Ranting and Raving

As I hear this telemarketing thingy dragging its ass-bug infested butt through our court system, I become more and more confused.

1) The notion that telemarketing is protected speech fails a very simple test. Namely that no speech is free that requires the use of the resources of someone who is unwilling to be a party to that speech. If the person paying for an endpoint (a phone or ISP service) is unwilling to make that resource available for another person's speech, then the use of that resource is theft. Telemarketers and Spammers are misappropriating our resources the moment they dial or hit send.

2) One good point that the Telemarketers make is that the exception for political or charitable calls creates a double standard. For the reasons noted above they are right. A message to Politicians, BTW. I've already decided how I will cast my vote long before it occurs to you to call me. All you can do is make me feel less good about it if I was planning to vote for you, and better about it if I was not.

3) The pursuit of happiness entails the quiet enjoyment of my home. Ringing my phone without my permission is deleterious to that quiet enjoyment.

So now my prediction: This case will go to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will rule that the law as it currently stands is unconstitutional because it applies separate standards to political and commercial speech. Our Congress will be unable to muster the votes to pass a law that would apply equally to political and commercial speech without making concessions that will strip the law of its usefulness, because our politicians will be unwilling to give up their phone pools.

And American politics will have once again extolled the rights of the corporation over the rights of the individual.

Oh, and as long as I'm prognosticating, Bush's request for 87 Billion to rebuild Iraq and "stuff" will pass with the Democratic amendments that collateralize the Iraqi oil. Because it really was about the oil, and the Democrat's desire to spare the deficit by collateralizing the oil will achieve Bush's goal of gaining access to that oil while making it look like the Democrats' idea. The moral thing to do in this case is to foot the bill ourselves for rebuilding what we broke, and to ride the guys who insisted on breaking it out of town on a rail, seizing all of their personal and corporate assets to help pay for it.