Randall Paul Jenkins, Esq. » Blog Archive » This Was Supposed To Be My Political Platform.

I have often been told in my life that I would make a good lawyer (because I argue), and so at some point I decided this meant I would make a good politician. I thought about running for the water board, mainly because I thought it would be the easiest route. When you are running for office you have to have a platform, and of course to generate any sort of buzz you should pick at least one issue that is feasibly impossible to change at this time in our life (See Ron Paul, I know your game).

For me, my platform was unsolicited physical junk mail. It kind of hilarious how everyone wants to go “green” and everyone is concerned with “Inconenient Truths”, well how about this truth; I get exactly 1.3 square miles of paper growing forest worth of junk mail in my mailbox every month (Note: That stat is completely made up). So you see, the real issue of our isn’t energy, taxes, or urban sprawl, it’s the USPS backed selling of our mailbox space.

Let me give you a little factual information here; you cannot opt out of Direct Mail Marketing/Pre-Sorted Mail, you cannot ask your mail carrier to not put it in your mailbox (even if it means your mailbox is full after one day)(Note: I do understand you can do this in Canada), you have to dig between coupons for things you don’t want and offers for even more credit cards to find your real mail.

Well today I discovered the first pillars of support for what will one day be my platform for office:
The Consumer Credit Reporting Companies opt-out website. This website lets you opt out of receiving Credit or Insurance offers which is at least a start. I am not yet sure how well it works, and to go permanent you have to print out, sign and mail in a form (lame, lame and lame), but at least you have a say in some of the mail you receive.

There are also some more options the Direct Marketers Association has made available via their website, however some require you paying, most don’t guarantee anything (just like the no not call list, really doesn’t help much with no way to enforce it) and there is some funny business with who pays for this “Association” to exist (word is the Direct Marketers themselves pay for this service so they can hit you with advertising you deem acceptable). For some, it may prove helpful.

Another great ally against the fight is the Center for Democracy & Technology (I am a huge fan of technology, this democracy thing I am not so sure about though). They dedicate a portion of their website to “Opting-Out”.

I firmly stand by that people should be pushing for a democracy where we don’t have to spend our own time and money trying to make companies respect their potential customers. If you have a good product, I probably know about it and I probably will be purchasing it soon. I do not need a mailbox full of things I won’t even look at. It’s a new world of marketing and there are much more effective and less destructive ways of gaining brand awareness.

Additionally I encourage everyone who is sick of these things to use the postage paid reply envelopes that these companies include to send them either; their own junk, other companies junk or slices of rotting fruit.

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