The U.S. Postal Service is now going to close “more than 1 in 10″ of its post office locations around the country, as part of the National Shutting Down orchestrated by Washington Republicans and their extremist-libertarian corporate overlords. One such post office up for closure is in Old Philadelphia, inside a historic home that belonged to Benjamin Franklin. The post office moved in back in 1975, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the American postal service — Franklin is credited with starting the American postal service, and served as the nation’s first postmaster general. Whatever, history doesn’t make money for the Koch Brothers while screwing everybody else, right?
Benjamin Franklin was a socialist fruit who created many socialist institutions that destroyed America, including public fire departments, public mail service and public libraries. He died in France during the “culture wars,” nuzzling the scrotum of a communist, probably. [AP/CBS]
{ 97 comments }
That bald-headed bag of shit fucked French women too. If he was a real American he'd have called it "Freedom Pussy".
he was just following Cheech's advice.
I can't wait to start paying some Xtian Fundi in a monster truck to deliver my Verizon bill with blessings from the Kock Bros.
You know what? Turns out that Franklin DIDN'T actually say "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy," so you know what? Fuck him. He was talking about wine and some shit. Fucking elitist.
Oh, and then when he programmed an army of zombie dinosaurs to go after Scud the Disposable Assassin, that was not cool, either.
OK, but I understand he grew some mean weed.
I think that was his pal, Geo. "Doober" Washington.
Rain nourishes poppy fields, too.
Franklin isn't bringing in the Benjamins. Oh, the irony!
And, of course, we wouldn't want the United States Government to actually do one of its Constitutional duties, would we. See Article I, Section 8, Clause 7. Full proof that Conservatives don't give a shit about the Constitution, they just care about keeping their money to themselves, and fuck civilization.
Gosh, several things here. For one, as you say, they say "fuck off" to the constitution and founding fathers whenever a belief or intent might not quite fit with muscle-jeebus or whatever. Doesn't matter that the constitution says otherwise.
The second is a quote I found on the Jefferson Memorial when I first visited DC last year, which I'd never heard before despite being a huge fan of TJ notwithstanding his obvious and extant faults:
I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.
Read and FUCKING LEARN, teabaggers. No wonder the Texas school board seems to want to excise Jefferson from history, and not merely for that whole "Church and State" thing.
"Thomas Jefferson was a fag."
—Tea Party Nation
He was just trying to trick the libunatics into thinking there is justification for something other than "strict constructionism", when in reality everything else Jefferson ever wrote & said explicates his insistence in the immutability of the founders's intent.
Add "gullible" to the list of libunatic adjectives.
Excellent quote! Jefferson was a big opponent of the law of entail – property would always be inherited by the first-born son. He didn't think previous generations should have such control of folks around today.
I have to think he would have been a huge opponent of the concept of a corporation as a person – all the rights, none of the responsibilities. The permanently living person would be anathema to him.
Jim Hightower is one of the handfull of national commentators consistenly pointing out the dangers we face making corporations people – with rights, say, to donate to political campaigns because that's "free speech."
Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA) came out yesterday and stated that closing post offices was not a good idea and that the U.S. Postal Service needs to look at other ways to cut costs or raise revenues.
His wife and he, own ten buildings that they rent to the USPS and those are among the ones targeted to be closed.
I love how they whine when it hurts their bottom line. Suck it Branstad!
Ben was something of a progressive, liberal, intellectual sort. You know, an elitist.
It won't be long before the teatards start demanding that St. Reagan replace Ben on the $100 bill. Maybe with Jeebus on the back, if not the whole fucking last supper.
Why Bubba, you're an even bigger dreamer than Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.
i would rather have a Carter than a Ronnie in my bill
See, I think our bills should carry the likenesses of our least successful/historically important Presidents. Everybody knows the significance of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson, & Grant (though more as Union general than President), so why bestow to them a place on the currency? You can find out about them thru other means.
I say, instead: keep Hamilton & Franklin on the ten spot & hundred, since as founders but not presidents they are not as well understood/studied, & put Martin van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Chester Arthur, & Carter on the one, five, twenty, & fifty. Truman can have the two dollar bill, should we choose to keep it in (limited) production.
Oh, & James Buchanan on the three dollar bill, y'all.
Everyone knows Truman is on the Trillion Dollar Bill… http://www.student.dcu.ie/~beirnea3/CA106/trillio...
I know a lot of Native Americans who get pissed every time they hit an ATM machine and it spits out pictures of Indian-killer Andrew Jackson. They would probably be OK with Chester Arthur. What about Benjamin Harrison? He was kind of cute and little?
He was already credited with the Carter Quarter, what more do you want?
I don't understand why William Henry Harrison doesn't get his mug on our money. He's probably the only President that left the country in the same shape it was in when he was inaugurated, when he left office.
I wish W had a chance to serve as long as that guy did.
Leave us not forget Zachary Taylor. 'Murica could use more Rough 'n Readys, even though he died by eating too much ice cream.
And don't leave out Wm Howard Taft – our first ATHIEST presidente.
why don't we redirect that fcking Confederacy tax to pay for Ben Franklin's post office? because why not ..
You're just full of good ideas today, aren'tcha? Will we have to beat them within an inch of their lives to make them pay, though. That's the real question.
"Have to"? Or "get to"?
I love the smell of snark in the morning.
Ben Franklin: The Father of our Country. Or at least half of it.
Well, it's not like the Post Office does anything important, like deliver first class mail to every place in the U.S. with an address…who really needs it anyway?
If your grandma really wanted you to write, she'd be following you on Twitter.
One of my favorite reactionary "positions" is "Hey – Fed X and UPS make money – why can't the Post Office?" Let those idiots fork over $14 to pay their AOL bill and the screams will start.
Take the time to point out that UPS is unionized.
Post Office –> Census Takers –> FEMA death camps. Dontcha see?
Oooo…The Great American Fire Sale! Everything must go! Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!
…when the Post Office is closed.
And now on Saturdays, too, if the Postmaster General gets his way.
"The financially troubled Postal Service said Tuesday that it is considering whether to close 3,653 offices, branches and stations nationwide — more than 1 in 10 of its retail outlets."
"RETAIL OUTLETS"?!?1? The storied post office of my childhood is now just another mother-fucking K-Mart? Throw in the towel, Wonketeers, we've lost the war! The Kochs have already won – they're just rubbing it in now. Time to box up the hobo beans, load them into the flowered handle-bar basket on your beat-up old Schwinn bicycle, and drive yourself into the sea. Maybe you'll get lucky and drive onto one of the floating islands of garbage so you'll have plastic plates and knives to eat the beans with before the Senator McPlanecrash sends you to your death by setting the islands on fire. Global incineration can't come soon enought for me.
I'm completely with you. Without any shame whatsoever, I can admit to feelings of complete despair and even the occasional thought of just not breathing, all because of the bs that's been floating by as I traverse this lazy river. Does it even seem worth it anymore? I can't even work up a Ken Layne-pessimistic-tirade-semi because it just does not fucking matter.
I'm still in the angry, stocking up on ammo, growing more of my own food, and practicing hoverround disablement techniques phase. Hopefully someone will start the revolution before I move on to despair.
FACE THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY
I think mail is good.
You and your crazy socialist ideas. The regime change/Koch coup won't go well for you.
Why should we pay to preserve history when all these tea party folks are willing to do Historical reenactments free?
Well, I was going to take a shot at something pithy along the lines of:
"Franklin was a deist, patriot and libertine whose sensibilities as an American thinker and intellectual who, as a student of the Enlightenment, would be unrecognizable to your average teatard, whose idealized version of a founding father resembles a cross between Hitler and Cromwell, albeit in a powered wig and waistcoat."
How many of these idiots read Franklin's 'The Way to Wealth' and utterly, completely missed the point?
Thus I got to really thinking about the whole thing and it just made me sad. Dignity is the past; trucknutz is the future. We are doomed.
You're Eva Braun? She's only person ever to see der Fuhrer in a wig, powdered or otherwise.
… Well, she, & Himmler, that one time he entered the Leader's chambers without knocking.
That was Ben's real hair. Balding virile-type.
And who will take the hit?
a. Black to ethnic hash urban areas
b. Mixed suburbs
c. WonderBread suburbs
d. Twylaville exurbs
e. White ruralz
f. Black ruralz
Oh no. The correct answer is "All of us, Katie."
Not quite. Lily-white suburbs will still have mailmen buzzing around in gas-guzzling, CO2-spewing Jeeps, delivering Talbot's catalogs to the boxes in front of every 1/4-acre Sprawlville McMansion, cuz that's how Jeebus said it should be.
History is winning the future. Just not the parts espousing enlightened thinking.
Early to bed and early to cut entitlement spending makes a man healthy, wealthy, small government, tax cuts, job creators, small business, and growing our economy out of this Obama recession.
Voice of reality here. I live near Philadelphia and I used to work two blocks from the Ben Franklin Post Office.
To say that it is sleepy is an understatement; on the few occasions I bought stamps there, no customers were ahead of me. It's a limited service post office and there is another full service post office at Fifth and Chestnut streets, a five minute walk away. Give it to the National Park Service for a museum or close it.
And I have to say that the list doesn't go far enough if the Devon, PA post office stays open; it's a building the size of my living room, about two miles south of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Postal Distribution Center.in Wayne, PA. I'm sure there are many situations in middle class and affluent suburbs where it would be no burden for postal patrons to drive an extra couple of minutes. I understand that in urban and poorer neighborhoods that this could easily be a burden.
Sorry if this upsets the extremist-libertarian corporate overlords.
What about the rural philatelists, huh? Where they gonna pick up their plate blocks and mint never-hinged singles of the latest commemorative issues of the US Postal Service?
Isn't it still illegal in MIssissippi to be a philatelist?
Depends upon how you pronounce it.
Only when attached to someone of a different race.
Maybe if we all just prayed harder….
Classic example of short-sighted budget-cutting overreach. The only two points of pride for the people of Philadelphia are Benjamin Franklin, and their propensity for mob violence, and the feds are taking the former away from them.
Parking Wars. They still have the Parking Authority.
You forgot throwing the snowballs at Santa during the December games at Lincoln Financial
"propensity for mob violence"
They don't call it the "City of Brotherly Love" for nothing…
Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia, not France. But the "nuzzling the scrotum of a communist" thing – that's 100% accurate. I checked in Wikipedia.
At least, it's correct as of about five minutes ago.
I like when people decide to take a random 15% of a Wonkette joke seriously, and then "correct it."
Hey, I gave you credit for the scrotum nuzzling!
C'mon, Ken. You know we're all 'truthers' at heart. And proofreaders.
If Ben had been a real Merican instead of a French loving commie shit hole he would'a been a preznit. But he werent. So fuck off
A penny saved is a waste of fucking time bitches
Does this mean we can we burn down the Bush Memorial? (Too soon?)
Langley?
Burn it down, salt the land, then nuke it from orbit (I'm assuming the Bush Memorial is the entire state of Texas, and he'll still be there).
Why not compromise and turn it into a french fry stand?
I'm waiting to see if the Government has the nerve to close down the Pony Express line from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. It's historic. Who cares if it takes six weeks to deliver a postcard sent from Phoenix?
When asked what she learned by visiting Ben Franklin's home in Philadelphia, Sarah Palin on her SarahPAC-funded family vacation education tour said:
Ben Franklin of course, as a founding father and ringer of the Liberty Bell ran the founding principles of Twitter through his house there on that bright shining hill progressing our first amendment rights desiring to curb LSM criticisms of servant's heart politicians such as myself. So God Bless the USPS so that Real Americans can continue to mail in their hard-earned dollars to SarahPAC.
Amen.
OOOH NOOOOZ! my old post office, i use to live down there among all the little shrines. The Bell, the giant odd Ben head made of pennies, Ben's grave…They had a really cool giant hand cancel they'd stamp your water bill with. ahh Philly.
Not that I'm in favor of this, but if it was only put there in 1975, I'm not sure it can be considered an 'historic post office.'
Maybe a post office in an historic location…
Not historic? This post office was there for the death of disco.
Disco's dead? O, no!
The summer of Donna.
I'd rather die nuzzling the scrotum of a communist than singing 'Let the Eagles Soar.'
Washington To Close Historic Post Office In Benjamin Franklin’s Old House Because He's Jealous That Ben's Castoffs Were Still Hotter Than Martha.
You don't think Washington didn't literally own a few hotties on the side?
And Ben really liked the ladies, so he would eventually have become a Democrat.
Ah yes! Ben Franklin, author of "Fart Proudly". Jeeez! Are Americans going to be lionizing Ronnie like this in a couple of hundred years? Do not doubt it.
Hey, we need SOMETHING to do proudly and exceptionally! Do not demean American Flatulence Exceptionalism.
If Franklin was alive today, he would have long ago resigned in disgrace for sexting to interns or something.
I am a recognized leader in that field.
This is a brilliant move!
If we close down enough rural and inner city post offices, we'll easily be able to issue social security checks to the rest of America.
I still have 9 more months to go on my P.O. box rental — they better not close down my rural post office or I'm going to write a sternly-worded letter. And then wish I had some way to send it.
Beware disgruntled, fired, laid off, postal workers with firearms. Also.
I love the post office. I mean this seriously. Like the National Park Service, it's an example of a government entity that actually works and does a generally excellent job, considering its financial instability and all the people who use it as an excuse to vent. My local P.O. people are friendly and efficient. I rarely if ever have a problem with my mail. And if I were king, I'd have mail delivered 5 times a DAY (like in Byron's time), not the 3 times a week these illiterate Teabaggers are demanding, and who will be the first to complain when their Fingerhut catalogs start showing up late as a result.
I send all of my mail through USPS, always have and always will (FSM willing),
And GW Bush on the seventeen.
Comments on this entry are closed.