Libertarians are often confronted by the difficult choice of how their principled rejection of state aggression should manifest itself in practice. In the case of the census, I decided to refuse to answer any questions. FULL ARTICLE by Vijay Boyapati
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/12992/refusing-to-be-counted/
Refusing to be Counted
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A census is merely counting the number of people living in an area. This can be done in an entirely non-forceful manner utilizing statistical method, such as those little black wires stretched across roads to measure traffic, examining the number of businesses in the area, or counting the number of houses in a neighbordhood, subtracting the number of “For Sale” or “For Rent” signs, and applying statistical family measurements to those dwellings.
A dozen mathemeticians can create just as accurate a count of the population living in the nation as can hiring a half a million workers to go door to door. The rest of the data being collected is not defined as a census in Constitutional terms. A census doesn’t concern itself with who you are, just the fact that you exist, and this doesn’t need to be a major production where your time is being taken up by a government temp.
Interesting point here and a fine suggestion; extrapolation via a statistical sample exactly as how traffic engineers predict demand on a roadway. I find it immensely ironic that it is en vogue to reject certain ideas and practices as “old fashioned,” “out of date,” “backwards,” or even “savage” such as the gold/silver standard, the 2nd Amendment, state’s rights, etc. only to find the State still clinging to such antiquated methods such as employed by the Census Bureau. But then again that’s the nature of government; to do things as obtusely and inefficiently as possible.
J. Murray writes that “A dozen mathemeticians can create just as accurate a count of the population living in the nation as can hiring a half a million workers to go door to door.” Yes, a few statisticians can provide as accurate a count, and in fact a more accurate account. That is because there are errors in the door-to-door method that do not occur in a designed sample. Moreover, the statistician provides checks upon its method, as well as confidence intervals which state the degree of inaccuracy of their sample. Statistics allows for the stratification of the sample, the duration of time, and other secondary factors. So I criticize Mr. Murray for placing stratified statistical sampling on as low a level as that of government workers, and for his unforgivable spelling of ‘mathematicians’ ☺.
Good point. I was just using it as an example of how to replace a half million workers with next to nothing.
And, yes, my spelling error is quite unforgivable. It’s one of the dozen words I tend to spell incorrectly every time, corrected every time, yet do it again anyway.
Yes, Mr. Murray, I was really complimenting you for what you pointed out. Of course some people will applaud the administration for job creation, especially since some of the workers are counted a few times when calculating the number of jobs created.
Aktuallee, my speling iz perfukt.
I caught the joke. Though this blog does need to get the smiley face emoticon a bit bigger.
Interestingly, you decided to refuse and you also made that decision for your whole family, whether or not they wished to be counted..or did you allow them to voice their own sentiments to the census taker?
do you put all family decisions to the vote? do children get an equal vote as adults?
i thought the us imposed a maximum fine of $5 000 for non-compliance???
in liberty’s australia, there is a daily penalty of $110 and the risk of a criminal record. americans, don’t feel too sorry for yourselves.
But what about his spouse?
I mailed in my form giving only the number of residents, as I felt the Constitution required. I did not consult my wife, and I was not home when a census worker came. My wife answered all questions completely. Only then did it occur to me that first discussing the issue was more proper than applying my views unilaterally. There can be a tyranny in anti-tyranny; that’s what most on the Left seem to fail (or refuse) to see in themselves.
It will cost $15 billion to count 300 million people. Fifty bucks a head? Nice work if you can invent it.
I too only sent in the number of people, and no other information. This was many weeks ago, and AFAIK, nobody has appeared to harass us…..yet.
“Nice work if you can invent it.”
Oh, good one! Big fan of the Gershwin brothers so I’ll drop the “can” and try to rephrase the line next time I sing the tune.
Have you seen any new people or vehicles prowlin’ the neighberhood?
“She left my house after giving me a rather ominous warning that I was likely to face further “harassment” from census workers in the near future.”
Well done Vijay! Please keep this up. The government needs all the jobs (aka harassments) you can help create.
The human comedy ever abides . . . .
Vijay, you are a patient fellow indeed, to have explained ALL of this to the 2 census workers who visited your abode.
Government, statism, socialism — it is all ONE GIANT slow creeping Blob (much like in the Steve McQueen movie THE BLOB) that inexorably covers, smothers, and takes over all other activities.
It is almost like we are all non-thinking sleepwalkers — even the Government employees themselves — along with the politicians we elect.
We find it easier to go along to get along than to confront.
And in following this non-rational approach to Life, we are creating very real problems for all of us over time.
Government Intervention becomes far easier to accept than non-intervention. As Vijay writes we actually believe that roads and sewers cannot exist without government. We actually believe that medicine and education cannot exist without government.
Economists of the Interventionist persuasion are promoted and given university and government jobs at the cost of those of the Non-Interventionist persuasion.
Yes, the State does use coercion — that is crystal clear to anyone who can think. But most of us see ‘our’ State as using that coercion against ‘bad’ people. Just like the census worker who is convinced of the value of the job they are doing, most of us (possibly ‘trained’ by our public ‘education’ system) acquiesce to being ‘searched’.
Ask yourself HOW FAR can this slow takeover by the Creeping Blob go on? How many more activities can or should our government do for us? Is there ANY activity that Government should not do?
Should the Government make Rice Cakes for us?
Perhaps we really ALL should be Government Employees? Who needs the Private Sector ‘ANYWHO’?
Come to think of it I actually really do want the ‘security’ of a government job and the perks and pensions that go along with it. Why should ANY OF US be denied? Why not let the Government drill all of our oil wells? It is ‘Our’ oil, right?
I say, let The BLOB smother all of us — We WILL be assimilated, resistance is futile! And we WILL LOVE it!
I read somewhere that census morons can go get information on you from your neighbors? I see at least two problems with this….. Scary if you ask me.
They can get my info just like anyone else knocking on my neighbor’s door and asking questions. My neighbor doesn’t have to answer, of course.
Is it true that the census morons can get info on you from your neighbors? I read that somewhere. Scary on at least two different levels….
Sorry the first one did not appear to go on
It’s called a proxy in the Census business. If the homeowner is away or refuses to answer his or her door one can ask a neighbor. And how is this scary? The Census is taken every ten years why is it in 2010 that there’s some malicious conspiracy behind gathering data? In fact, they’re gathering LESS data than years past. Vijay Boyapati sounded like a pompous ass throughout this entire article; especially when he mentioned the Japanese interment example of Census data being used wrongly. It’s not like the Census worker is intentionally lying to you trying to mask facts, I’ll bet you $5 she didn’t know.
It’s scary when agents of the state come around wanting info about you. At least if they get it from you, it will be accurate. Your neighbors may not know everything (race, etc.) or may just make things up because they are good citizens trying to satisfy the census taker. I guess that was one of his points -the census workers are just blindly gathering data without knowing what it may be used for.
Congratulations on your promotion to the “No Fly” list. Enjoy your stay!
To each his own I suppose. They’ll get a number of at least 1. Maybe it might be more productive to spend ones time getting this constitutional requirement changed other than arguing with a temporary gov’t employee.
Perhaps. Then again, I’d say it’s more productive to belch while watching TV than arguing with a temporary gov’t employee.
A most wonderful article Vijay. I love the quotations that you so thoroughly researched. The census folks have never found me nor the hundreds thousands of US citizens (I hate that identification) who live overseas, so I have never had the experience of a census whatsoever.
We expatriated individuals who happen to have to carry a US passport are taxed without any representation in Congress (not that that would make any difference). We get near zero services from our embassies overseas even though they amazingly overstaffed. The few times I had to step into the US Embassy here in Beijing with has over 60 Federal Departments represented and over 1,000 staff, I was charged outrageous amounts for notary services and for passport renewals. Now as I haven’t filed with the IRS in 14 years (I wouldn’t owe them anything if I did due to the foreign earned income exclusion), I guess I am getting what I have paid for – zero. I wouldn’t mind voting to support liberty minded politicians, however I do not even know what “State” I belong to as the last time I registered to vote, I did so as a Libertarian in order to support their listing on future ballots in Arizona 15 years ago. I must admit I actually enjoyed my maverick status until it came time to have to deal with the totally ridiculous Federal Department of Education for financial aid for my 2 children attending universities in the US. Not having a 1044 or W2 or whatever form didn’t make that easy at all.
haha. ” Federal Department of Education for financial aid for my 2 children attending universities in the US”
it’s like “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”
“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.”
If one monetarily supports the state, does it matter if he/she complies with the census? If anything shouldn’t said taxpayer be interested in improving the efficiency of how those taxes are spent? Non-compliance with income taxes seems like the most effective way to topple the colossal state.
Yes, but being freed in the figurative sense may not compensate for being jailed in the literal sense, unless you’re Irwin Schiff. It takes a lot of grains of sand leaving the pedestal for the Colossus to topple. To each grain his own brain.
After joining the Mises Institute a few years ago due to my fascination with Austrian Economics, I noticed the Mises Institute is becoming more vocal in what the government may perceive as ‘anti-American’ rhetoric. During the McCarthy era, the FBI honored such organizations and their members each with their own file. Do I have that dubious honor as a recipient of Mises newsletters, mailings and emailings?
Those who become extremists in trying to “take their stand” against big bad government (and I won’t name the Mises Institute because I’m yet undecided as to whether they fall under this rubric) could learn from the organizationally inept religious corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York and the stand against government taken by its members who are baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses. They will not vote and I seriously doubt they will answer the Census (although some things are deemed ‘conscience matters’ by the governing body). Every part of their lives involve taking stands against this wicked world, from refusal to enter the military to refusal to vote to refusal to salute the flag to refusal to accept blood transfusions. Study their history and you will see a regular church in the late 1800′s morph into a live controlling multi-billion dollar religious empire that rivals and Mormon and Catholic churches in scope and grandeur.
I guess my point is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and when you arrive at your destination, you’ve been conditioned along the way to where it doesn’t look much different from where you started.
It sounds like extremist is someone outside the bounds of what you are willing to accept as a legitimate point of view, or are you saying you can be extremist and have a legitimate point of view? It seems like if you were just saying “outside the mainstream” that LvMI is so far outside it that extremism wouldn’t even be in question.
I don’t mind the label personally, it spells out that the non-aggression principle is taken seriously and not watered down by utilitarian concerns like it is in many cases.
I gave the number in my household, as the Constitution allows the government to ask. I left the rest blank, and haven’t had any notices or visits so far.
I hope there’s a noticeable difference this year in the number of people that have refused complete cooperation with the census. This would really show me that the libertarian movement is alive and well in this country..
Of course I complied with the questionnaire from the Census. I want to do my part to ensure proper apportionment of REPRESENTATION since we live in a Republic. I mean, really, do you want to go uncounted and let places with far less intelligent politics receive more say in Congress (because they get an improperly high number of Representatives)?
I am offended at the alleged correlation to the “sanction of the victim” since the United States Constitution does not victimize us and it is the Constitution that requires an accurate population count to assure proportional representation of the people over whom it has jurisdiction. I’m not saying that we’re not victimized by many, many of the Acts of the federal government, but that’s not relevant to a Constitutional provision that is entirely legitimate.
What part of the Constitution is legitimate?
If you don’t find it legitimate, you’re free to move elsewhere (one of the many rights recognized by said document).
It just says count. It doesn’t say send people door to door, it doesn’t say threaten people with fines if they refuse to answer questions that have nothing to do with counting, it doesn’t say gather data on income, race, education, etc. It just says count. And as I pointed out above, it can be done easier, faster, cheaper, and better by just hiring a few statisticians instead of hiring a million people to harass us door to door.
It says “count” not “predict”. Statisticians can only give us a likely number, not an actual number. So, yes, door-to-door is necessary. I agree that the other data points are not “required” for a legitimate census as necessitated by proportional representation under the Constitution.
The argument was made by someone playing the devil’s advocate for the Census Bureau that if someone who refuses to comply with the simple survey just happened to live in a geographic region of high compliance, they would enjoy the economic “windfall” of Federal government funds (yes, taxpayer paid) flowing into their area.
Whereas in sharp contrast, someone who refuses to comply with the simple survey just happened to live in a geographic region of low compliance, they would reap the economic “whirlwind” of severely curtailed Federal government funds (yes, taxpayer paid) flowing into their area.
Finally, the economic region where the individual in the first paragraph above resides, could benefit even further because more funds (taken from the economic region where the individual in the second paragraph above resides) would flow into that region.
In short, for those unfamiliar with the reasons given by the Census Bureau for taking the census once every 10 years, the idea is to allocated Federal Treasury funds equitably to regions based on the data showing the number of people in households and their demographic make-up (how many children vs. adults and other suppositions).
Let’s say everyone in one geographic region refuses to take the census as an extreme example. Federal funds allocated to their region (which are their own tax dollars they were arguably forced to pay the IRS) will simply go to other regions of higher compliance.
Uncle Sam has nothing to lose. If you pay taxes to stay out of jail, why not reap the benefits of those taxes coming back to your geographic region where you reside?
End of devil’s advocate argument.
Any takers?
Sure E, I’ll bite.
“The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures. — Junius”
The above is also the motto of the Globe and Mail (Canada’s “National Paper”).
In other words if you are loyal to your nation, you will not do the stupid things your Government sometimes tells you to do — like kill people.
If Uncle Sam has nothing to lose, why does he threaten fines (and I assume imprisonment if you don’t pay) if you don’t respond to the census?
I operate under the principle that I am waging economic warfare against my government. If there is any (non violent) way I can get any of my money back that they have taken from me I will try it. I am able to do this because I am a productive member of society and therefore I am in fact getting some of my own money back. For unproductive persons, government money is taken from someone else and given to them.
I have noticed occasionally on this site someone suggesting we should avoid taking any government benefits. I would agree with them if the benefits were taken from other people forcefully and given to me. In my case the money was stolen from me.
When the government employee came to my door my reply was “the only question I will answer is how many people are in this house…the rest of those questions are unconstitutional and an invasion of my privacy.” It was obvious to the census taker (because of my tonality and how I answered his first question) that he was not dealing with an uninformed brainwashed gov’t owned slave (the vast majority of the population), so he thanked me and left it at that…. Another nice article on the census is here: http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/greenslade.htm
“”Now that we know the federal government was not granted the constitutional authority to make general inquires into our private affairs under the umbrella of the Census or a survey, I hope the American people will consider engaging in some civil disobedience and refuse to comply with these unconstitutional requests.”"
Very nice article Vijay….much appreciated.
Man acts. Judgement is unnecessary – any choice between complicity or protest is just made; in all senses of the word “just”.
I am puzzled as to why so many people with locks on their doors open their doors immediately when the doorbell rings.
Next time don’t open the door.
A knock of the door or ring of the doorbell is no cause to open the door.
Use the peephole and talk through the closed door to identify your visitor.
If your visitor is unwelcome, keep the door closed.
Yep. I figure that if it’s important, the person will verbally say so, leave a note, or call my phone. If he does none of the above, I figure it must not have been very important.
I had a lot of fun with the little census girl. I told her how many people lived here on April 1. She asked if we were both “white” and I answered that neither of use were. She showed me the list of races and I said “other”. That I considered myself Aryan, not white, and my blue eyed blond wife was 1/4 American Indian (which is true). When she explained how the census helps pay for the roads I asked her what is the gasoline tax money and tolls (Florida) used for? She told me the census helps educate our kids, but I asked her why I paid property taxes to the school board and how many folks in the Dept of Education worked as teachers. She had already heard the census was used to put the Japs into concentration camps. She didn’t like me to use the words “concentration camp”, but I asked her what she would call putting people behind barbed wire guarded by people with guns. Day camp? The last question was about family total income. I advised her to get that from the IRS.
I thought about patting her on her cute little behind as she was leaving, but that action today is called assault, even though she was trespassing on private property!
What the hell is “Aryan” supposed to mean? That’s not a “race”, that’s a religious designation from the Rig Veda: anyone who performs certain rites with the correct words, etc., was Aryan…and since those rites are not known today, dating as they do from a time long before written records, I can guarantee you don’t qualify.
It’s making fun of the silliness of the racial categories. The census form pretty much leaves out 99% of the possible race and/or nationality combinations.
Exactly, thanks J. Murray for exposing me! While government claims to attempt to stamp out racism, they themselves place the highest importance on race. This seems to trickle down to those supporters of a powerful central state and President Obama is an ideal example. Many of my left leaning friends voted for him simply because he was black, and one, “always vote democrat from the court house to the white house” friend, was honest enough to admit she voted against him for the same reason. Needling her I asked why she didn’t vote for the white half of him. As for me and most of my family, we voted as a block: for Ron Paul. In Florida, Nevada, and Arizona of course these votes are never counted, exposing the lie/myth that “every vote counts”. If voting really changed anything it would be outlawed!
Wanting to get my full racial representation, and rather than saying that I am of “pure” German/Czech/Polish/Swedish/Austrian decent, I claim, tongue-in-cheek, to be Aryan. Please see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_race and drop down the page to Nazism to read about Aryans being the “master race”. And no, I am not a Nazi sympathizer. Six million dead Jews don’t lie, as they attest to how well a centrally driven militaristic state starts to believe their own propaganda. Of course I am a member of the “master race”, not because I have blue (bloodshot) eyes and blond (balding) hair, but because I am good at math, machinery, can see through political nonsense, and understand Austrian economics. Is understanding Austrian economics genetic? No, it is a process of a lifetime of unlearning what was taught in public schools and watching how the real world operates. Everyone should become an Aryan no matter what tone their skin pigment is. But only if they wish to do so. I push nothing onto no one.
Big Pine Key, Florida
But of course we needed those jobs added into the gov’t stats so they can report “we are decreasing unemployment” and they are then being hired in permanent government jobs…same reason the unemployment benefits are getting extended and extended and extended; ad nausa…so most of those people will also not be counted in the unemployment stats. You can be sure the census data is not used by the gov’t to be out doing “the work of the Sister’s of Charity”, you can be very very sure! I predict more people might be more willing to take a serious look at making a personal stand of non-violent protest about not paying their Federal taxes that will now support both Federally funded health care abortions ($967 million a year and growing – a billion over the past seven years alone) and the powers that be will continue to use that Federal tax money to send more and more of our brave young military personnel to fight and die…..for what was it again, oh yeah, continue the poppy cultivation trade in Afganistan so then we can use more U.S. tax dollars to continue to fight our drug problem with all that herion coming into the U.S.? Let us watch as each grain trickles away…. slowly bringing that statue/blob ever closer and closer to falling over; hopefully over and out and with that happening…. perhaps a hope towards a brighter future for our Republic? Perhaps.
Oh, yes…almost forgot. If the citizens of the District of Columbia can now vote, they should have a really nice slice of new legislative power by now; we can be sure they all complied with the census.
Historically, has the market ever created a society that functions well without government intervention?
Of course…circumspice.
(But has the non-market ever created a society that functions well with government intervention?)
Betsy – Historically and theoretically it is society which creates markets, not the other way around. It is not possible to have a market without a pre-existing society.
Historically and theoretically government cannot exist without a society that already has well-functioning markets to support it.
Society and markets are mutually beneficial.
Government is parasitic.
i work odd hours and sleep from 12 noon till 8 pm at night. twice they work me up with the door bell. the first time the guy tells me”if yoou wouldve filled out the form and sent it back i wouldnt be here”. so i told him to forget me filling out anything as he woke me up. then he tells me “oh thisll only take 20 minutes” . i told him he is tripping if he thinks im ansawering anything as the government already has enough information on me already. ” ill make sure to put that down in my report”. after that i wanted to literally throw him bodilly down the front steps. the second time the same obnoxious male showed up with some chic who was begging me to ansawer questions. “are you aware that youve woken me up twice and that i work nights?” apparently that went right over there heads. finally i threatend to call the police nd sic my dog on them if they didnt leave my property. soooo i closed both the driveway gate and the one to the front walk and PADLOCKED them both. now if they want to wake me again they have to literally jump the fence and itll break because its PVC plastic. then i will have them arrested on a destruction of private property charge.
This is trivial nonsense.
The actual, Constitutionally valid enumeration is such a ridiculously minor form of coercion that it should be pretty much last on our list of issues to even consider.
Pushing things like this steals momentum, attention, and credibility away from REAL issues.
Who does it steal momentum from Kaz? Did this slow you down today?
Indeed, I posted about this, when I could have posted about something else. Some talk show host raves on about this, instead of some bigger issue. Resources are finite, so what we spend our time on matters.
Not at all; it’s important to push the small stuff, because people can get on board without opening themselves up to major hardship. Taxation is more important than the census, but if you refuse to pay taxes you’re in for a world of hurt, so most people won’t do that. Refusing to answer the census is much easier.
It’s a pity one doesn’t want to co-operate with fellow researchers. Where else one can find a reliable, broad, often updated and free statistics for an academic research than a government-run office of statistics.
The Census Bureau does charge fees for some of the more useful statistical reports. So, we taxpayers pay to collect the data, then we have to pay again to get to see the results. Nice.
The census’ only constitutional purpose is to determine the number of people residing in each state so as to apportion proper representation for them in Congress. This number of people ought to apply only to citizens — not illegal aliens — who are at the age of majority, i.e., are of voting age. After all, who are these representatives being sent to Congress but proxies for the voters themselves? The census currently does not distinguish between citizen and non citizen, which is odd, because non citizens have no right to vote in American elections. Why should aliens be counted for the census at all? They should not be!
As for my own report on my household for the census, I chose to write “zero” on the form for total number of occupants. Nowhere on the form was there a requirement to affirm or swear that the information I was providing was accurate and complete. Nor was there any statement of potential penalties for providing false declarations. Neither was I required to sign the form with my signature. Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, the census form carries no weight of authority.
As I understand it, my state stands to lose one representative, while other states stand to gain one or more representatives. Since my state is a “blue” state, filled with liberals, I don’t mind at all if the state loses a representative, because that simply means one less liberal in Washington, D.C. And, Texas is one of the states likely to gain one or more representatives. Given the fact that Texas is much more mindful of liberty than my own state, then I’d gladly send the surplus representative to that bastion of freedom, where she will likely do more good for me, even though I am not a Texan.
I have no problem with being counted as the Constitution lays out. My main problem lies in the fact that the government insists on asking all sorts of questions which it has no need to know such as ages, race, etc. The purpose of the counting is, as laid out in the constitution, to determine the representation in the congress for each area. Instead, it’s been twisted into a blatant statist tool for wealth redistribution. I explained to the two people who’ve been by so far to ask me that I refuse on the grounds that the current way the census is conducted is unconstitutional and as soon as the census follows constitutional guidelines, I’d be happy to participate.
Although I allowed myself and my family to be counted this year I was surprised at some of the questions asked on the census. Like Jeremy above I don’t see any reason to ask for ages & names. Race I don’t mind because I think the government should try to keep tabs on immigration albeit this isn’t exactly the best way to do it.
I do mind questions about race, because the US government should be color-blind. If race doesn’t matter, then they shouldn’t need to know what race I am. Also, they use that information, to a great extent, to gerrymander voting districts so that some districts are predominantly black or Hispanic, and hence will tend to go Democratic.
I have only 8 fingers and 2 thumbs and I’m wearing shoes so I can count only 10 things I learned from your most interesting commentary. Seriously, no really! I enjoyed it.
(educated by Los Angeles Unified School District 1956-1969)
Great article about the Census Bureau! Thanks you.
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