The Census Race

Later this month, you will be getting a census form in the mail.
The original mandate for the government to perform a census stems from the US Constitution, Article 1, clause 2:

“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.”

The 3/5’s clause was a direct nod to slaves being held, and was subsequently amended by the 14th Amendment, which removed the 3/5 clause:

“Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed.”

The government is already spending a tremendous amount of money on advertising for this census effort.  I’m sure you’ve heard the commercials.  You should be as outraged as I am that government money – that’s your money and mine folks – is being spent on these advertisements which are deliberately misleading.

One commercial talks about how a small town has a couple of traffic lights.  But the town grows and traffic gets worse, and Oh My God how will we know that you need more traffic lights if you don’t answer the census?

Stupid.  Duh, “Hey traffic is getting worse, maybe we should put up some more lights?”  This is a local issue which should be handled on a local level.  The implication of this commercial is that traffic lights flow from the federal government.

Or how about this one: The school has an optimum number of students, but the community grows and there are more students and Oh My God how will we know we need more classrooms and more teachers if you don’t answer the census?

Stupid.  Duh, how about the fact that your classrooms are bulging.  This is an issue that should be resolved at the level of the local school board, not on the basis of some directive from the federal government.  The implication here is that the federal government is best suited to determine the needs of your local school.

Let’s take a look at this census form.  You can check it out at http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/interactive-form.php.
Okay, how many people live here, how many people are temporarily there, who are they, what are their ages, does anyone sometimes live somewhere else.  I don’t have a problem with that.  What are their sexes?  I guess that’s a legitimate question – goes to estimating expected growth potential, although why the government needs to know that escapes me for the moment.  My phone number?  You don’t need my stinkin’ phone number.  No phone.  Or give them the number to the local pizzeria.

Then I run into the wall on questions 8 and 9.

8. Is person X of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin?
9. What is person X’s Race?

What??!!  Why on earth does the federal government need to know this?  Well, let’s see what they say:

“Asked since 1790.”  Ah yes, 1790, when racism was entrenched in the very fabric of society, a time when the color of your skin dictated whether you could even live as a free man or as a slave.  Yeah, that’s relevant to 2010.  I see now. 

“Race is key to implementing many federal laws and is needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.”  This sounds good at first blush, but stop and think about what it’s saying:  1. We implement  laws based on your race.  In effect, we need to know what race you are so we can pass special laws for you.  It seems the laws of the white people aren’t good enough for the colored people.  Or maybe the laws of the white people are too good for the colored people?  If you buy this argument, then you directly support segregation and Jim Crowe laws.  If the Government doesn’t know what race you are, how can they possibly make laws that are discriminatory or preferential based on the color of your skin?  2. We need to monitor compliance with the voting rights act and civil rights act.  Can someone possibly tell me how the census accomplishes this?   What does the government actually, effectively do to make sure this legislation is complied with?  This is not the government’s job.  There are plenty of civil rights organizations which will blow the whistle loud and long if a person is denied their rights on the basis of race.  These are far more effective than the impotent statistic shuffling of some bureaucrat in the bowels of some building in Washington DC.

“State governments use the data to determine congressional, state and local voting districts.”  WHAT!!??  Are you telling me that the government endorses gerrymandering districts on the basis of skin color?  This is segregation in the rawest political sense.  It’s elitist and separationist. Colored folk aren’t good enough to vote in a white man’s district, so we’ll give them their own district.  Now, I know I’m going to hear a lot of arguments about this being the only that the colored community can get representation in government, and to this I say baloney.  We have a black president, and he didn’t get put there exclusively by the minority colored population.  People, by gerrymandering districts so that the members of a district are likely to vote as a single bock, you’re short-circuiting the whole point of districting, which is to ensure that the individual has the greatest amount of power with their vote.  By districting along racial lines, the government is effectively throwing the colored community a poison bone, allowing them to feel empowered by electing their own representative, who will always be an outvoted minority in the halls of Congress, and in return the colored people won’t be allowed to mess with the proper white man’s elections by voting for the wrong person.  Don’t you see?  Wake up!  This is not a good thing for the colored community!  The majority of congress has no reason to consider you when passing legislation, because the districts have been drawn so that they don’t have to answer to you!  For more on the actual math of why such districting robs you of your voting power, seeMath Against Tyranny.

“Race data are also used to assess fairness of employment practices, to monitor racial disparities in characteristics such as health and education. . .”   Nowhere on the census form does it ask whether you are employed, or how much you make.  Nowhere on the IRS form 1040 does it ask you what race you are.  Isn’t it wonderful how colorblind the government becomes when it just wants your money?  Knowing that colored people are at higher risk for certain health conditions or vice versa is a function of the health care provider, not the Federal Government.  The Government is not our health care provider – yet.  God help us if it ever does take on that role.  You want to know who the best person to monitor the potential of education disparities is?  The parents.  Parents can petition locally elected school boards, or even sit on those boards, and institute standards of excellence at a local level.  You don’t need the federal government for this.  In fact, by abdicating this local responsibility to the federal government, parents give their children over to an education bureaucracy that cares nothing for educational excellence, only for perpetuating it’s own existence.

Fairness of employment is ensured by the marketplace.  Today’s employment marketplace is such that job candidates are free to shop their skills to the highest bidder in the market.  An employer who deliberately overlooks a qualified job applicant on the basis of the color of his skin is putting himself at a disadvantage in the marketplace, and will be out-competed by his competitor who hires the most qualified people without regard to skin color.  Discriminatory hiring practices have not been confined to just colored candidates, and have always been impermanent, as the market punishes those who do not seek excellence wherever it’s found.

“Race data are used. . . .to plan and obtain funds for public services.”  So public services are apportioned on the basis of skin color?  Colored populations need more public services?  Why?  Because they’re poorer?  Why are they poor?  Maybe the fact that the government knows what color certain communities are and doesn’t provide an equal level of education for those communities?  Have you thought of that?  Does anyone in reading distance of my words make the contention that colored people are unable to provide for themselves as well as whites, and therefore need special consideration?  This is tantamount to saying that a colored man is not equivalent to the white man.  I say this is a ridiculous proposition, and should be dispensed with.

Our history has conditioned us to think that “race” is somehow significant.  But how do you define race?  Skin color?  Hair color?  I can donate blood to be used by another person if their blood type is the same as mine, and skin color has nothing to do with it.  It would be just as logical to separate populations by hair color, eye color, left- or right-handedness, or the ability to roll your tongue.  The idea that someone’s skin color should define their living or voting patterns is specious at best.  But the government and unscrupulous leaders have played on the fears of the group and  convinced too many people that they themselves must be racist and support racist policies and racist legislation in self-defense.  Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have turned the practice of demagoguery into big business, and they’re paid quite well to keep fomenting racial tensions.

This is not what America is about.  This is not my America.  The idea of race is idiotic.  We are all one race:  the Human race.  The sooner the government quits asking stupid questions like what color your skin is, the sooner people will quit thinking that this is important, and the sooner we can put it behind us.  So when you get your census forms this year, I encourage you when you’re filling it out, for question 9, mark “Other” and write in “Human”.  Imagine the consternation of the government bureaucrats when it discovers that it’s ruling over a nation of Human-Americans!

The ONLY way that the government can govern impartially for all is if it’s color-blind.  And the only way you can make it color-blind is to not tell it what color you are.

I’m not the only one who’s offended by this. . . I’m in good company, see Michelle Malkin’s article!