Perhaps it's time to stop treating the stealing of campaign signs as a harmless nuisance. Maybe it's time to start putting some teeth into laws banning what is more akin to political thuggery than mere theft.

As you may have read in these pages, Carlsbad has suffered a rash of campaign sign thefts of late -- with police there having cited at least two people for taking other people's signs, and reporting good leads on a couple of other cases.

Compounding the seriousness of the allegations is that police reported at least one of those charged with stealing signs was rationalizing his actions to officers by saying he felt strongly about the issue. Really strongly. Couldn't help himself, I suppose.

But undermining the seriousness of these thefts is that those caught face charges only of petty theft -- the monetary value of the signs being just a few dollars each.

During each and every election, some bozo or another gets caught stealing signs touting some candidate or proposition, and we as a society seem to have adopted the attitude that yahoos will be yahoos.

It seems to me, however, that stealing campaign signs -- whether those promoting a candidate or staking out a position on a ballot measure -- does damage far beyond the dollar value of the signs. It's an attack on free speech, a spit in the face of democracy.

Don't like the message on a sign? Print some of your own with your message and put them up.

Trying to silence folks you disagree with, though -- that's more assault than it is thievery. I'd compare stealing campaign signs to punching someone in the mouth. It's an act of intimidation, what it is, and it ought to be treated as such.

As the political arena has gotten nastier and more divisive over the past quarter-century, there seems to be less value placed on tolerance of dissent. In devaluing the very noisiness that defines a free society, we risk losing the sense of civility that makes representative government possible. When citizens no longer respect the right of their fellow citizens to disagree with them, how far are we from anarchy?

Beefing up laws regarding the theft or vandalism of campaign signs would go far in reinforcing the notion that there is something very nearly sacred about our collective right to make our case before voters each election.

That the right to have your say about a candidate or proposition is one of the pillars of our representative form of government.

And that those who violate that right have breached one of the foundational compacts of our society, and ought to face punishment more serious than a slap on the wrist.

I'm not suggesting that stealing campaign signs be made into a felony (well, not unless it's a large-scale organized effort, something we've not seen in these parts that I can remember) -- but a serious misdemeanor, perhaps with some creative punishment.

Like being assigned to clean up all the leftover signs after the next election.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at jtrageser@nctimes.com or (760) 740-5408.