Phone Registry

Open letter to politicians:                                Saturday morning

I am on the federal "Do Not Call" registry. Yes, you have the legal right to call and ask me to vote for you. Yes, you have the legal right to interrupt whatever I am doing and make me listen to your drivel. Yes, you have the legal right to clog my answering machine with your robocalls.

And I have the legal right not to vote for you.

I keep a log of those who disrespect my request for privacy. I keep a list of politicians whose self interest and lust for power outweighs their courtesy and respect for the privacy of others. I write those names down on a piece of paper and I take that list with me to the polling place.

I do not vote for them. Do not call me if you want my vote.

Update: Sunday morning

Turns out that even for political campaigning, recorded calls are against the law in California unless they are introduced by a real person, and any calls are illegal at certain times. Political campaigns ignore those laws, in part because they don't know about them, and in part because they know that the laws are not enforced.

In order for the law to be enforced, an offended party has to call and complain and for that to happen the person has to 1) know about the law,
2) take the time to call and 3) know who to call with the complaint. I failed on #1 until now, I have to admit I would probably fail on #2, and even as I write this I fail on #3. As politically active as I am, that doesn't bode well.

Wouldn't you think, however, that people running for public office would take the time to familiarize themselves with the rules governing their activity? Well, probably not, given that they make a regular practice of taking bribes.