federal funding and has been operated by the private non-profit for more than 150 years.

But these are merely inconvenient details. The regime’s purpose is to cause the greatest possible disruption and inconvenience so a way was found to make it difficult for the public to visit Mount Vernon. The parking lots are co-owned by the National Park Service so the NPR was directed to barricade them. The lots, of course, require no maintenance unless the regime thinks snow is imminent. Hiking and biking paths are also blocked, as are the areas where buses turned around when they still had tourists to deliver.

Ditto the Claude Moore Colonial Farm. The educational facility was federally operated until the 1980s when it was cut from the federal budget and a local non-profit took over, paying 80% of its operation.  As of Oct 1 the group took over 100% of operating costs to keep the facility open for school groups and others who want to experience an authentic colonial farm. But the farm was closed because it is on federal land. Never mind that it costs the government absolutely nothing for the farm to stay open. Saving money is not the issue.

NPS officers also have been stationed along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal to make sure no one uses the now forbidden bike paths. That it would have been less expensive to keep the paths open is beside the point. Similarly, barricades have been put around tiny Marion Park in Washington, D.C., where children come to play on the popular fake turtles.

As POWERLINE points out, “The Obama Administration dispatched more security guards to prevent WW II veterans from visiting the wide open WW II memorial on the Mall than it stationed in Benghazi, notwithstanding the American Ambassador’s pleas for better security.”

Obama has other priorities.

The appellation “Obama Administration” is outdated. Obama Regime is more accurate. Regimes unlike constitutional governments, rule by imposition and by fiat: If the emperor/king doesn’t like a law, he refuses to enforce it. If there is no law to do his bidding, he conjures up a regulation to do what he wants done. The wishes and prerogatives of the regime take precedence over the wants and needs of those it perceives as its subjects. Sound familiar?

Harry Reid gave the game away when he said he wasn’t interested in the Republican sponsored Research for Lifesaving Cures Act, which would have ensured funding for the National Institutes of Health during the shut down. CNN reporter Dana Lash asked: “But if you can help one child who has cancer why wouldn’t you do it?” Reid replied, “Why should we want to do that?” And he went on to chastise Lash for asking the question, calling her as “irresponsible and reckless” as the Republicans he was busy bashing.

Slandering Republicans is what the shut down is all about. It is why Emperor Obama and his dynasty refuse to negotiate. It is why they refuse to keep the NIH open; refuse to delay Obama Care’s for even one year, despite the on-going train wreck of enrollment; and why Obama, Reid and company won’t assent to deleting the job and innovation killing medical devices tax from the law.

In Harry Reid’s words: “Why should we want to do that?” The Democrats are betting that they, and their sycophants in the media, can persuade the public that Republicans are at fault for the shut down and the disruption and inconvenience that resulted. In their scenario, the Democrats would take control of both houses of Congress in the 2014 election. They would then be free to do what they think is “good” for the country without the bother of having to pretend to care about what their subjects think. They apparently believe that the electorate is too stupid to notice that Emperor Obama is the one who refuses to negotiate to end the shut down. (After all, they elected him twice.)

There is a certain appropriate symbolism to the attempt to close George Washington’s home. The man known as the Father of His Country would be appalled at the transformation of the Founders’ constitutional government into a regime and the continuing efforts to turn citizens into subjects.