I am at my internship on Capitol Hill, watching the closed circuit television station. It seems that every Member of the House has something to say about the Federal Trade Commission's do-not-call registry. Oh, and big surprise, they are all saying the same thing. Telemarketers are conniving bastards! They ruin your family dinner with their invasive phone calls! They ask you sneaky questions! Our households are under siege!

I am just waiting for one Member to proclaim hysterically, "If we allow telemarketers to call our homes, we let the terrorists win!"

Puh-leeze. It's a damn phone call. In fact, I sort of like when telemarketers call. They are fun to harass:

"Hello, how are you this evening, sir?"

"Ahoy, matey. I am fine!"

"May I speak to Toby?"

"I'm sorry. He died."

"Oh…"

"Yesterday."

"I'm sorry, sir…"

"In a car accident."

That usually puts an end to the conversation. But even if toying with the minds of telemarketers isn't your thing, why not just hang up the phone? Think of it this way: whether you give in to whatever bullshit they are trying to sell you or not, someone out there is getting paid $10 an hour to speak with you. And that is what Congress seems to be forgetting. If we prohibit telemarketers from reaching out to our homes, a huge number of people will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate is already high, so why encourage this trend just because we are annoyed by a phone call every once in a while?

But just think of the public's reaction if a representative said that. We'd all be enraged! For this reason and many others, I do not want to pursue a life in politics. Bills are passed that might generate a lot of publicity and make the public happy, but many times they don't make a helluva lot of sense.

/politically oriented rant