Posted by
Bill Crawford on Tuesday, December 29, 2009 4:16:32 PM
This census will turn out to be an interesting one. The population growth nationally is approaching replacement rate (2.1 children per family). We will be on the verge of population decline, sans immigration.
California will not gain a Congressional seat for the first time since 1850. Texas will get four more, Ohio will lose two. Many northeastern states will lose one. A couple of western states will pick up one.
And I will go back to my once a decade tradition: refusing to provide these people with anything but the number of people in my family.
You see, the only clarity in the Constitution is the power to "enumerate". Everything else is add-on. I understand that Title 13 of the U.S. Code gives the Commerce Department mandate to ask for more, and they do have the law to back it up.
I don't care. Let 'em come after me. Give me the max $100 fine- as if I will pay it. Come and get me.
If they send me a questionaire, I will be happy to give them an enumeration- but not anything else. If they come to my house, I will be happy to show them the faces that go with each number. I'm not happy about paying a band of temps $20 an hour to collect data on my family's race and ethnic origins, and whatever else is on their agenda this time around.
I don't do the civil disobedience thing very often. But I think if you are going to do it, you have to hang it all out and be public about it. All the extra data they are looking for is available already, from other places, and within margins of error that at least match what you will get by sending out temps with a week's training. Or by doing computer sampling. This is a joke.
At least, for the moment, the ACORN workers are out of the equation. I'm guessing that they will end up climbing aboard that gravy train again. They just have too many friends in this White House to lose out on that one.