babble
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Vote for me if you want to live:
I will assume that if you live in California you have done your duty as a citizen and voted. If you do not live in California, please carry on pointing and laughing at us as you observe the circus.
I will not delve any deeper into my feelings about this election, but if you are a regular reader you have probably figured out my political leanings, so I will leave it up to your imagination. I will tell you one thing, though - I didn't vote for Gary Coleman. Though I was amused by his television show when I was a kid, I can't bring myself to vote for a dude who stands eye-level with my snatch.
I am sure that since you are reading this obscure and only occasionally interesting little website that you are acquainted with other sites that give you information that is actually valuable. Since that is surely the case for most of my readers (except the stalkers - thanks for hitting refresh 17 times a day!), I will assume that you have heard about all the ruckus that's being raised over the National Do Not Call Registry. Personally, I think it's a great idea. I really fucking hate telemarketers. It would be far more convenient for me to place my name on one universal 'do not call' list than to ask each individual telemarketing company to put me on theirs. I don't get many telemarketer calls anymore, since my phone company has a privacy screener service which eliminates any computer-dialed calls by forcing any caller that has caller ID blocked to state their name before their calls gets put through. It looks like the national list has the green light for the time being, but I will be interested to see how the court battle pans out, because I am amused by the telemarketers' argument against the national list. In case you don't know, they claim that the list violates their First Amendment rights because it exempts charities.
The reason that I find this amusing is because I think it's ridiculous. The First Amendment protects free speech, yes, but it doesn't protect an invasion of my motherfucking privacy. I am no expert in constitutional law, of course, but I think that once you cross the line from public free speech into coming into my home, using my telephone (which I pay for), that is no longer considered protected speech. I don't know, though - I would be willing to consider it protected speech if someone invented a device that would allow me to reach through the phone and choke the living fuck out of these people.
I saw another example of this type of argument recently in a forum that I moderate. A girl came in to each of the California regional forums and posted a political rant. Three sentences were devoted to urging people to vote on the recall, followed by 14 paragraphs detailing her political views. Since the forum is a writers' forum, that is specifically supposed to remain on the topic of one particular writing project, this was inappropriate. When she was called on it (in every regional forum, I might add, even by people who agreed with her politically), she insisted that she should be allowed to post it anywhere because she was guaranteed the right to free speech by the First Amendment. You know what? That is just fucking ridiculous. Yes, you are allowed to say what you want, but when you are on a privately owned forum and you are using someone else's resources, the forum owner has every right to decide what the forum posting rules are. This one is even more ridiculous than the telemarketers, because in this case the government wasn't involved - just a few forum moderators who gently reminded her that there were forums designated for off-topic posts.
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely believe in the First Amendment. But when people try to fall back on it because none of their other arguments hold any water, I think that's doing it a disservice.
P.S. I will try to stop being all serious and shit and resume my normal mind-numbing hilarity soon. I'm just all wrapped up in Artwalk prep, hellish project deadlines at work and aneurysm-inducing baseball playoffs. I swear on the souls of your first born children that I will post something lighthearted soon. No, really.
Achey breaky Jakey directs good phone porn
babbled by Kat @ 9:18:00 PM |
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