Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Poor Speech Recognition or Selective Bad Bot Hearing?

I got a robocall today, from a company representing a congresscritter who isn't "mine" (Vern Buchanan, in whose district I do not live).

Naturally, the robocall posed as a "one question poll," wanting to know (everything in this post is paraphrased as I didn't record the call) if I knew that Joe Biden and the evil socialist Democrats in Congress are trying to pass a bill that would give amnesty to up to 20 million "illegal immigrants."

I answered "no" for the simple reason that I don't know that. I've heard it from some faux-"conservative" "news" sources, but that doesn't mean it's true.

The bot asked me the question again, apparently not getting my answer the first time.

Naturally, the bot did not ask me how I feel about such a bill. I'm all for it, other than the premise that immigrants require "amnesty," given that the US Constitution (Article I, Section 9; Article V; and Amendment 10) explicitly forbids the US government to regulate immigration in any way, shape, manner, or form and all laws purporting to do so are therefore void.

The "poll" being over, the bot proceeded to assert that I certainly agree with yada, yada, yada vis a vis immigration (none of which I agree with), and asked if I'd commit to making my best contribution to Buchanan's re-election campaign when they send me something in the mail.

"No."

Well, how about $20?

"No."

Great, the bot says, I'll forward you to our confirmation guy.

Which, of course, is another bot.

Can I confirm my address for them?

"No."

No problem, we'll just send out the contribution envelope to the address we have on file for you, which, by the way, is confidentially stored in a database we're forbidden to look at.

Which tells me something I hadn't known: They're renting a list that they can call to and mail to, but that they can't see. If I had "confirmed my address" for them, then it would have become part of their own list, a list they wouldn't have to pay to use in the future.

So now they're going to spend money sending me stuff that will not result in a campaign contribution, and they'll probably have to pay to rent my name, phone number, and address sight unseen again later too.

Good. I wish there was a way to get these guys to spend enough money bothering me to break them. And Buchanan.

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