Census Nonsense

2010 is the year of the census. And harrassment.

The Constitution of the United States clearly states, and I quote, "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, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. "

In raw terms, the enumeration, i.e. COUNT, shall be taken in such MANNER, i.e MEANS as the law requires.

"Manner" is defined as "means". In other words, the count can be taken by going house to house, or by mail, or by fax or any other means.

What does all this come down to? In a nutshell, the law can only require you to give a COUNT of the persons in your household. No other information need be given up. The Constitution also states that the government has no rights that are not expressed stated in the Constitution, so Congress cannot expand on the census without violating the law of the land.

For valid reasons, however, it is considered part of the census to also offer up the ages and gender of each person, so that the government has some means by which to determine the possibility of enlisting a strong militia.

Other than that, the government has no legal right to require any other information in the census, even if Congress passes a bogus law that does require it.

The current census asks a lot of very personal questions of which the only purpose is to decide where the pork goes so votes can be bought, or where the best places are to discriminate.

The problem is this: although the government assures us of privacy, they really cannot assure it at all. Hackers break into the Pentagon. Secret CIA documents are leaked to the New York Times on a regular basis. And there is always the possibility that even America's democracy can fall some day, leaving all those records to some maniacal regime.

Imagine if Hitler had had access to records showing exactly where every person of Jewish descent was living. Do you really want the government to have access to such information about you and your family? Do you really want that info to fall into the wrong hands?

It's like the DNA bank that local, state and federal agencies are building. Eventually they want a sample of everyone's DNA on file. But then what happens when society gets to the point where only the most fit can be allowed to survive - or even be born? Those DNA samples can be a death warrant for millions, in an attempt to "cleanse" Mankind of diseases or mental problems. Or even races.

It matters not what the government says the information can be used for. What matters is that it could fall into the wrong hands because the government is not even close to being infallible.

That is why in 2000 when I received a 24 page census, I only listed names, number, age and gender. I left everything else blank. For the next two months I was harrassed by census takers. They called; they came to my door. Each time I refused to cooperate further. Then they began with threats of fines, even jail. At that point I wrote a letter and sent it by registered mail to the census bureau, stating that if even so much as one more census person or government employee harrassed me about this, I would sue. I further stated that if they believe they can legally subvert the Constitution and use punitive measures for not cooperating, to go right ahead - that I would look forward to getting this into the courts.

I never heard from them again.

The government has no right to know my ethnic background, the state of my marriage or family, what I do for a living, how much I earn, or what color my socks are. Nor will they get any of that information from me.

This year I will provide the same information as in 2000, nothing more. And I expect once again to get harrassed and threatened. Only this time, I will send that letter the first time they come back...

/