Beyond that I’m not a fan.

Thanks for this post!

Unfortunately, some will refuse to cooperate and there will be protests, protests that will be amplified and distorted by the MSM. Then Comrade Obama will claim that they can’t get an accurate count because of non-cooperation and they’ll probably throw in something about Republican suppressing the count in the cities, so they’ll have to use statistical methods to make sure “everyone” is counted. Then they’ll just make it up.

I have no issue with names, ages, occupations, etc. I mean, if the Census hadn’t done that for years my father wouldn’t have found information about our family that got lost when an ancestor ran away from home as a child and never returned or reconnected. It has its merits, absolutely.

That said, I am seriously considering the “Question 9 – Other/American” idea promoted by a number of people. I don’t know about some of the other questions…I guess I’ll just make a judgement when I get it.

I have a lot of worried friends.

ty.

and I have to say that a large percentage of the questions were pretty darn offensive. So for me, I pretty much answered the first page and refused everything else.

” The fact that you don’t like some of those programs or uses of census data is really not germane, the question is do you want those programs to operate based on good information or not-so-good information.”

I don’t want them to operate at all, and operating on bad information is more likely to make them go away or not increase in size quite as fast than good information.

and I don’t remember reading that they complained about it. There is a delicious, only-in-America irony in hearing people, after griping that they have been undercounted when marching along Constituition Ave., plotting to become uncounted when in their living rooms!

The last couple of times we’ve had one our mayor decided our city was undercounted and screamed for a recount. That cost money, so he charged an extra buck on our utility bill to cover the cost (promising all these lost souls would be found and we would get extra tax dollars.) By the time the recount was done, we had even less people than the first count.

I agree that a census every ten years is good and necessary. What I don’t agree with is that we should be divided into categories to enable the diversity/multiculti crowd’s mania for social engineering.

So we’ll follow the excellent advice here at NRO and on line #9 declare our race to be: American.

Anything beyond that simple count is unwarranted intrusion by a federal government run amok by passing laws not constitutionally authorized.

That same government seems quite enamored by the “right of privacy” that it used to help further the slaughter of the unborn. One might think that the holy “right of privacy” would logically extend to other areas of our lives. One would be wrong, however.

You’ve given rational reasons for cooperating with the census questions, so that people who decide differently are at least operating with facts rather than fact-free anxiety (or misinformation).

That said, each of will have to weigh to what extent we will participate.

One key barrier to cooperation, which you didn’t really address much (perhaps it seems obvious to you) is the issue of confidentiality – people (myself included) are worried that once in the hands of the government, this information will be available for disclosure to government agencies that may not, shall we say, have our best interests at heart.

Just how strong are the confidentiality protections against what we see as an overreaching executive branch? That is, how easily can the protections be breached?

Interestingly, you article identifies an irony that in part may explain the “undercount problem”. It is strong, close-knit communities where the census back-up measures you describe (neighbor interviews, etc) will be most effective – and these are where cooperation is likely to be highest anyway.

Conversely, in disrupted communities (such as many of our urban and inner city areas) where cooperation is much lower, the neighbor interviews will also be less effective as people will know less their neighbors or be reluctant to talk.

the long form is put are legitimate in they make planning and commerce more efficient. The information can easily be put to illegimate purposes however, so I’m with Strieff. Use your own judgement.

If those who live in deep blue districts were to not be counted it would reduce the weight of those districts in apportionment, Wouldn’t it? Possibly this is trying to be too clever.

that I rarely think that any additional government power is a good thing. It may not seem like a big deal and probably your right it never will be but I just would like the government to know as little about my personal life as possible. Government’s have abused their citizen’s throughout history and I don’t want the government being able to create groups and lists of whomever they want when ever they want. I don’t see most of the information as relevant and therefore am always suspect as to why they want it.

_____________________________________________________________
“This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practice ourselves the kind of behavior we expect from other people.” C. S. Lewis

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” – Ronald Reagan

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.” – C. S. Lewis

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that so many conservatives are running on, or support freedom, liberty and less government, yet have no problem giving the currently Progressive Government much much more personal information than is authorized in the Constitution. For so very many, dreaming about a much smaller, and less intrusive federal government, why would you choose to participate in a form filled with questions, that would determine your area’s fair share of federal monies? I thought many of us supported getting rid of many unnecessary federal programs, and, leaving funding for the necessary programs, hospitals, schools, to the state’s discretion.

don’t be a JERK to the part-timer who shows up as your door or calls your house it really is unbecoming of any American who should see the Census for the only true thing left in the Constitution that gets done everything is violated and mistreated and made up but the Census ENSURES that WE get the correct amount of Legislators and with INSANE politicians today especially out of lefty states ie: CA & NY where they have LOST a ton of people it behooves the RIGHT to get as many as WE can

BTW I intend to answer #9 as American and I intend to ONLY do the short form as the rest of it is NOT the business of the Federal Government!

I can’t bring myself to say that I’m a fan of the Census, but I agree with you that it’s pretty much a necessity in a modern industrial state, is Constitutionally-mandated, and is generally useful for virtually any task undertaken by the government, regardless of whether you agree with that task or not.

Would Obama meet the census requirements if he entered “Caucasian?”

Seriously, would it be enough if he considered himself “Caucasian?”

Thanks, streiff.

I look as white as Chris Matthews, but I’m entering something along the lines of “multiracial.” Been doing it on state and federal forms for years now.

In planning for expansion of existing facilities, the building of new facilities and/or the shutting down of unneeded facilities, corporations rely on census data. While working for a private corporatrion, I used census data on various counties in New Jersey to develope the best location for a future plant site. While wotking on my MBA, I used census data as one of the factors in my multiple regression analysis to determine future sales. I will answer all the questions because the data, released without individual identification, is useful to business planners.

Market Research sampling is heavily dependent on those “too-intrusive” categories of Census data for calibration. Of course it’s fine if you don’t want to answer those questions, but if “your” favorite brand–the one that’s “just right for people like you”–disappears from store shelves in your region without notice, are you really prepared to say “that’s all right, I’ll just take the good old generic ‘American’ kind”?

for a base of N=10x “what everyone else is using” and hoping that you really got a random sample THIS time–well, that’s YOUR business!

OUR GOVERNMENT LIES TO US ALL THE TIME.
According to U.S. Representative Ron Paul, “However, these promises can and have been abused in the past. Census data has been used to locate men who had not registered for the draft. Census data also was used to find Japanese-Americans for internment camps during World War II. Furthermore, the IRS has applied census information to detect alleged tax evaders. May be this is Homeland security stealth way of implementing US Census records, for using E-Verify data bases for ICE, to apprehend illegal aliens and deport them?

it should never have collected in the first place, I do not feel obliged to help the bureaucrats in charge of my life with determining how much my “community” is entitled to.
This is all Nixon’s fault, and something a Rep. should never have done. Nixon invented “revenue sharing” in that infamous year of 1972, and all it has ever done is increase state gov’t personnel rolls, blow up school administration hires, and inflate every local and state human resources file in the nation.

is the year that the government began its long and intrusive invasion of our private lives.

It was about that time that the Federal government started becoming more important than the states and the Constitution.