Despite the outrage Republicans expressed over Obama shutting the national parks because Republicans are not funding the government, what conservatives really want regarding our national parks is quite instructive (boldface mine):

Of course, as the Center for American Progress and the New York Times pointed out last week, many Republicans who now claim to be outraged by the closure of national parks have had no qualms voting against their funding, forcing closures under sequestration, and working to sell off America’s public lands. These anti-public lands and national parks sentiments are summed up in a tweet from Tea-Party favorite Grover Norquist over the weekend:

I guess if you’re a Republican ‘love’ and ‘support’ mean defund. Anyway, Digby has a longer discussion, but the short version is that this has nothing to do with fiscal rectitude (which is a whole different discussion), but is a full-frontal assault on the concept of the commonwealth. They really do want to sell off and turn over to privatize our national patrimony and outsource our capacity (such as it is–thanks House GOP!) for self-governance to the highest bidder. That they are willing to risk national and international catastrophe to accomplish this makes it all the more disgusting.