Sunday, November 04, 2007

Politicians: Robocall Me Again, and I Will Vote for Your Opponent Out of Sheer Spite

Look, one of the reasons why I've never tried Netflix is that they were one of the earliest and most prolific users of pop-under ads. (Well, that and I already have enough unwatched DVDs).

And I just took WatchingAmerica.com out of my daily bookmarks because they keep serving up some stupid malware-ish javascript "performance warning" ad for FixThemNow.

Given that I did this to services from which I might derive some actual utility, what makes you think that I wouldn't do something as spiteful and petty as voting for your political opponent in Tuesday's election because you robocalled me too many times (and once is too many)?

Let's face it -- despite all the PSAs, any one individual person's vote really doesn't matter. (Also, FYI -- a purposeful voter boycott is indistinguishable from voter apathy.)

So robocall me at your peril.

5 comments:

Becky said...

Amen to this. And if some hapless campaign volunteer decides to call me in person (like the lovely people who called pretending to be taking a survey on my "political attitudes") I just put my 5 year old son on the phone and tell him to talk to the nice man about playing Super Mario Brothers or Sonic. That kid can babble a blue streak without taking a breath.

Shaun said...

Joe,

You may be interested in a new non-partisan, non-profit group that just launched a National Political 'do not call' registry.

StopPoliticalCalls.org

Shaun Dakin

Anonymous said...

Shaun,
The StopPoliticalCalls.org list has come under lots of fire. There is no law requiring politicians to participate. It costs each politician $17,000 to obtain the list (each year), AND they are most likely going to use that list to target citizens for their ad campaign.

Joe,
Shame on you for suggesting that your vote doesn't count. Do you understand anything about Group Theory?
That said, the robo-calls are very annoying, but less annoying than the human zealot political calls.

Joelogon said...

Ryan: I don't know nuttin about Group Theory, but there are very clear circumstances where one's vote doesn't count -- say, if you're a Republican in DC or a Democrat in most of Utah.

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes, nothing to vote on in my city in Maryland, means no robocalls.........

Last fall, one caller left a message bashing an opponent, but what the opponent was being bashed on was something I supported. So, hey, that caller DID have me considering voting for the opponent. Except they were confusing me with a voter in PG County, and I don't live there.