{"id":30340,"date":"2012-09-25T13:05:32","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T19:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/25\/mail-and-public-policy.html"},"modified":"2012-09-25T13:05:32","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T19:05:32","slug":"mail-and-public-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/25\/mail-and-public-policy.html","title":{"rendered":"Mail and Public Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This:<\/p>\n

'But here\u2019s the thing: The mail is the mail. It\u2019s an unsexy but essential component of the government safety net. It\u2019s a public service we need, one that\u2019s used most by folks with the fewest resources \u2014 the elderly, the poor, people with disabilities, people with limited internet access.<\/i><\/p>\n

If you screw with the mail, you\u2019re screwing with people in need. You\u2019re screwing with the common good.<\/i><\/p>\n

On that stage in Columbia, Missouri yesterday, only one of the three candidates was willing to stand up for the mail, and it\u2019s no accident that it was the Democrat.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Mail service really is one of those "let them eat cake" portions of our public life. Folks who are comfortably well off, including most politicians, kind of pooh-pooh it — we have the Internet now, and everyone has a computer and a smartphone to access email on the Internet, and access to electronic banking, and, besides, who writes letters any more?<\/i> — and figure that nobody who matters<\/i> would have a problem if the USPS vanished, had its (more lucrative) routes bought by FedEx, or charged $1\/stamp. \u00a0They're probably part of that 47% anyway, so what do they need mail for?<\/p>\n

\n

Embedded Link<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tParty Politics, the Post Office, and the Common Good<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tI spent a few days in Missouri last week, giving a talk and hanging out with local campus activists. They\u2019ve got a fascinating senate race in Missouri this year, between Todd \u201clegitimat…\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Google+:<\/strong> View post on Google+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This: 'But here\u2019s the thing: The mail is the mail. It\u2019s an unsexy but essential component of the government safety net. It\u2019s a public service we need, one that\u2019s used most by folks with the fewest resources \u2014 the elderly, the poor, people with disabilities, people with limited internet access. If you screw with the … Continue reading “Mail and Public Policy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":135299,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/11\/06\/practicing-medicine-without-computer.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":0},"title":"Practicing medicine without … a computer?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Nov-17 10:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"So this initially heart-tugging tale of a rural doctor who's been practicing medicine in Maine since 1968, has never bought (or learned how to use) a computer, now being forced out of medicine by the state ... has a few more dimensions to it. 1. Not to go all ageist,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/opioid-pills.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4547,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/08\/on_the_internet.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":1},"title":"On the Internet, nobody can hear you punctuate","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 8-Aug-03 9:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or put spaces into names, for that matter. There are a lot of Net literati out there who utterly and totally pooh-pooh the use of hyphens into domain names. But,...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3874,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/19\/security_check.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":2},"title":"Security Check","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Mar-03 2:48pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Hmmm. Talk at work about our Big Name Consulting Firm advising upper management to cut off Internet e-mail at such time as the balloon goes up. Not all Internet access,...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7225,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/04\/21\/son_of_comment.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":3},"title":"Son of Comment Registration – the Sequel!","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 21-Apr-05 3:35pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm tweaking things slightly with my TypeKey setup to require that folks pass on their e-mail addy to me via TypeKey. This address will not show up in the comments,...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8227,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/01\/17\/spam_spam_spam.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":4},"title":"Spam, spam, spam, spam …","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 17-Jan-06 6:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"My Internet host, Hosting Matters, is rolling out a new anti-spam system to its various servers, and it finally got to mine. The new system, MailScanner, still uses the SpamAssassin...","rel":"","context":"In "Spam"","block_context":{"text":"Spam","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/computer-security\/spam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":637,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/09\/10\/we_get_comments.html","url_meta":{"origin":30340,"position":5},"title":"We get comments","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Sep-01 10:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Or maybe we will if the \"Mail me\" code below works. It's not real comments (and won't be, until I move my ISP), but it will at least allow folks...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging & Internet"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging & Internet","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}