Received my census form today.
Cruel Wife and I had a heated discussion about it.
My stance boils down to this: Article 1, Sec. 2…
Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons
Taxes and representation are the key words there.
The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years
Ok, got it. Enumerate means to count and we do this every ten years. We’re good.
Last part…
in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made… (blah blah blah)
Done.
The only sticky part might be the “as they shall by Law direct”, but the other part is pretty clear – they use this information to tax and to determine the number of representatives.
So where’s the argument? It is this…
Question 1: How many people were living or staying in this house, apt., or movile home on April 1, 2010?
Not bad. Ok. Four.
Question 2: Were there any additonal people staying here April 1, 2010 that you did not include in Question 1?
Huh? First it asks me how many people and then it asks me how many people, as if I couldn’t answer #1 right the first time.
Q3: What is this residence – home, apt., mobile home? What does it matter?
Q4: Telephone number. I don’t want to talk to you.
Q5-9. Provide information about each person living here. M or F? Age and D.o.B? Hisp., Latino, or Spanish origin? What race? You don’t need to know but if you really must know, we’re all ****ing Martians, hundreds of years old, and we drink the blood of babies.
Q10. Does this person sometimes live somewhere else? You don’t need to know that either, in order to meet Article 1 Section 2.
It asks that for every person in the household. My gov’t does not need to know this.
Cruel Wife says “I know a lot of people who use Census information to do genealogy research on their families. And what harm is there?”
ONE – Our gov’t does NOT NEED TO KNOW who lives in my house, their names, ages, or race. Do they somehow tax more if there’s more whites than latinos in my home? Do we get two more representatives if there’s an extra black person living there?
TWO – It is NOT THEIR JOB to track our family trees.
THREE – The constitutional basis is the need to ENUMERATE.
I had to point out to Cruel Wife the link between Obama wanting tight conrol over the census (personal involvement), Obama’s ties with ACORN, ACORN was going to be involved in Census-taking. ACORN was terribly suspect when it came to voter registration for the presidential election cycle in 2008. Do you really trust a system that tries to get them to count people to determine taxes/representation?
For a nonpartisan organization such as the Census, ACORN’s political connections are also troubling. Last year, the Obama campaign paid ACORN $800,000 to register voters and do other work. ABC News’ Jake Tapper caught Obama campaign officials in numerous attempts to hide Mr. Obama’s past connections with ACORN. Mr. Obama also gave ACORN money when he served on the board of the Woods Fund in Chicago. For all the work that he has done for ACORN over the years, Investor’s Business Daily called Mr. Obama “ACORN’s Senator.“
Cruel Wife, bless her kind and trusting heart, can’t see how anyone would/could do something with that data to our detriment. It’s her kind heart that balances out my cynical and deeply mistrusting heart. But cataloging people is the first step to controlling them and influencing them in ways that would surely upset them if they realized.
Boil it down – all you need do is to put down the name of the head of the household (which they already had because you’re the head) and how many people live there. That is it.
Note: ACORN has long since died but the desire to manipulate the data and control the information about as many people as possible has not. ACORN will rise again, however, under a different name. Those people aren’t going to just go home – they feel a need to be involved, a need to control, and a need to be “needed”.
Lemur King's Folly 