I worked the 2000 census and I'm looking forward to going door-to-door again this year. Ten years ago the extra money was a luxury. This year it's a necessity. Since I've spent most of my adult life in sales, I wasn't fazed by the occasional rudeness and rejection I encountered in the field. Most people were cooperative, and most of those who resisted could be persuaded with a little gentle nudging.
But I wonder if it will be different this year. The right wing paranoid demagoguery concerning virtually every aspect of government today has really reached a boiling point. I wonder what kind of push back I'll receive this time.
The psychological climate in the country is very different than it was in 2000. Ten years ago, the economy was booming. Today, my home state of California has 12% unemployment and the nation is stuck at 9.7%
For some, "the Government" is to blame for all earthly ills, and some of the more ignorant among this group look at the Constitutionally mandated census as an unconstitutional government intrusion. For the record, here is the Constitution on the Census:
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. (Emphasis added)
"They" above refers to Congresss. So the Constitution directs Congress to conduct the census and decide what questions to ask. Seems straightforward, right? Not so much for Mr. Ron Paul:
The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information. It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans. The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its "fair share" of federal largesse.
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From a constitutional perspective, of course, the answer to each of these questions is: "None of your business." But the bigger question is – why government is so intent on compiling this information in the first place?
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If the federal government really wants to increase compliance with the census, it should abide by the Constitution and limit its inquiry to one simple question: How many people live here?
Paul is clearly wrong in that the census has not asked about anyone's religion since World War II. It is also a matter of historical fact that people have identified themselves as members of "groups" for thousands of years. It's an instinct we share with chimps, wolves and other creatures. Government has nothing to do with it.
In Ron Paul's libertarian dream world, a simple head count might be all that would be needed. In fact, the libertarian paradises of Somalia and West Waziristan dispense with a census altogether, and the lucky residents live a life of individual freedom and self determination -- guns, guts and God! But in a first world industrial society slightly more specific information is needed for planning for the future. It should be noted that the notorious long form from 2000 has been abolished, and that the current survey of ten questions is shorter than the questionnaires of thirty and forty years ago.
And in regard to invasive questions, as we see from the Constitutional authorization, if Congress decided the census should ask when, where and how you lost your virginity, the Constitution would have no issues with this (although the voters certainly would).
In reality, Ron Paul's criticism is erudite compared to the blatherings of other right wing luminaries such as Michelle Bachmann and Erick Erickson.
I won't waste too many keystrokes on Bachmann, except to say that she's concerned about government inquiries into a person's "mental stability," and she is refusing to fill out the form. (What would level-headed Michelle Bachmann have to fear?) In addition, she has devined that the government will use census data to herd people into internment camps. Sure, why not?
Erick Erickson, proprietor or popular conservative blog Redstate, recently said he would use a shotgun to keep census workers away from his property. This is Politico's account:
CNN contributor and prominent Republican blogger Erick Erickson is threatening to pull out a "shotgun" to scare away census workers.
Erickson — the founder of the conservative blog RedState — said on his Macon, Ga.-area radio show Thursday that if a census worker carrying a longer American Community Survey form came by his house, he would "pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door."
"They're not going on my property. They can't do that. They don't have the legal right, and yet they're trying," Erickson said, in a recording by the liberal media watchdog Media Matters. "The servants are becoming the masters. We are working for the government. We are becoming enslaved by the government."
On his blog, RedState, Erickson wrote Friday that he was being "misconstrued."
"ACS Surveyors are getting belligerent," he wrote, "and have showed up on people's doorsteps to harass them and threaten jail. I said if some ACS person showed up on my doorstep to try to arrest me for not wanting to tell the government how often I flush my toilet, I'd get out my wife's shotgun and get them off my property. Naturally the left is out today saying I was on the air advocating killing census workers."
I have no fear that pudgy blubber boy Erick Erikson will shoot a census worker. He's too smart for that, and even if he weren't he wouldn't be man enough for that. It's the less sophisticated among his readers -- the McVeigh and Roeder wannabe's -- that give me pause. Just like the author of the "Turner Diaries," or the radical imam who recruits a teenager to strap on an explosive belt and squeeze the detonator, demagogues like Erickson, Beck, Hannity and their lesser imitators would never get their hands or themselves bloody doing the dirty work themselves.
I don't expect widespread resistance to the census, despite the bluster from the anti-government blowhards. The majority of people are reasonable. But even one unfortunate incident is one too many, and if it should happen, I will lay it directly on the doorstep of these hatemongers.
Finally, I'm really glad the Census Bureau did away with the 50-question long questionnaire that one out of five households had to fill out in 2000. Even with a nice, cooperative person, that long form was a tough slog.