The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society

[NWRatCon]

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has noted about the USPS that "It's not a business, it's a service. And this whole notion that you've got to get rid of the post office because they've been losing money — the post office ain't losing money. ... You're paying for a service to keep this country together." Clyburn bashes Postal cuts: It's a service, not a business (the Hill). He's not alone in that sentiment:
The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society (CNN, Opinion)

So why did I start this thread here? Because the Postal Service is a Constitutional creation. Indeed, the US Post has existed longer than the nation itself. It was one of the first "national" institutions established to separate "the colonies" from its mother country.

The Post Office Act of 1792 emphasized its public role, setting low rates for mailing newspapers, which were subsidized by more expensive letters. In both Britain and America, free or reduced postage for newspapers ingrained the idea that the circulation of news was one of the post's most important functions.

(CNN)

When Trump (and Republicans) try to dismantle the USPS they are not just making a "business decision" - they are ****ing with the Constitution. It has been a Republican effort going back more than a decade to dismantle the Post Office, and it needs to stop.

Congress must end the 2006 Republican-authored mandate, imposed on no other federal agency or private business, that the USPS prefund its retirees' anticipated health and retirement benefits for decades, a move intended to financially hobble the agency. The House passed a bill in February to end the mandate.

(CNN)

Why do Republicans hate the Post Office? Because of " its central role in establishing democratic ideals." Democracy, we can't have that!

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Why do Republicans hate the Post Office? Because of " its central role in establishing democratic ideals." Democracy, we can't have that!

Well for sure, they hate ANY and ALL functioning government backed goods and services altogether.
Public schools, post offices, libraries, federal tax supported highways, corrections, municipally owned utilities...they even tried privatizing fire departments in a few small towns, with disastrous results.

ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is also bent on privatizing as much of government as possible.

 

[Barnacle]

"The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society"


I guess Germany and the UK fell into a dis-functioning society after they privatised Bundespost and Royal Mail respectively.

:lol:

 

[Noodlegawd]

And this whole notion that you've got to get rid of the post office because they've been losing money....
Why do Republicans hate the Post Office? Because of " its central role in establishing democratic ideals." Democracy, we can't have that!

Who said we need to get rid of the USPS, and what Republicans have said they hate it?

 

[NWRatCon]

Who said we need to get rid of the USPS, and what Republicans have said they hate it?

"A recent task force created by President Trump labeled the Postal Service’s financial path “unsustainable,” and recommended changes that would push the post closer to complete privatization." Congress Is Sabotaging Your Post Office (Washington Monthly)

The USPS handles 47 percent of the world’s mail, delivering nearly 150 billion mail pieces annually. It delivers more in sixteen days than UPS and FedEx, combined, ship in a year. The agency has roughly half a million career employees spread out across almost 31,000 locations. Post offices are tucked into every state, across far-flung Native American reservations, and in remote protectorates. If it were a private business, the post would rank around fortieth on the Fortune 500. And you can send a letter from coast to coast for two quarters and a nickel—less than the cost of a candy bar.

In reality, most of the post’s wounds are politically inflicted. In the early 1970s, Congress passed legislation that shoehorned the agency into a convoluted half-public, half-corporate governing structure to make it operate more as a business. And in 2006, Congress required that the Postal Service pre-fund its health benefit obligations at least fifty years into the future. This rule has accounted for nearly 90 percent of the post’s red ink since.

For the most part, these harmful “reforms” have originated on the political right. To argue that the Postal Service needs to be privatized, conservatives need to show that it is dysfunctional, and there’s no better way to do that than by weighing the agency down with impossible financial obligations. It continues a generation-long pattern of institutional vandalism by Republicans across government.

 

[Noodlegawd]

"A recent task force created by President Trump labeled the Postal Service’s financial path “unsustainable,” and recommended changes that would push the post closer to complete privatization." Congress Is Sabotaging Your Post Office (Washington Monthly)

"Closer to privatization" is not "got rid of."

I don't know about anyone else, but 90% of the paper mail I get is junk that goes straight from my mailbox to the recycle bin. The other 10% are mostly bills and investment statements I never read because I get it all online. As environmentalists, Democrats should welcome transforming the postal service into a business that actually charges the cost of the services it delivers, specifically to discourage this pointless waste.

PAEA was passed in the House by voice vote without objection, and passed the Senate by unanimous consent. And when Dems took over in 2008, they didn't repeal it. So it's hard to imagine how you can blame Republicans for it.

 

[Fletch]

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has noted about the USPS that "It's not a business, it's a service. And this whole notion that you've got to get rid of the post office because they've been losing money — the post office ain't losing money. ... You're paying for a service to keep this country together." Clyburn bashes Postal cuts: It's a service, not a business (the Hill). He's not alone in that sentiment:
The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society (CNN, Opinion)

So why did I start this thread here? Because the Postal Service is a Constitutional creation. Indeed, the US Post has existed longer than the nation itself. It was one of the first "national" institutions established to separate "the colonies" from its mother country. (CNN)

When Trump (and Republicans) try to dismantle the USPS they are not just making a "business decision" - they are ****ing with the Constitution. It has been a Republican effort going back more than a decade to dismantle the Post Office, and it needs to stop. (CNN)

Why do Republicans hate the Post Office? Because of " its central role in establishing democratic ideals." Democracy, we can't have that!

Thats insane. And dishonest. Republicans dont 'hate the post office.' Cant any of you libs make an honest argument about anything?

 

[bomberfox]

Thats insane. And dishonest. Republicans dont 'hate the post office.' Cant any of you libs make an honest argument about anything?

Explain the current efforts to dismantle it. This is a lie.

 

[j brown's body]

The PO has about a 90% approval rate. It's problem was brought on by a GOP lame duck Congress and can be easily fixed. There is no valid reason to change it beyond that, and very good reasons not to: it works.

 

[bomberfox]

Republicans know what they aim to do but they rely on requiring exact wording to the point where if there is a single word out of place, they cry foul

 

[Grizzly Adams]

The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society

...said no one, ever, until last week.

 

[NWRatCon]

...said no one, ever, until last week.

Wow, you just won "uninformed post of the decade", and an honorable mention in the "dumbest". Well done, Rumplestiltskin. Or have you just been hibernating that long? (You'd have avoided consideration and embarrassment if you'd bothered to read ANY of the citations.)

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Wow, you just won "uninformed post of the decade", and an honorable mention in the "dumbest". Well done, Rumplestiltskin. Or have you just been hibernating that long? (You'd have avoided consideration and embarrassment if you'd bothered to read ANY of the citations.)

I have never heard the notion that a postal service is a prerequisite for a functioning civilization. Perhaps you could show some evidence this belief is widespread and accepted. From before last week.

And **** off with your name-calling. Grow up.

 

[Drawdown]

A lot of businesses close on weekends. No reason the USPS cannot stop delivering on Saturdays and Sundays.

 

[NWRatCon]

I have never heard the notion that a postal service is a prerequisite for a functioning civilization. Perhaps you could show some evidence this belief is widespread and accepted. From before last week.

And **** off with your name-calling. Grow up.

I'd appreciate it if you could inform yourself of your nation's history before posting such utter stupidity. Or, maybe even actually just read the ****ing thread (and associated links). When you show some basis for giving you more than short shrift, I'll respond in kind.

Here, let's start with some elementary education, okay (for those in need of remedial education)?

The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The Post Office Department was created in 1792 with the passage of the Postal Service Act.

(Wikipedia)

The Early American Postal System

Before the American Revolution, very little official mail was exchanged throughout the colonies. However, when things began to heat up in the 1760s, a much greater need arose for a more organized postal service. When the Stamp Act of 1765 sent an uproar through the colonies, the citizens began planning to overthrow the British Imperial Post and open up a purely American one.

The United States Post Office (USPO) was ordered by the Second Continental Congress on July 26, 1775. Benjamin Franklin oversaw its creation as head of the department for a short while.

A big day in the history of the United States Postal Service

The Articles of Confederation, which preceded the Constitution, also made it clear that the government “shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of … establishing or regulating post offices from one State to another, throughout all the United States, and exacting such postage on the papers passing through the same as may be requisite to defray the expenses of the said office.”

And the Constitution made sure that these crucial services were preserved. In Article I, Section 8, the Constitution gave Congress the ability “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” That means it not only does Congress have the power to create a postal system, it had the ability to acquire and control the land for the “post roads” to carry the mail and the buildings needed to maintain the system.

Editorial Note on the Founding of the Post Office, 26 July 1775

One of the first institutions to suffer from the colonists’ rising hostility to Britain was the royal Post Office. As early as 1773 enterprising postriders in New England were establishing routes of their own in defiance of the law. “It is next to impossible to put a stop to this practice,” wrote a new surveyor general, “in the present universal opposition to every thing connected with Great Britain. Were any Deputy Post Master to do his duty, and make a stir in such matter, he would draw on himself the odium of his neighbours and be mark’d as the friend of Slavery and oppression and a declar’d enemy to America.”2 Soon after Franklin’s dismissal as deputy postmaster general for North America in January, 1774, the system to which he had devoted so much time and energy began to fall apart. The old argument that postal revenue was a form of taxation gained new force as the quarrel with the mother country intensified.3 A system independent of the crown was becoming imperative, furthermore, if the colonists were to communicate without fear of interception. By the summer William Goddard’s “constitutional post,” a replacement for the older one, was making headway from New England to Virginia. In the autumn Goddard tried and failed to have the first Continental Congress take over his creation. But by the time the second Congress got down to business the whole situation had changed. Independent post offices were burgeoning, set up sometimes by towns and sometimes by colonial assemblies.4 The outbreak of hostilities increased the need for reliable communication, and the sooner the better; improvisations would no longer serve.

The delegates wasted no time. On May 29, nineteen days after they convened, they appointed a committee of six, including Franklin, “to consider the best means of establishing posts for conveying letters and intelligence through this continent.”5 The committee deliberated for almost two months, and on July 25 brought in its report. The next day the draft was debated by paragraphs, and may or may not have been revised. The form in which it was adopted became the charter of the new Post Office.

 

[NWRatCon]

The Transformation of Statutes into Constitutional Law: How Early Post Office Policy Shaped Modern First Amendment Doctrine

The Post Office has always been a medium of communication and, like the Internet, a medium that developed through a substantial amount of conscious government policy. Moreover, the American Post Office is a reflection of a uniquely American approach to communications and media policy, and when it was established, it shaped the American polity in ways that parallel the early visionary hopes for the Internet. Although new communication technologies have almost always been accompanied by utopian dreams of a society unencumbered by ignorance, inequality, and poverty,7 the Post Office served as a very real vehicle for a transformation in American society, just the sort that one imagines to be the result of a vast increase in the free flow of information."

The Post Office is important, however, not simply because of the extraordinary parallels between its development and that of the Internet, but also because of its role in shaping modern First Amendment doctrine. How exactly did the Post Office shape constitutional law? I argue that early American policymakers gave the Post Office specific attributes and that those attributes helped establish the Post Office as what Professor Frederick Schauer calls a "First Amendment institution," an institution in society whose role judges recognized as furthering First Amendment values in unique ways.9

The Post Office is not an ordinary First Amendment institution, however. It is-and from the beginning has been-a government institution. Moreover, in contrast to other government entities that one could characterize as First Amendment institutions, such as public libraries or public universities, it is the only one that spans the entire history of the United States and is the principal, and original, federal institution

 

[Grizzly Adams]

I'd appreciate it if you could inform yourself of your nation's history before posting such utter stupidity. Or, maybe even actually just read the ****ing thread (and associated links). When you show some basis for giving you more than short shrift, I'll respond in kind.

Here, let's start with some elementary education, okay (for those in need of remedial education)? (Wikipedia)

The Early American Postal System
A big day in the history of the United States Postal Service

Editorial Note on the Founding of the Post Office, 26 July 1775

Those are all pretty blocks of copypasta, but none of them state that a functioning post office is required in order to have a civilized society.

 

[Noodlegawd]

Those are all pretty blocks of copypasta, but none of them state that a functioning post office is required in order to have a civilized society.

You're missing the point. How can our country function if we don't have to move 50 pages of sales flyers directly from our mailbox into our trashcan every day? And what would we do if we didn't always get paper copies of bills we never bother opening because we already paid them online?

 

[Geoist]

...said no one, ever, until last week.

Such a weird comment to make, considering there has been outcry by progressives over the threat to the USPS since at least 2006.

 

[Moon]

Those are all pretty blocks of copypasta, but none of them state that a functioning post office is required in order to have a civilized society.

Nor is it required by the Constitution. I’d like to see it become more efficient and self-sustaining, but I don’t think Congress is going to allow that to happen.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Such a weird comment to make, considering there has been outcry by progressives over the threat to the USPS since at least 2006.

Wanting to have a functioning postal service isn't quite the same thing as asserting that not having a postal service is the end of civilization as we know it.

 

[Geoist]

Wanting to have a functioning postal service isn't quite the same thing as asserting that not having a postal service is the end of civilization as we know it.

I don't think anyone said that.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

I don't think anyone said that.

I'm not sure what other connotation is meant by the OP's claim that the US Postal Service is "a symbol of a functioning society." The obvious implication is that any functioning society must have a post office. The next logical conclusion is that the loss of USPS is the loss of society.

 

[Geoist]

I'm not sure what other connotation is meant by the OP's claim that the US Postal Service is "a symbol of a functioning society." The obvious implication is that any functioning society must have a post office. The next logical conclusion is that the loss of USPS is the loss of society.

I think it would be more accurate to say it is a symbol of a functioning democracy. Certainly seems like that is what the author of the piece implies:

In Great Britain and the United States for the past 400 years, the expansion of government postal systems has gone hand in hand with the emergence of democratic ideals such as the freedom of the press, the right of average people to participate in the public sphere and the importance of equitable and accessible communications. In fact, we could say that those ideals could only be realized because people could rely on the post for connection in a modernizing, globalizing society.
The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society (opinion) - CNN

 

[Felis Leo]

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) has noted about the USPS that "It's not a business, it's a service. And this whole notion that you've got to get rid of the post office because they've been losing money — the post office ain't losing money. ... You're paying for a service to keep this country together." Clyburn bashes Postal cuts: It's a service, not a business (the Hill). He's not alone in that sentiment:
The USPS is more than a service. It's a symbol of a functioning society (CNN, Opinion)

So why did I start this thread here? Because the Postal Service is a Constitutional creation. Indeed, the US Post has existed longer than the nation itself. It was one of the first "national" institutions established to separate "the colonies" from its mother country. (CNN)

When Trump (and Republicans) try to dismantle the USPS they are not just making a "business decision" - they are ****ing with the Constitution. It has been a Republican effort going back more than a decade to dismantle the Post Office, and it needs to stop. (CNN)

Why do Republicans hate the Post Office? Because of " its central role in establishing democratic ideals." Democracy, we can't have that!

I think we will need to phase out Congress next. The whole damn institution has been losing the American people money for the last two centuries with not a penny of profit on the books to show for it.