Goddammit to hell, what the fuck is wrong with people who think that filling out the census is leading us down the primrose path to a socialistic, totalitarian Obamanazi regime, complete with black helicopters and concentration camps for Whitey? I live in West Texas, and to listen to people talking about the apparently onerous and odious task of filling out a 10-minute form asking basic demographic questions would make one think it’s just as egregious an affront to their sense of propriety as someone asking to pork their 12-year-old daughter. It’s fucking mind-blowing.
Case in point. My girlfriend’s redneck father has been railing about the census form (the fucking SHORT FORM) he received, calling it an invasion of privacy to ask what race he is, his income, and how many people stay at his house on a regular basis. He’s a Tea Partier, and even has the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag proudly displayed in his home. He takes notes (no shit!) on Glenn Beck. He’s a birther. And he is voluntarily unemployed, so he has plenty of time to stew in the fetid Right Wing juices served up hot and fresh from Fox News.
I wish I had the balls to tell him if he really wants to be fucking patriotic, he’d fill out the goddamn form and send it back (it’s in The Constitution, after all) We’ve been doing censuses in this country for generations, and world-wide since at least the time of the Roman empire. I’ve told my girlfriend to appeal to his religion (he’s nominally Christian). According to his holy book, Jesus’ parents registered with the Roman census when he was a child. If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s got to be good enough for dimwit like him, right?
These Tea-Partying, bible-beating, strict-construction numbskulls even have the audacity to complain about how much taxpayer money this whole affair is costing. Do they not realize that most of the cost (I think, but don’t know for sure) comes from the logistical nightmare of getting a populous from the ostensible “Greatest Country in the World” to fill out a simple form? You want to stick it to old Uncle Sam, do you? Well, mail the form back and no one from the Obama-SS will come by and harass you. If you can manage to not smear feces on it, that is. That will require a followup visit.
To me, filling out the census is a patriotic duty, the law be damned. As a statistician, I understand the importance of data in directing policy that affects everyone, even the lame-brains who on the lookout for Black Helicopters.
