Don't Answer the Census

by Alex R. Knight III

Exclusive to STR

May 8, 2009

If you’re already familiar with Lysander Spooner’s “No Treason IV: The Constitution of No Authority,” then you know that the U.S. Constitution isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on.  This becomes all the more visible when you bear witness to how selectively government either enforces or doesn’t enforce it, based on whatever happens to be to the advantage of those who work for it.  That said, here’s what that worthless document has to say about a census:

“Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union , according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. 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.”

Note that the clause in question speaks only of an “Enumeration” – i.e., the total number of people living in a given geographical region.  It says precisely nothing about the ethnicity of said people, their occupations, level of earnings, or how many toilets happen to be in their home.  It says nothing about whether you own pets, have a medical condition, or are a certain age.  It means how many people live where you do.  Period.  End of story.  But somewhere along the line, some group of smartass politicians decided that wasn’t good enough.

And as if it wasn’t, note that the CON-stitution (capital letters quite deliberate) states that the sole two purposes of such an enumeration are to a.) provide for the election of the constitutionally appropriate number of congressmen to the U.S. House of Representatives based on each “State’s” population, and b.) to properly apportion any direct taxes amongst the populace.

I can’t and wouldn’t want to speak for you, but I would consider the complete and total absence of all congressmen a blessing, and so could care less about the “state” I allegedly live in being “properly” represented in a governmental body.  I don’t vote and never want to.  So this is a less than useless provision.

As for the second part, in case anyone hasn’t noticed, we’re already the victims of several unapportioned direct taxes – “income” and “Social Security” being the two big ones.  Allegedly the 16^th “Amendment” changed any and all apportionment requirements.  There is much evidence to suggest that this is total bullshit, but that’s largely academic.  The truth is, government does as it damn well pleases, and you’d better pay up, sit down, and shut up if you don’t want to lose everything you own, spend your life in a cage, or get shot.  Those are your current options in lovely Amerika.  Isn’t freedom great?

That’s about it.  Unless you have a different idea, I can’t see one legitimate reason to respond to the census – in 2010, or ever.  The government admits that it largely uses the data to determine where and what kinds of federal subsidy revenues to send out, and I for one do not wish to help them accomplish this task.  I don’t wish to help them accomplish anything, in fact, except total self-immolation.  I just want to try and be somewhere nondescript and out of the way when it happens.  I have no desire to go up with them.

The bureaucrats say a $100 federal fine can be imposed upon anyone failing or refusing to answer the census.  The odds of such a fine actually being levied against an anonymous resister are next to nil, however.  As an example, who have you heard of being prosecuted for failure to register with Selective Service since the late 1960s and the days of Dr. Benjamin Spock – even though the Selective Service System states to the present that failure to do so among young men aged 18 to 25 is a felony? 

In the name of what’s both productive, and protective of what little privacy I have, I’ll take my chances.  Here’s hoping you will too.  Government is completely illegitimate; totally out of control and running wild.  Don’t help these bastards control our lives any more than you absolutely, positively must at gunpoint.  Don’t cooperate with evil. 

Don’t answer the Census.