You know how USPS is often adduced as an example of a service provided by the government that is efficient, reliable, and used by everybody?
Well, I just discovered that Libertarians have a very bizarre argument in support of abolishing the USPS. Their argument – of all the thing in the world – is the environment. USPS, they say, delivers all those annoying ad circulars and commercial promotion packages. FedEx – an example of government-free truly commercial enterprise – doesn’t. This means that abolishing the USPS will not only reduce the government’s control over our lives but will also save the environment.
I have to say that of all the strange, convoluted Libertarian arguments I have had the misfortune of hearing this one is the most outlandish so far. “Let’s abolish the USPS to save the environment” is a very inventive argument. Of course, when you start coming up with something this weird, it’s a sign your position is quite untenable and you realize it.
Clarissa's Blog 
There is a long historian of libertarians attacking the post office. I would point you to the example of Lysander Spooner in the 19th century, who ran his own private post company until the federal government forced him to close down.
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Since when do they care about the environment? Aren’t they the same people who despise the EPA and environmental safety regulations?
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It seems they suddenly remembered that the environment exists when it became necessary to bash the postal services.
Why would anybody be against the postal services in the XXI century??
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They’re not against postal services, they’re against state-own postal services.
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Statists and these pro-capitalists lie-bert-arians are bad for the environment. The worst polluter for the environment is the government…but not USPS!
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lie-bert-aryans
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Jeez, really? Don’t most libertarians oppose the science behind global warming on the grounds that pollution controls are bad for business? And now they’re all, oh, no, it’s the post office that’s screwing up the environment! Give me a freaking break.
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What science?
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hurrrrr 5 min google search
http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=more-proof-of-global-warm
http://www.nature.com/climate/2009/0901/full/climate.2008.142.html
just to start. Gotta run home so the rest of yall will have to kick this dead horse if you’re so inclined.
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I hope you come back soon. 🙂
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Consensus is not science.
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Well what the fuck do you expect then? For laymen and -women who aren’t hands-on acquainted with climate science, the word of 98% of climate scientists should be enough, but if you’re not convinced and still want to have an opinion about it, go ahead and wade through the peer-reviewed papers.
Unless, of course, you think they’re unreliable because the state has somehow gotten their hands on the results and/or bribed the scientists, in which case there’s nothing to salvage from such a sorry state of denialism and conspiratorial confirmation bias.
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Really it’s the Tristero striking back….
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I have always had good experiences with the Post Office. I would be very glad to see FedEx and UPS abolished. They are so extremely inconvenient to deal with. Furthermore, the US Constitution says that the federal government must deliver the mail, so the existence of these outfits, except for delivering packages weighing more than 70 pounds, should be illegal.
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Compared to the Canadian postal services, the USPS rocks! It’s fast, reliable and inexpensive. Why anybody should have a problem with it is a mystery.
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No, the Constitution doesn’t say that. It says the federal government has the power to establish post offices, but doesn’t say it must or that no one else may do so. By that same token Congress must declare war on foreign nations because it has the power to do so.
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Clarissa: It is too bad you are not on Facebook. Helena Seuss’ public information about religious views is wonderful!
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Well, maybe somebody will leave a quote here for me. 🙂
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I won’t without her permission, but Helena, if you see this, are you willing?
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Go for it.
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Oh hell effort. Ahem
Dissemblers, jugglers, impostors, players with God, his son, his angels, his saints: devisers of new devils, feigned tormentors of spirits, usurpers of the key to the bottomless pit, whippers, scourgers, batfoulers of fiends, Pandars, Ganimedeans, enhancers of lust, deflowerers of virgins, defilers of houses, uncivil, unmanly, unnatural venereans, offerers of their own mass to supposed devils, depravers of their own relics, applying them to unspeakable, detestable, monstrous deformities: prostituters of all the rites, ornaments, and ceremonies of their Church to impure villainies: profaners of all parts of the service, worship, and honour of God: violators of tombs, sacrilegious, blasphemers of God, the blessed Trinity, and the virgin Mary, in the person of a counterfeit devil: seducers of subjects, plotters, conspirators, contrivers of bloody & detestable treasons, against their anointed Sovereign: it would pose all hell to sample them with such another dozen.
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This is priceless! Thank you, Helena. Absolutely brilliant.
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Aw, thanks. 🙂 I’m pretty sure it’s from Samuel Harsnett’s “Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures”.
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If the USPS were shut down, I could never get mail at college, because no one else delivers to PO Boxes.
And that would make me very sad, because not only would I be unable to order textbooks online for cheap, I would no longer be able to receive mail from home.
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Try using a W.A.S.T.E. basket. (god why can’t I stop)
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There are enough PO Boxes for convincing a firm to serve this market. But now, it’s impossible.
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Actually, FedEx can deliver to P. O boxes, because of a contract between FedEx and USPS. I use this feature when unenlightened mail order firms refuse to ship things to me by USPS. It does cost more, however.
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It’s a bad argument, simply.
I support the mutualization of USPS. Bring back the USPS to workers.
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What’s mutualization? And how do you bring it to workers?
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The state should not own anything in the first place.
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I thought the USPS was federal, not state.
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David is a French-speaker. He uses “state” in the sense of “government.”
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Ah. That makes sense.
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I should use “government”, I agree.
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But even american anarchists use the word “State”.
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https://c4ss.org/market-anarchism-faq/privatization-is-for-neoliberals-right
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Boisterous childishness in adults annoys me.
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I agree
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http://morelibertynow.com/reciprocity-mutualization-markets-privatization/
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And they’re more efficient than Cacanada Post because the US market is freer.
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The post isn’t privatized, so I hardly see what it has to do with the market.
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There are more competition in the private sector in US because of more restricitive laws in Cacanada.
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Very true.
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In school, I was taught that a working postal service is vital and necessary for any kind of modern society. In fact it is kind of a requirement to advance past barter trade, so I can see why governments have an interest in preserving their services. On the other hand, it can’t hurt to take the U a notch or two down, now can it ?
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“In fact it is kind of a requirement to advance past barter trade…”
Well, then, you were taught nonsense. Money existed long before postal services.
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I identify as a moderate sort of libertarian. (Please click on my blog and actually read what I write before assuming that you know what I think about some issue.) In brief, I think that the science behind global warming is quite sound (see this post where I take libertarians to task http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/03/01/6032) and I think we need to tax fossil fuels and other things that contribute to global warming because externalities are, by definition, costs imposed outside of market transactions.
As to the post office, I would be willing to pay extra if they would deliver all of my junk mail to a recycling bin. I don’t know if that makes me a good libertarian (I’m willing to pay rather than impose the cost on others) a bad one (because of the recycling aspect), or simply exasperated with junk mail, but that’s my stance.
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The moderate Libertarian discourse in this country has been so hijacked by the Tea Partiers that nowadays, the word immediately evokes the image of a fanatic screaming “Take your government out of my Medicare” and waving a gun around.
Of course, the Liberal discourse has also been hijacked by language-policing privilege-scratching holier-than-thou preachers of mindless tolerance.
As for the Conservative discourse, it fared even worse.
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“I think that the science behind global warming is quite sound ”
Are you serious?
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Yeah, most serious people think that. That’s because we live in a world that where science is respected and not every state-favorable narrative is presumed to be a state-concocted conspiracy.
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Yes. It is true that I am skeptical of some of the short-term predictions, but if you keep adding a substance to a system, one that efficiently absorbs sunlight, over time that system will, um, absorb sunlight. Which will cause its temperature to go up.
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Fair enough, your statement is accurate, but now the “science” of global warming is bogus, and we have no clear evident about if the actual global warming (not the future) is anthropogenic or not. And we have WAY MORE important environmental issues to deal with…like the Food-Ethanol used because of the “science” of global warming.
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