Wrong. At the point where the phone line enters your home, YOU own the line -- it's your property, your responsibility. I found this out the hard way.
If you don't believe me, call your phone company and tell them there's something wrong with the wiring inside your home; then ask whether there will be a charge for repairing the wire, and if so, why.
Not necessarily the case. Most of the time, the line coming across your property to your house is the phone companies. The crappy little parts in your house may well be yours, but don't have to be.
For most of the history of the phone companies, all of the system was belonged to the phone companies. Only after the breakup of Ma Bell did they pass off to the consumer the responsibility of the phone in their own home. But in any case, that phone which you use, is still part of an overall system, and you wouldn't be able to make any phone calls at all if you weren't part of that system. The bottom line is that it's just big government dickering with the private businesses and the rights of Americans to earn a living. Sure, you might be too lazy to turn off you phone, too cheap to buy a answering machine to screen your calls, too dumb to work an answering machine efficiently, or too afraid to turn off you phone for dinner lest you miss some town gossip from a neighbor, but what is the justification for letting government assess monstrous fines for laying on it's butt and sucking up the whining and complaining of the people who do such things? Especially when it keeps others who are willing and able to do productive work from doing it.
The bottom line is that phone system wouldn't be there if private business and entrepeneurship hadn't built it in the first place. The government never would have, and you just want the benefit it from the system without paying your dues.
Like I said, it doesn't bother me personally because I have repostitioned to be better off telemarketing with the legislation in place. But it does represent another case of the public running to big government to blow their nose for them, and that's not a good idea at all.