Stardate 20010717.1040 (On Screen): My friend Chris has written yet another of his amusing Tuesday screeds, and while I wish the solution he offers to the salesmen problem, that being government regulation amounting to substantial censorship, were practical there is one little bump in the road: the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Like it not, coporations have a right of free expression and this includes advertising, and they have a right for their salesmen to attempt to visit potential clients. It is true that the government has banned burnable tobacco (but not smokeless tobacco) and hard liquor ads from television, but television is not the same for reasons too complicated to go into here. In newspapers and in person, advertisers have the same right to push their message as we all have to push our messages, no matter what they are. (And for all our hopes for anti-spam laws, they suffer from the same problem.) Too bad; I wouldn't mind the imposition of a minimum one year sentence for the crime of telemarketing.
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