This obscene measure is justified on the thin reed of convenience. You see, people are “inconvenienced” when they receive a call about an issue. So, to relieve them of the burden of telling the caller they are not interested or simply hanging up, Senator Keller has decided to impale free speech rights on the spear of criminalization. Regardless of how that may “inconvenience” the Constitution.

So, what would be the impact of the Keller dictate? Why get exercised about it? The impact is simple: Citizens, voters in Senator Keller’s district, will not learn what is going on except from an increasingly biased press or, of course, from Senator Keller, himself. It’s really a political application of what Hollywood calls the “Golwyn Maxim”: “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

Independent views or reports to the public about tax hikes, spending sprees, handouts to special interests, the appointment of friends and cronies to government positions, etc,will no longer be tolerated. Only Senator Keller and the captive media will have the legal right to inform you. And the ability of citizens to express their views will be greatly diminished -- all in the abstract name of a wholly contrived “inconvenience.”

Again, Justice Douglas defined this type of action well. He wrote, “Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.”

Citizens in Colorado should demand a swift and final death to Senator Moe Keller’s act of subversion. And citizens everywhere should scan the legislative agendas for other variations of this odious measure and take immediate steps to defeat them as well.

As is always the case, the politicians have turned things on their head. It is not citizens or advocates for issues that should be regulated. It is politicians and government that must be forced back into what obviously is for them the “inconvenient” straight-jacket of the Bill of Rights.