-By Warner Todd Huston
Ansel Adams made himself and our national parks famous for photographing the natural beauty he found in the great American west. Now, in this land of “freedom and liberty,” Obama plans to prevent any more Ansel Adams by forcing photographers to get permits to be allowed to photograph our parks.
The stunning black and white photos Adams took of the American west, especially Yosemite National Park, are the very ideal of natural beauty preserved by the snap of his lens. Adams roamed freely in this land of the free and captured images that have been beloved by naturalists all around the world.
But now Obama is planning to put a stranglehold on new Ansel Adams by controlling who is *allowed* to take photos in our national parks with a new “permit” system. Worse, Obama plans to charge up to $1,500 for these permits according to a report by the Associated Press.
Mickey H. Osterreicher, general counsel for the National Press Photographers Association, said such rules would be a clear violation of the First Amendment and raises concerns about press freedom, including whether denying a permit would amount to prior restraint.
“What if they deny you a permit because they don’t like the story you’re working on?” he asked.
Oh, Obama’s regime has all sorts of reasons for this new system, but none of them hold water.
For instance, the government says it will exclude “breaking news” from permitting. But this only means that the government will be allowed to determine what “breaking news” means. This is intolerable in a land built on freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and well, just freedom itself.
There is also another point here. If these fees really do hold and are really as high as 41,500, that would naturally exclude Americans who may not have that much money to throw away on government fees and will naturally exclude millions of Americans from being 8allowed* to take photos n our national parks!
It also means that only big media will be allowed to take these photos which further means that Obama is again picking and choosing which Americans will be allowed their freedoms and which won’t not to mention buttressing crony capitalism by allowing only a moneyed class to be able to benefit from his policies.
There is absolutely everything wrong with this plan. Everything.
But it is a perfect illustration of everything that is wrong with Obama, too.You didn’t build those parks, America. They belong to Obama.
It is unsurprising that if Obama won’t allow us to enjoy our First Amendment rights, many have come to feel that it just might be time to start using our Second Amendment for what it was designed for.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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