There is ethnic cleansing in Palestine which is far more ironic...
Anyone who claims that ethnic cleansing is taking place in Palestine has no idea of what true ethnic cleansing is all about, or what it looks like.
"How do you refuse when they are backed with the full force of law?" You do something illegal. Very simple. Armed rebellion IS a legitimate choice.
While I may want the government to respect my choices when it comes to games I play or movies that I watch (or the type of sexual activity that I have), I am not willing to kill another human to achieve that goal.
The problem is that many people naively expect to get paid the same rate for energy they put back into the grid as energy they took from the grid.
In Canada (Ontario) the situation is actually even more ridiculous than you would realize. People putting energy back into the grid get paid almost ten times the going rate for the energy that they take out of the grid. This is by law. Some people even have the nerve to claim that they are not using any electricity when they contribute about 10% of their overall electricity consumption, since their billing comes out to zero (excluding distribution charges).
Now, here's the real kicker. Despite the grossly artificially distorted economy, solar panels still have an overall negative expected value over their lifetime, and some people are calling for even greater rebates for the solar panels
See, that's the concept that you totally misunderstand. The plain ol' telemarketer isn't out to explicitly waste your time, interrupt your dinner or whatever. Most of them are just trying to do a job...and hopefully keep it. Your number comes up completely at random, and it's their job to call it.
I get that, I really do. I had the opportunity to participate in a job where my duty was to make life miserable for some people who did not like it. I had a choice, I changed jobs.
Telemarketers have a choice, they can choose to not take the job. Also, every second that I waste of their time is one less second that they spend harassing other people. Also, I (minutely) drive up the costs for the company, reducing their profitability. Yes, the telemarketer might lose their job, but I will not lose a seconds sleep over it.
Would you enjoy having someone tooling around with you at work for their enjoyment at your expense?
Of course not, but then again my current job involves helping people, not screwing around with them. If your job involves harassment, then you should be able to handle getting harassed.
I don't mean to be a kill joy, but having done telemarketing once, it's really unfair to fool around with someone like that just to pleasure yourself. A lot of these folks need to meet a certain call quota just to keep their job.
I specifically fool around with telemarketers because I am hoping to waste their time. They were willing to waste mine, so turnaround is fair play.
As a sidenote, most people here are amateurs, I have easily kept telemarketers on the phone for 30-60 minutes, with starcraft blasting in the background the entire time as I mime interest in their product and/or service. I do try to get beyond the front line telemarketer though, so that I wasting the time of somebody a little higher up on the scumbag foodchain.
There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go.