Such orders are representative of a deep and unlovely philosophical instinct. The reason that services close during a government shutdown is that there is no money to pay for them. This is why staff are furloughed, facilities are closed, and, in extreme cases, why checks don’t get cut. But what happens if there is enough money? Traditionally, the answer is that every effort is made to inconvenience people as little as is humanly possible.

Not this time. In Wisconsin, the Journal Sentinel reported early in the week, the federal Park Service “ordered state officials to close the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine, Devil’s Lake, and Interstate state parks and the state-owned portion of the Horicon Marsh, but state authorities rebuffed the request because the lion’s share of the funding came from state, not federal coffers.” Here, the federal government wasn’t so much regretfully informing the public that the money had run dry as it was attempting to remove its Royal blessing from a local Lord who does not rely on it. Nobody who genuinely recognizes government as the deferential servant of a naturally free people would view the state this way. Peeved Kings, convinced of their divine right and keen to demonstrate the folly of recalcitrant subjects, on the other hand, most certainly would. “It’s my party, and you’ll cry if I want you to,” our mandarins in D.C. appeared to say.

Progressives who thrill to shrill accusations that their ideological opponents are “spoiled children” should be ashamed of the way in which their supposedly adult leaders have elected to respond.