"Mr. STARK: I guess it's laziness and like, what's the point? When it comes down to it, nobody wants to fill out like another form that's just like getting sent to your house that really relatively has nothing to do with your life."
I mean, like, it provides essential statistics for the configuration of congressional districts, and umm like it's mandated by the constitution and stuff and junk, but like... what's the point?
Not sure what the point of a census is? At least in Germany, I think you are required by law to tell the state when ad where you have moved. So the state should have all the information already on file. Nevertheless, the German government has at times tried to make a census. But improved technology might alleviate the need?
Probably there are people who don't bother to announce their moves and births - but why would they bother to fill in a census form instead?
Maybe an easier way would be to make announcing a move a lot easier, like sending a tweet to the government.
Or create an iPhone app for the census form, that automatically determines your location, sex and age from your usage patterns.
Even simpler: create a law that requires Google to disclose that information.
When in Williamsburg the other month, I saw lots of folks I took to be Hasidic, but nobody who looked any hipper than my middle-aged un-hip self. Of course, it was between 11 and noon, so perhaps the truly hip had not rolled out of the sack yet.
But it surprises me that the Satmars wouldn't have the whole congressional thing in mind.
People should only note how many people live in the dwelling and send it back. That's the only constitutionally approved question the census is supposed to ask.
The rest of the questions are there to tell politicians what group they should pander to and how to reconfigure congressional zones.
The census TV ads about filling in your race (actually your country of ancestry) are really pissing me off too. It wasn't that long ago census data was used to roundup Japanese citizens during WWII...they claimed it was private back then too.
Are you sure about the "constitutionally approved" quip? I watched Gary Locke on The Daily Show on March 18th, and he clears up a bunch of these misconceptions and privacy concerns. Specifically, he says that Jefferson was the head of the first census committee, and half of the questions even in 2010 census are questions put in by Madison.
I also don't understand why it's fashionable to distrust the census. It happens in most countries and they ask more or less the same questions. We all care about the economic and racial demographics of places where we live and work; where do you think that information comes from?
The Constitution (Article 1 Section 2) specifically gives the House of Representatives power to decide the questions present in the census: "[I]n such Manner as [the House] shall by Law direct."
Here are the questions asked in the first census, conducted in 1790:
* Name of the head of each household.
* How many free white males age 16 and older.
* How many free white males under age 16.
* How many free white females.
* How many of all other free persons.
* How many slaves.
I don't suppose you're a fan of Michelle Bachmann's, are you? Here's a recent response a FOX News(!) anchor gave Bachmann regarding this:
“We’ve had a lot of good years since then,” Kelly said. “That was a different time and a different era. We’ve had decades since then when, at least to our knowledge, this information hasn’t been abused. So how do you respond to people who say, ‘Look, we’ve been doing it for decades since then. The law is what it is and you as a lawmaker should know better than to break it.’”
A: It's kind of an obscure number. You probably haven't heard of it.