Government is going too far these days in trying to keep us from being annoyed by anybody in any way at any time (except, of course, when government is busy doing the annoying itself). We can now keep those pesky, pushy sales people and survey takers from calling us on the phone, and Indiana has even added a "Do not FAX" law. Now Jeffersonville is taking things a step further with a moratorimum on door-to-door sales:
The moratorium is supposedly temporary as they try to figure out how they will handle the activity going forward. I wonder how this will end up. I don't necessarily care for door-to-door sales either, but it never occurred to me to use government to forcibly ban other people from engaging in the action.
But then again, I'm not a politician.
To be fair, the nuisance factor isn't the only reason the city decided to declare this moratorium. Officials also said they were concerned about safety due to a “rash” of burglaries where suspects posed as salespeople and then robbed the place if no one was home.
I don't really understand the reasoning applied here. Isn't this like banning pedestrians due to a “rash” of carjackings at city road intersections.
There's also the issue of the exemptions being considered for nonprofit organizations. But as the columnists points out, that's not exactly logical:
Criminals can just as easily pose as someone from one of these tax exempt organizations as they can from a for-profit business, so obviously a government decree would make no difference at all. It only has the potential to harm innocent business people working hard to support their families.
As a matter of fact, again based on the government's own reasoning, a good case can be made that it's the nonprofits that should be banned because people may let their guard down even more when they think the person canvassing their neighborhood is working for a charitable cause or promoting a specific church's way to eternal salvation.
I could certainly do without all the annoying phone calls (yes, even signed up for the "Don't call" list, so go ahead and call me a hypocrita) and doorbell rings, but I'm a big boy who can say "No, thanks" all by myself without the help of the government. For that matter, I'm also annoyed by all the junk mail I get, an inordinate amount of which seems to be from politicians and elected officials who want to tell me how wonderful they are. How about a ban on that crap, huh, huh, huh?
