Recently by Becky Akers: Privatizing Perversion

Thank God that any time Our Rulers mutter about controlling the internet, Americans rise in holy horror. Earlier this month, when the blasphemously misnamed Gary Locke, Commerce Comrade – sorry, Secretary, offered to help us poor serfs remember our passwords by regulating the net, everyone from the ACLU to "privacy and technology experts" denounced his scheme.

So why do Americans cheer, and lustily, the Feds' power over other communications? Why do they rise in holy horror at the tiniest diminution of the United States Postal Service's scope? The agency owns 32,000 outlets nationwide, many of which “are located in areas where people no longer live, work or shop,” according to U.S. Postmaster Patrick Donahoe. So we shouldn't be shocked that "total expenses [exceed] revenue" at a whopping 26,000 of those offices – but still, we are. The agency's proposal to close 2000 of its money-pits should have us applauding, albeit modestly to match that modest start. Yet the nitwits among us wail as if Obaminable had just won another four years.

"The news is crushing in many remote communities where the post office is often the heart of the town and the closest link to the rest of the country," the War State Journal moans. Ahem: you bozos heard of TV, radio, telephones, and, yes, the internet?

Then the WSJ quotes "Delmer Clark, a 70-year-old retired coal miner in Eastern Kentucky’s Appalachian Mountains, in the no-stoplight town of Holmes Mill," which will lose its PO next month. “It ain’t right doing this to our community,” whines Mr. Clark. Echoing him is "Esther Sizemore, a 62-year-old retired school-bus driver": "It will hurt us real bad." I don't know what joy awaits them in their mail-boxes, but for sure it beats the junk that packs mine.

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Let's suppose for a moment that we can't pay bills online and that corresponding with Ma and Pa requires old-fashioned letters in envelopes. Still, would you miss the USPS should it disappear tomorrow? In fact, given the importance of payments and messages from home, wouldn't you want anyone other than Our inefficient and stupid Rulers handling those essential missives? Now back to reality: tell me you can't live without your catalog from LL Bean and your congresscritter's propagan – sorry, newsletter. And that receiving such nuggets is worth footing the USPS's annual losses – $8.5 billion in 2010 alone.

Recall, too, that when the Founding Fathers included the PO among government's "enumerated powers," it was not only the nationwide web of its day but the sole means of communicating at a distance. Entrusting it to the Feds dramatically increased their power as they dictated what free men may mail.

Meanwhile, behold how a century of socialism has degraded the American spirit: "Residents [of Holmes Mill] will still have home delivery, and can use the post office and maintain P.O. boxes in the next town, but some locals fear" the drive of six whole miles because it follows "a winding mountain road bordering a steep drop-off to the river." Yet "Coal Miner’s Highway” is safe enough for the trucks that gave it its nickname.

So we aren't talking no mail or anything close to that; rather, folks who enjoy the peace and quiet of small-town life are miffed at the resulting inconvenience. Yo, Bumpkins: move. Imagine your rage should New Yorkers who relish their concerts, museums, and restaurants complain about the City's bustle so the Feds would waste your money hushing it.

The brouhaha over the USPS illustrates the unbridgeable gulf separating government from business. It also proves the former's failure to imitate the latter and the utter inability of "good" politicians and bureaucrats – if any there be – to "reform" the boondoggles of the lying, thieving, murderous State.

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An entrepreneur such as UPS sees delivering his customers' goods as his raison d'tre. Not the USPS. "Under U.S. law, mail delivery is a u2018basic and fundamental' government function meant to u2018bind the nation together' by providing service to u2018all communities' at a reasonable price" – or at least, at a reasonable pretence prior to its multi-billion-dollar raids on "federal coffers."

Compounding this lunacy are regulations equally insane: "The law currently allows the postal service to close post offices only for maintenance problems, lease expirations or other reasons," but not for losing money. Then there are the "532,800 workers [sic]" whose union wrangled them “'significantly' lower premiums for their health and life insurance plans than other government employees."

Woe betide the Postmaster General who says, "The heck with it all – I'm shuttering that sinkhole in Holmes Mill." He'll fall under investigation of "the Postal Regulatory Commission … which … investigat[es] whether the postal service … illegally us[es] reasons such as lease expirations to close small, underused branches." Count on Leviathan to penalize common sense and profits.

Ah, but here come politicians to the rescue: while Sen. Thomas Carper (D-Delaware) has introduced legislation to repeal the absurdity of operating offices in the red, "elected officials in several communities have already written the Postal Regulatory Commission protesting planned closures." It seems "shutting down post offices is often politically unpopular" because "many citizens see [them] as an essential public service." Go figure: despots who ignore constituents' outrage over sexual assaults at airports, Obamacare, and bail-outs are all ears when it comes to maintaining their stranglehold on the mail.

Last but not least, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) couldn't resist blessing us with her usual perspicacity: the USPS "needs to look for ways to stay in business…"

Why?

January 26, 2011

The Best of Becky Akers