USPS not a business
USPS not a business
Regarding your editorial from the Orange County Register on Feb. 11 (“Time to let private sector deliver mail”) urging privatization of the Postal Service: This anti-public-service diatribe has several faults. Among them the theory that mail service is a business. It is not. It is a government sponsored (though not government supported) Constitutional endeavor that provides a vital communication link among the people of the country. It should no more be looked on as a profit-and-loss enterprise than should a public library.
Seventy percent of the “drain on the coffers” was the cost of labor? It’s a very labor-intensive undertaking, and its labor force shows up and does the job.
Should USPS abandon trucks and planes because of the cost of fuel? The AP story on page A3 of yesterday’s paper (“USPS lost $1.3B in quarter,” Feb. 11) states that USPS handling and delivery operations were actually in the black for for the final quarter of 2012, but that artificially imposed health care and pension pre-funding payments pushed it into the red.
Its efficiency should be judged by its delivery from one specific location to another rapidly and for a reasonable price. Alaska to Georgia in three days for less than 50 cents? A pretty good deal, I’d say. Mailing a letter in Germany costs about 70 cents, in the Netherlands about 90 cents, and in Japan, the least expensive method is about 64 cents. Costs more than it did five years ago?
What doesn’t?
Patrick Donovan
Keaau
Gun proposal flawed
Hawaii lawmakers want to spend $100,000 to get unwanted guns off the streets, saying it will help the state avoid a mass shooting like those in Colorado and Connecticut. I feel that this bill is a waste of time and money.
Yes, you will recover stolen guns and could possibly return it to its owner.
However, you will not charge a person for bringing in a stolen gun for sale because it is like an amnesty program. Majority of the guns that will be turned in will probably be old and not working. The program will not bring in the automatic or assault guns that was used in the mass shootings. This bill will make the guns on the black marker higher and only grandpa’s old rusty pea shooter will be turned in.
D. Nishimoto
Kurtistown
Where’s the fire?
In response to “‘Rights’ not absolute” (Your Views, Jan. 30), your comparison of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater to owning some types of firearms is really not logical.
If you yell, “Fire!” I have the right to yell, “He’s lying. There is no fire!”
Your example would really mean that I would only be able to whisper, “He’s lying there is no fire!”
Speech is a powerful thing, are you suggesting we ban yelling?
Also, the limits on rights are an easy thing to figure. Your rights end at the tip of my nose. Meaning, your rights cannot take away from or diminish my rights. You have the right to speech, but you have no right to force me to listen. You have the right to keep and bear arms, but you do not have the right to shoot me. You have the right to move around freely, but you do not have the right to move around freely on my private property …
Thus, the right to keep and bear arms is already limited; it’s already illegal to shoot someone unless it’s in self-defense, which equates to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, unless there really is a fire.
Jon Odom
Pahoa