OBSERVATION AND SUGGESTION to "AOC"

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

U.S.  House of Representatives

Washington, D.C.

Dear Representative Cortez:

I am not in your district; I could have fudged a zip from your area but instead write you via snail mail.  I am the persona of the person you most hate: a 72 year old white male who has made all his meager wealth without stealing from minorities and women.  I am not “proud” I am white. I just simply am white. Pride stems from accomplishments and how one treats others, not skin color or gender. There is nothing about your platform with which I agree and I am glad you are as prominent as you are as I think in the end you will hurt “your” party’s chances of unseating Trump.  I am a Libertarian and as such I am not thrilled with Trump but there is not one democrat on the stage now for whom I would vote and that includes, of course, Senator Sanders.

However, I have an observation and a suggestion for you that you might find constructive..

1) I nearly fell out of my chair when I read you want to break up the tech companies.  I would love nothing more. Our reasons are perfectly different but the end would be the same.  You want to break up tech for monopolistic and social reasons, i.e. “they are not union” or “their employees are not paid enough.”  My reason is twofold. First, I do believe they are a monopoly, although there are a few players. In their position, they are able to control thought. They are a monopoly in the “speech market.”  I believe

they censor conservatives; you likely believe they censor the left.  Doesn’t matter because that is where we meet. Other than clearly inciteful speech there should be no censoring at all.  The 1st Amendment applies only to the right to speak openly about government but when a few private-sector players, of like mind, censor all speech, on any topic, with which they do not agree, there then is no effective venue for truly free speech.

And, I don’t like them “following me” and selling information about me to third parties. I lead a clean life (at least as much as an old white gun toter can) and have nothing to hide so I am not worried about a socialist government coming after me, at least not now.  But, I don’t want my information passed around anyway...even if they offered to pay me for it. Any such practice should be clearly on “opt-in,” not “opt-out.” I deleted both Facebook and Twitter six months ago. Apparently I buck the trend as I understand most people return.  I have not and miss neither of them.

In a nutshell, you and I agree on an issue.  Truly I thought that would never happen.  I suppose coalitions are built on desired outcomes even though reasons may be different.  I had written Representative Zeldin (my district) about cell phone snooping and as I listen to the news it looks as if there is mounting pressure to do something about these information autocrats on social media.

2)  As the author(?) of the “Green New Deal” you may be interested in my suggestion.  My wife and I receive 3 - 5 catalogs daily by U.S. Mail. I understand that the USPS has lost money for years.  I suggest, both to save trees and to give the USPS a shot at solvency (they have MANY problems but this should help) that postal rates for “junk mail” be increased to the point that the marketers will make more use of the Internet and retailer history to decide to which people they should mail their catalogs.

I am quite sure, in part thanks to the very social media sites I have left, that a catalog marketer can obtain enough information from the sites (and retailer past sales) to more selectively mail catalogs.  The catalogs I receive are not nearly as offensive as the spam calls (I never answer them but I resent them) but in the case of catalogs, they are a waste of natural resources and a net cost to the USPS. I don’t know what junk mail rates are but I trust they are well under the rate of a first class stamp and do not recover cost of delivery.  If a marketer had to pay, say $1.00 to mail me a catalog I bet they would better research the likelihood I would buy from a given retailer. My wife and I buy a great deal from your favorite retailer...Amazon...they are inexpensive but I suspect they under-pay their contracted carriers, at least the USPS and if the delivery charge were increased we would still buy from amazon.  It is just plain quick, reasonably priced and easy. But, the government has no place subsidizing my purchases from Amazon. This idea is not tongue-in-cheek; I really mean it. I am a supporter of business but don’t want business subsidized by government and to the extent fewer natural resources (i.e. trees) can be used to distribute the catalogs I think it is a win/win.

I have no comment for you on government.  I think it, and you are very dangerous people.  I also think we are past the point of returning to truly efficient, effective representation.  Should you ask someone to reply to me, feel free to do so via e-mail and save the government money...as well as a small part of a tree.

Sincerely,

John M. Tyson

bonner83856@gmail.com