The Census: Go Black!
By FITSNews || The U.S. government sent out a massive first class mailing this week telling American citizens that the “census is coming.”
WTF? Why not just send the damn thing already?
What a waste of money …
Anyway, these so-called “advance letters” (120 million of which were mailed first class this week) alert residents to the fact that the Census will be arriving in their mailboxes sometime between March 15-17. The letters then urge them to take the time to fill it out.
Whatever …
Assuming we do fill out our 2010 census forms, we’re going to lie like dogs – starting with our ethnicity. Since there’s no box for our Scottish-Irish-British-German-Slovac-Injun-Jewish-Pirate “mutt” status, we’ll be checking the “black” box (or “African-American” box).
We’re also going to purposely lie on the other nine questions the census asks us.
Why? Because f*ck them, that’s why.
The 2010 U.S. Census will cost an estimated $14 billion – or three times as much as the 2000 Census.
That’s $45.31 for every man, woman and child in America – or ten times as much as the per person cost of the 1980 census.
And what does this ridiculous price tag produce? A wildly inaccurate head count that (depending on the administration in power at the time it is conducted) either overstates or understates certain demographic groups.
Like blacks. Or whites. Or whatever the hell our founding editor is … (pirate?)
We should be sampling, people. In fact, we should have been sampling two decades ago.
Also, hello! According to the U.S. Census, there are 308 million people in America right now … which means we already know the answer to the question we’re spending $14 billion to ask!
Ahh, government …
Comments
By Todd on March 9th, 2010 at 9:52 am
There was an article in La Socialista yesterday on the Richland County census office. The chairperson said she was enjoying working with a diverse group of Richland County’s citizen’s in that census office. Right. Find a white male in the Richland County census office….
By Toyota Kawaski on March 9th, 2010 at 10:10 am
I will be writing in Confederate American in my ethnicity box
By countryboy on March 9th, 2010 at 10:14 am
We are also paying for stupid road signs (like political candidate signs). WTF is that all about? I agree, if we are spending 14 billion dollars to count heads, it is downright stupid. I wonder if there is a penalty for falsifying a census? If not, I would like to put down that I am an illegal mexican (I’m not) with 14 adults and 40 kids living in my home, just to see what would happen, if anything. Maybe if a bunch of us falsified the census like that and we came up with a count of 200 million citizens and 300 million illegals, or some BS like that, they would wake the f*ck up in DC.
By countryboy on March 9th, 2010 at 11:47 am
Todd, why should the Richland census office be any different than any Federal government or any southern state government office? Diversity will soon mean “hire a white”.
By Spartanburg Local on March 9th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
From the official census site – FAQ’s
What if I provide false information?
According to Title 13, Chapter 7, Subtitle 2, anyone who willfully gives an answer that is false could be fined up to $500.
By Kim on March 9th, 2010 at 12:46 pm
Fitsnews, You are always on the mark with your analysis!! You articulate so clearly what I am thinking. Thank you!
By elmo on March 9th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
What good could possibly come out of filling out the form? Why does “my” federal government need to know my religious status or my skin color ?
When I fill out my federal tax form, they know how many kids I have, how much money I make, and even how much I donate. Personally, I think that is too much information for the government to have its greedy, hungry hands on.
Are we really expecting them to be able to tell us accurately how many illegal aliens they have allowed in to our country? I didn’t think so.
By crackahasscrackah on March 9th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Wow – FITS endorses sampling. Maybe President Obama will nominate Will Folks as his new census director (a regular paycheck!).
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/robert_groves_nominated_to_hea.php
Seriously, Will, you do realize that practically EVERY conservative / Republican group has bashed the administration for supporting statistical sampling over an actual headcount? I realize you pride yourself in not being any political party’s step-and-fetch-it but to part ways with the GOP on an issue that actually matters (census data-driven reapportionment is the ONLY reason SC has a Republican – albeit RINO – General Assembly today) . . . wow.
By LowcountryGamecock on March 9th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Go “Other” —-> then, “American.”
By Bottom Line..... on March 9th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
I’m with countryboy. Illegal Mexican it will be…
By scooter on March 9th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
What the heck are you talking about? Besides all the other reasons we need to take this seriously, it is just fun to fill out.
By EM on March 9th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
on an interesting side note:
If anyone ever decides to check into their ancestry, the census is the most valuable document I’ve found. It gives a lot of info, head of house, birthdays, where the parents are from (a lot of immigration) dates of immigration, what kind of jobs.. servant names and what race they were. Goes way back….
Guess we won’t have very accurate info anymore.
By WorkingTommyC on March 9th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
What would it take to destroy the reliability of those numbers collected by the census?
If just 10% or some other small but unknowable percentage of us answered that we’re black instead of white–or white instead of black–and similarly put in false information we’d have a classic case of “garbage in–garbage out.”
This would the mildest form of civil disobedience possible, I’d think, in effectively protesting what is real and illegal racial profiling and other invasions of privacy by the federal government.
As long as you’re accurate in the number of people in the household, that’s all you’re legally obligated to report. The rest of it can be pure fairy tale as far as the U.S. Constitution is concerned–unless they amend the Constitution to once again count certain persons as counting 3/5ths of a person.
By Anna on March 9th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
By law you’re only required to fill out the very first part. The part about how many toilets you have, you can leave that blank. Big Brother probably already knows anyway…
As far as my ethnicity, is biracial a choice? Heinz 57? Would that make me an ethnic minority?
By T4 on March 10th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
EM,
Thank you. People often get caught up in “follow the leader” talking points and forget that a brain is capable of more than regurgitation. Cynicism and overreaction; big surprise here. What if something bad actually happened?
Until then, try listening to the soothing vocals of Linda Ronstadt in “Blue Bayou”
By WorkingTommyC on March 12th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
EM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census
Even the wiki entry notes that the number of people in each household is the only question legally required to be answered.
One interesting note in the history on wikipedia is the note about the “inquiries on fisheries” in the 1840 census. The fisheries were in the Northeast. The northeastern states were in a high population area split up into many more states (based on colonial divisions) than other parts of the country giving them advantages in both the US House and the US Senate.
The fisheries were the first(?) recipients of corporate welfare on the flimsy excuse of supplying our navy with able bodied seamen–as if such industry would not have existed without government subsidies.
Political power translating into federal level corporate welfare, even if started back in 1840, does not justify such unconstitutional practices (essentially fascism) as rampantly occur today. On the same principle, long established precedent does not justify intrusive inquiries on the census today.
The fact that our ancestors allowed more that what was required does not mean that we have to. Unless we’re willing to break with illegal, unconstitutional precedents, we’re doomed to repeat the history of every other republic’s slide into tyranny or break-up that has been the case since the invention of republics.
By Polli on March 16th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
NUNYA to the Census.
By barbm on March 22nd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
here’s my thinking on the census. texas would get an additional 3 congressional seats based on growth in our state. unfortunately, that growth is mostly from illegal aliens and from them having a dozen babies so they can get more welfare. the democrat congressmen here are courting their votes by offering them amnesty. remember that the ones who came her and had an anchor baby are now eligible to vote and want the rest of their extended family to come here so they can get welfare too. in the last election, democrats took my state by storm. it was the dems who passed the healthcare bill last night and who will, according to obama, start work on immigration reform next. if they can push through healthcare without the senate, then they can push through amnesty too. I will NOT help them, so i’m not filling it out. think about it before sending in your census form. how many illegals are in your state? is that population growing? how many democrats won in your state in the last election? check on line to see how many there were and how many there are now. and about the letter telling us they were sending the forms, it cost approximately $54 million for those useless letters!! my son, nephew, and i took the test last year to work for the census. my nephew missed 1, my son 2, and i missed 3. none of us has been called because we don’t speak spanish fluently. you shouldn’t be required to speak another language to work for your own government.
By John Boy on March 30th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
What will the president check for race? white or black?