by Theresa Cobb

Created on: March 07, 2010   Last Updated: March 13, 2010

The United States Postal Service must drop Saturday delivery to save cash, avoid privatizing and to preserve the Last Bastion for the Freedom of Speech.

First and foremost, the United States Postal Service is the last domestic champion of our freedom of speech. United States citizens are able to send first class mail that is constitutionally protected from censorship, inspection and unlawful seizure. All postal employees are required to take an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States - with particular attention to the Freedom of Speech. UPS, Fed-Ex and other similar businesses are not required nor designed to afford this protection; neither is any other federal, state, military, or police agency.

In 2004, Michigan's Governor, Jennifer Granholm, D, subpoenaed UPS, Fed-Ex, Visa, Mastercard, and the United States Post Office to submit names of all customers, that may or may not  have attempted to circumvent a major increase in state tax on cigarettes by purchasing tobacco products through interstate commerce, and have these items delivered to their private homes.  The United States Postal Service was the only entity to stand up and refuse, stating "First Class Mail is Constitutionally protected under Article One of the Bill of Rights and completely free from inspection or illegal seizure". UPS, Fed-Ex and all the credit card companies willfully surrendered  customers names, private information and retail habits to the State of Michigan. For this very reason, many liberal political groups are earnestly lobbying to privatize the USPS. With open availability to search, monitor, disseminate, control email, air waves and telecommunications, We the People can not afford to lose the precious protection the USPS so dutifully preserves.

Second, the USPS is mandated, by law, to maintain fiscal responsibility, solvency and to fund it's own operations, relinquishing the government and taxpayer of any burden or responsibility for the US Postal Service's existence. In other words, it is to maintain a profit to the point of paying for it's own existence as necessary to provide a protected public service. It is the ONLY United States federal government agency required to do so. Could Social Security or Medicare operate in this manner?

Third, unlike a sound private business, the US Post Office is, by law, required to "bank" all future retirement costs, ahead of schedule. No other privately run business or public government agency is forced to put this

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