I sent a Father's day card to my Dad out in California, but I didn't send it the normal way. Normal way is to grab a forever stamp and put that on the front. Then put that in the drop box inside the post office. Instead what I did is buy 3 1-cent stamps (I only needed 2) and used that as the postage. I dropped the mail off in one of the blue mail acceptor things outside of the post office.
Instructions- (LEFT SIDE)
On the left I wrote some information to make sure the Post Office knew what I was doing. I was sending mail as 1st class US Mail. I was referencing the law via "Stat @ Large Chp 71, Sec 23"
That text is here:
Then I told them not to trespass or obstruct my mail. That it was private property with a value of 1 Oz of Silver.
Underneath that I made reference to 18 USC XXXX. These are a bunch of federal laws that describe crimes and punishments for messing with my mail as I was sending it.
Lastly is the Domestic Mail Manual. It's section 1.5.4.
That section above references 608.2.1 and 608.2.2 and those are here:
INSTRUCTIONS: MIDDLE SECTION
I didn't put my name, underneath that is the street address. That line is something like "1520 main street." On the third line I put my city and the state name. Don't use the two letter abbreviations. You have to write the full state name. Examples include California, New Hampshire, or Pennsylvania.
I hand drew a box on the front of the envelope. So, the square outline was something that I added by hand. Inside of that I wrote the name and location of where I wanted my letter to go.
INSTRUCTIONS: Right side
I affixed three 1-cent stamps. Technically I only had to use 2, but I wanted to rule out some stupid weight problem as a reason that the mail wouldn't be accepted.
Underneath the postage and to the right of the box I drew by hand I wrote "General Post-Office, Non Domestic, Zip Exempt."
Format matters
This was my second attempt at doing this. The first attempt I tried a different way and it was returned to my house with a giant red stamp that said "POSTAGE DUE" and also had $0.62 on it.
Who cares?
Well, I just sent mail to my Dad in California from me in Pennsylvania declaring it to be "non-domestic," only used 2 cents of postage, and he received the letter within a couple of days. I had excluded the zip code from both the sender's and receiver's address.
I was doing this to prove to myself some of my research that there are in fact multiple definitions of the term "United States." I had read that in a couple of different Supreme Court decisions, but I was having a hard time imagining that it was literal. So, I had seen examples of this a few years ago and I wanted to see if it was true with my own experience and not counting on some internet crack pot.
Well, my Dad got the letter. Pretty awesome. I means that there is more than one definition for the term "United States." It means the Post Office and the Postal Service recognizes that difference and not just a thing that Uncle Aggy made up.
There are other weirder implications for my personal cases, but that's an aside I'll talk about later.
For now you can send mail for 2 cents and you can see for yourself that the post office seems to think there's a difference between Pennsylvania and PA or California and CA. One of those sets is domestic and one set is non-domestic.
Careful though, understanding this stuff may lead you down some giant legal rabbit holes about what are government is and is not, and who you are and are not, and things like the IRS, traffic code, property tax, and where your rights or privileges start and end.
Good times!