Justifiable Phonicide

I need some legal advice. Or maybe some law enforcement advice. Maybe I can ask Zipcode.

Is Justifiable Phonicide a punishable crime?

You know, phonicide. As in when you crush your telephone with a nine-pound sledge, drop it into the toilet, launch it on a high parabolic trajectory from your upstairs window (that's actually called defenestration), or put it in the driveway and roll your Gargantua X-5000 SUV back and forth over it a few times.

I need to know what the penalties are before I commit phonicide on every telephone in my house. This is likely to happen in the very near future because I am perilously close to the limits of my tolerance for inane political robo-calls. This level of tolerance is quite small to start with, but after receiving six of those calls yesterday ... that would be Sunday, the so-called day of rest ... I have officially had it.

Riddle me this, Batman: have you ever actually listened to one of these robo-calls? I didn't think so. I have never met anyone who didn't either screen them out with Caller ID or hang up on them after the telltale two-second bit of silence while the tape starts to spin. These calls are a politically useless and personally unwanted invasion of my privacy. It's bad enough that I have to see all this BS on television and listen to it on the radio...stay out of my phone!

Here is an open message to those who generate political robo-calls:

1. I don't care who approved your message. If you're calling my telephone, I didn't approve it and I don't want to hear it.

2. If you're calling to tell me how bad the other guy is, I especially don't want to hear it. If you expect me to listen to you, tell me why, exactly, I should vote for you instead of him.

3. I value my privacy. I don't give my home telephone number - and especially my cell phone number - to very many people. If I've chosen to give you my number, you can consider it a mark of respect and friendship. If you've scooped up my number from a database somewhere, I don't have the least interest in what you have to say. Don't even bother.

3. My phone number is listed in the National Do Not Call Registry. I have learned, to my sorrow, that the list has a large number of exceptions which allow various well-connected individuals and organizations to ignore my expressed wishes. Political campaigns are allowed to call me without my consent, as are charities, surveys, businesses with which I have an "existing business relationship," and debt collectors. Regardless of whether or not you have an exception, and particularly if you are a political campaigner, don't call.

4. Good telephones can be expensive. With the economy in the toilet (and, by the way, political robo-caller, what's your guy going to do about it?), I can't afford to smash them all the time. Help me live within my telephone replacement budget.

Don't leave me open to a charge of phonicide, justified or not.

If I haven't personally given you my number and my permission, don't call.

So there.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo