From: kfl@KeithLynch.net   
      
   Evelyn C. Leeper  wrote:   
   > Keith F. Lynch wrote:   
   >> The federal government has been shut down for about a week.   
      
   Now it's been shut down for 40 days and 40 nights, a new record.   
   To say that it's dysfunctional would be a major understatement.   
      
   Despite the shutdown, the federal debt, already by far the largest   
   debt in all human history, continues to grow.   
      
   >> Indeed, if the shutdown means that the laws are not being enforced,   
   >> maybe one of the victims annoyed by all these unpunished scam calls   
   >> will hunt down the scammers and kill them.  And won't get punished   
   >> for it.   
      
   > Murder is a state crime, and the last I checked neither Virginia nor   
   > any other state had shut down.   
      
   I'm not convinced that it would be murder.   
      
   Suppose that someone were to knock on your door in an attempt to sell   
   you something.  No doubt you would politely tell them you weren't   
   interested.  But suppose they came back ten minutes later.  This   
   time you're less polite.  And you install a prominent "NO SOLICITORS"   
   sign on your door.  And suppose they came back after yet another ten   
   minutes.  This time you threaten to call the police.  Ten minutes   
   later when they knock yet again, you do call the police.  But the   
   police do nothing.  The harassment continues, for hours, for days,   
   for weeks, from them, and from dozens of others just like them.   
      
   I don't know what I would do if it happened to me.  There is no   
   violence in me.  But I do know exactly what I would do if it happened   
   to you and I were on your jury.  No matter what you had done to your   
   persistent harasser, so long as no innocent people were harmed I would   
   be voting not guilty.  Everyone has the right to be left alone,   
   especially in their own home.   
      
   Perhaps you think that's a bad analogy, since unwanted phone calls,   
   unlike unwanted door knocks, can be blocked by leaving the phone   
   unplugged or turned off.  True.  But that greatly reduces the value   
   of even having a phone.   
      
   If there were as many scam calls decades ago as there are now, would   
   you have ever met Mark?  Or, having me him, would you have found it   
   possible to meet up again, or would your relationship have consisted   
   entirely of a handful of missed connections?  And would either of you   
   had the jobs you had?  Or would potential employers been unable to   
   reach you?  Would either of you have even gone to the schools that   
   qualified you for those jobs?  Or would the schools been unable to   
   reach you to tell you that you had been accepted?   
      
   Scam calls aren't the most serious crime.  But neither are they   
   trivial.  Each individual scam call may be trivial, but they add up.   
   Collectively, they make telephones useless.  Just as false fire alarms   
   make fire alarms useless if they go off every few minutes all day and   
   all night, leaving people with no alternative but to cut the wire   
   and do without.   
      
   The total amount of useful life lost to scam calls greatly exceeds   
   the amount of useful life lost to the 9/11 attacks and to all school   
   shootings.   
      
   Scam calls are a tithe that costs time and money from everyone who has   
   to be available to receive calls.  Especially if they have to work   
   nights and sleep days.   
      
   And it's not just the time the call itself takes.  It's the constant   
   distractions.  It's turning us into a nation of Harrison Bergerons.   
   A distraction caused a plane crash when it interrupted a checklist,   
   causing the flaps to never be set.  Distractions have caused infants   
   to be left in hot cars all day, killing them.   
      
   I know several people who quit lucrative jobs because they were   
   required to be open to calls from unknown numbers at all hours, and   
   this resulted in constant interruptions by scammers.   
      
   I read about someone who didn't return from mountain climbing, and   
   wasn't answering his satellite phone.  Rescuers were sent.  One of   
   them died.  It turned out the climber was fine the whole time, but   
   simply didn't answer calls from unknown numbers, since the last   
   hundred such calls he had received were all scams.   
      
   We have laws and a legal system for a reason.  But when that system   
   totally fails, people have the right to defend themselves.   
      
   I would argue that it failed long ago.  As I've discussed here before,   
   48 years ago I was falsely convicted of burglarizing an office.  The   
   string of burglaries continued when I was in jail.  But we have a   
   system in which no non-wealthy falsely accused person has any rational   
   choice other than to plead guilty in return for a reduced sentence.   
   Otherwise they're likely to end up like North Carolina's Bob Kelly,   
   who refused to plead guilty to a misdemeanor, so he ended up with a   
   dozen life sentences instead.   
      
   And a system in which proof of innocence is irrelevant after three   
   weeks, at least here in Virginia.  If you were convicted of murdering   
   me in the Old Dominion, and I showed up alive and well four weeks   
   later, they'd go ahead and execute you anyway.  Similarly in Texas,   
   which is about to execute Robert Roberson even though he was proven   
   innocent.   
      
   Virginia just elected a new Attorney General, Jay Jones.  According to   
   Wikipedia:   
      
     In October 2025, Jones came under fire for an August 2022 text   
     conversation with his former Republican delegate colleague Carrie   
     Coyner, in which Jones repeatedly made statements advocating   
     violence against then-House Speaker Todd Gilbert and his family.   
     Jones, who was not in the legislature at the time, stated that if he   
     had two bullets and could shoot Gilbert, Adolf Hitler, or Pol Pot,   
     Gilbert "gets two bullets to the head".  Jones acknowledged that he   
     had talked about hoping Gilbert's children would die because "Only   
     when people feel pain personally do they move on policy", before   
     describing Gilbert and his wife as "evil" and "breeding little   
     fascists".   
      
   Don't blame me for his election.  I wrote in "NONE OF THE ABOVE."   
   I'm really looking forward to someday being prosecuted by him for   
   something I didn't do.  Not.   
      
   Joy Beeson  wrote:   
   > The people who do the actual calling are slaves.   
      
   What is your evidence for this claim?  In what nation are these slaves   
   being held?  And what nationality are the slave?  In my experience,   
   they nearly all have Indian accents.  Does India have slavery?  Or   
   are neighboring countries kidnapping and enslaving India's citizens?   
      
   If they are slaves, it's best to rescue them if possible.  But   
   sometimes it isn't possible.  Just because enemy soldiers were   
   involuntarily drafted doesn't mean it's wrong to defend yourself   
   against them.   
      
   kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:   
   > Many of them aren't people at all but machines pretending to be   
   > people.  Once they think you'll talk they'll transfer you to a   
   > human.   
      
   I'm pretty sure there's almost always a real person there, but one   
   with a pre-recorded voice menu system that can only say a few things.   
   I think this is to hide the fact that the actual person there has a   
   strong foreign accent.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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