Just Shut Up

The most disheartening thing about the July 2 dust-up at Rocky Mountain National Park is that I can't even build up a sense of outrage. The feds are simply up to 21st century business as usual. Ashley Casale and Mike Israel, pictured here, were on one of those cross-country peace walks that seem to have an upsurge in popularity every ten years or so. But they made the mistake of trying to walk through Rocky Mountain National Park. They were held and interrogated by park rangers, who claim that federal Park Service rules consider the wearing of a peace-walk placard to be a public protest. The ACLU was duly flustered, the pair continued their walk, and they may even end up with a hefty settlement if this case is taken to the courts. It's a sad commentary for the Fourth of July that this sort of federal action is just par for the course in a White House administration that has been more averse to the Bill of Rights than any administration in a century. Yawn.