Last week I received in the mail a letter from the Census Bureau telling me that in about a week I'd receive the census form. This was in fact the second letter that I'd received, the first one being in 2009 telling me that people are required by law to fill out the census. (So how much taxpayer money has that wasted?) The letter notes, twice, that the information from the census form will be used to ensure that my "community gets its fair share of government funds"—never mind that everyone disagrees on what "fair share" means in the context of public allocation.

I've been thinking about how I'm going to respond with regard to the census. Recently I saw a thread on a firearms forum discussing this very subject, and noted what the U.S. Code (Title 13 USC § 221) is for refusing to answer questions:

Whoever, being over eighteen years of age, refuses or willfully neglects, when requested by the Secretary, or by any other authorized officer or employee of the Department of Commerce or bureau or agency thereof acting under the instructions of the Secretary or authorized officer, to answer, to the best of his knowledge, any of the questions on any schedule submitted to him in connection with any census or survey provided for by subchapters I, II, IV, and V of chapter 5 of this title, applying to himself or to the family to which he belongs or is related, or to the farm or farms of which he or his family is the occupant, shall be fined not more than $100.

$100, eh? I can afford that. The penalty for providing false answers is $500, which is a bit more painful, although they'd have to figure out that the answers were false.

There was a link to an interesting YouTube video by Jerry Day discussing the census questions and the Census Bureau's refusal to answer questions regarding the legality of their inquiries. He mentions the invasive nature of the questions, regarding individual salary, housing, utilities, etc. I searched around a bit and found that there are two census forms being distributed: a short form and the "American Community Survey". Sample forms are shown on the Census Bureau site, and the ACS form is as Mr. Day has noted. I've reviewed the ACS, and determined that I will not complete it should this be the form I receive.

As far as the short form, then, how much to complete? Another site notes the content of the first census in 1790:

The number of questions in the decennial census has varied widely since the first in 1790, where census takers logged the name, gender [sic], and race or each member of a household, to 2000, where a multi-page form with dozens of questions was sent to one out of every six households.

The information collected indicates only the heads of families, free white males 16 years and older, free white males younger than 16, free white females (age not counted), all other free persons, and slaves.

Referring back to the Constitution, Article I, Section 2 as amended (by the 14th Amendment), as to what the census means:

The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct.

The last clause, "in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct" at first glance seems open-ended; however the term used to describe the census is "Enumeration", which is quite specifically a count, not a generic survey. As far as Constitutionality goes, the government has no authority to ask for anything other than a count of people living at an address. (More specifically, the number of people in a household in a given area for Congressional apportionment, which these days means an address.) As noted above, there is historic precedent for requiring name, sex (not the same as gender, by the way), race, and age.

So I'm conflicted about how to respond to the short-form census, my first one as a head of household. I've already established that I will not answer the ACS. That historical precedent with regard to the short form exists, I would be inclined to fill out the name, sex, race, and age details. However, they ask for phone number, housing status, date of birth, and specific race information. The latter is most troubling: Asians are broken down specifically, such as Japanese, whereas "White" isn't broken down into anything more specific than Hispanic origins. Now that's racist!

One would think that African Americans would have a movement to not fill out race for historic reasons (i.e. being counted as three-fifths of a person at one point); besides, whitey (e.g. a KKK sympathizer who works for the Census Bureau) could track them down and lynch them based on the race and address information that they fill out. Of course, urban black people are statistically Democrats, so they want their share of government largesse, I suppose.

Regardless, I don't feel the need to fill out my phone number. And if I don't fill out my phone number, then I might as well ignore the race, date of birth, and housing status questions, as I'd probably get fined the $100 anyway. So to fold on the number or not is the central question. A hundred bucks isn't too painful, but it's not a drop in the bucket either. I don't answer the phone unless it's a number I recognize, anyway, and I sure as hell wouldn't call them back! No census schmuck is getting in my house, either—I'd answer the door with a gun on my hip.

Incidentally, the Census Bureau has been airing commercials on TV Japan about the census, in Japanese. How many millions of dollars beyond what was necessary has the government wasted on this endeavor?!