Censuses have bedeviled the public since at least the days of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth

"The government doesn’t produce quality products in any worthwhile area. Indeed, its main products are taxation, regulation, inflation, and wealth redistribution – which all eventually destroy their supposed beneficiaries as surely as they do those who are handcuffed and looted."

Casey On The Census

April 18, 2010

By Doug Casey

Censuses have bedeviled the public since at least the days of Mary and Joseph of Nazareth, and they’ve never served any purpose except to give rulers more information on their subjects.
The case is made, of course, that the information gathered is also used by business. Fine, then let the businesses that need it hire pollsters to go out and get what they need at their own expense, instead of having to make the best of the hodgepodge garnered by the government.
The case is also made that, although you must give your name and address, you aren’t asked for your Social Security number. And the government can’t reveal any individual data for 70 years.
Maybe it will, or maybe it won’t. But don’t think generalized statistics, at least, aren’t crunched in a thousand different ways by IRS, NSA, FBI, DOD, CIA, DEA, and numerous other suppressive agencies to aid their missions. Local authorities have long used census data, which is broken down by the block, to search for possible zoning violations, among other things.
How many houses are on your block? Any particulars in which you stand out may serve as a flag that will at some point compromise your interests and those of your family.
Although Title 13 requires survey responses to be kept “strictly confidential,” I say that’s a guideline, at best. Census data was of critical importance in rounding up everyone of Japanese extraction in 1942 so they could be put in concentration camps. In 2002 and 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau provided information to Homeland Security that it had gathered about Arab-Americans.
In point of fact, the PATRIOT Act makes everything an open book, notwithstanding the Census Bureau’s $350 million advertising campaign.
Of course, I recognize that resistance is, if not futile, at least academic. Not filling out some form hardly makes one a modern-day Braveheart. But it’s at least a step up from cutting off those “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law” tags from your futon.
They’ve already determined the exact GPS coordinates of every dwelling in the country. That’s sure to be useful in the event of some “national security” emergency, or perhaps just keeping track of the over one million folks on the TSA’s Terrorist Watch List, or maybe other lists.
This is, I feel, a moral issue, much more than a technical or financial one. But, although a billion dollars is hardly even a rounding error today, it’s still worth noting the financial numbers. The cost of the census is estimated at $14.5 billion, with hiring something between 600,000 and 1.2 million people, who presumably are otherwise unemployed. They’re paid up to $22 an hour to perform various functions, contacting an estimated 134 million households. The Census Bureau estimates about 47 million households will have to be visited personally because they won’t respond by mail.
Now, it’s laudable for a member of society to go along with efforts that may improve conditions; that type of goodwill is what makes society work, and it’s why most people’s first reaction to things such as the census is “Sure. Glad to help.”
But, as I’ve tried to indicate, neighborliness is not what we’re dealing with here. You’ve got to consider the source, and it’s the same organization that sent you your tax forms. What we’re dealing with is a moral question, and the more often you roll over on these things, the easier it is to roll over the next time. You will eventually feel like a gyros on a spit in a Greek restaurant, where every time you go around, another slice is taken off, until you’re all gone. It’s no wonder the Jews in Germany went to their fates peaceably. It was just force of habit.
I’m told that anyone who fails to answer a question on his form is now liable for up to a $5,000 fine. Last time around it was $100 max, so they’re apparently getting more serious about it.
That’s a nuisance. And worse, it tends to draw attention to you. Maybe it’s one of the things that can get you put on the list of people who are “politically unreliable.” But at least they can’t yet bring out the rubber hose, electric shockers, and waterboards if you withhold everything but your name, rank, and serial number.
And in my neighborhood, I guarantee there’s at least one person who, when questioned on the whereabouts of his form, is likely to tell the nosey little geek something like “Hey, sport, if you want information, you should go down to the Information Agency. And this isn’t it.”
The whole process is counterproductive and objectionable, at best. Let’s look at the facts. After you cut through the rhetoric, doublethink, and smoke-screening altruism that surrounds the subject, you find the essence of the state in pure force – the kind that comes out of the barrel of a gun. There’s no voluntarism whatsoever about obeying laws. Only sociopaths think force is a good thing; decent people know it’s something to avoid.
It logically follows that if the state has a legal monopoly on the use of force, the state should be able to use force only to protect individuals from force. That means the purpose of government is, at most, to protect you from force outside its jurisdiction (with a defensive military of some sort); to protect you from a force inside its jurisdiction (with a police force); and to provide a court system to allow you to adjudicate disputes without resorting to force.
How, then, do all the census questions relate to any legitimate function of government? Why, not at all. Only a small and decreasing fraction of government resources actually even go toward furthering any of the government’s legitimate functions – which it does a pathetic job of  performing.
The military is run like a gigantic pork barrel operation, pulling the country toward bankruptcy while concentrating on pointlessly whacking primitive foreign hornet nests. The police harass as much as they protect and seem to direct their attention mostly to revenue generation and the enforcement of arbitrary laws. And it’s next to impossible to get into court (even if you can afford it) and equally difficult to get out once you’re in.
In fact, an excellent case can be made that defense, police, and courts are far too important to the smooth functioning of society to be left to the type of person who inevitably winds up working for the state. Certainly, when it comes to the police, I’d prefer a Mike Hammer, or even a Thomas Magnum, trying to solve a crime than the typical flatfoot whose main interest seems to be filling his quota of traffic tickets.
And private arbitration agencies that would have to compete based on the fairness, intelligence, and cost-effectiveness of their decisions would be a big step up from today’s corrupt, glacier-like and politically motivated courts.
The government doesn’t produce quality products in any worthwhile area. Indeed, its main products are taxation, regulation, inflation, and wealth redistribution – which all eventually destroy their supposed beneficiaries as surely as they do those who are handcuffed and looted.