Ours was a road-tripping family, albeit one that prized depth above pure distance covered. On one of our backwoods journeys, my youngest sister (at the time still answering to "Lizard Breath") noticed a sign for whatever podunk town we were passing through which listed the town's population (in the hundreds, if memory serves). Lizard asked, innocently enough, how they knew how many people lived in a town. I explained that, every 10 years, our government sent people to every house in the country to count people, and also to find out other demographic info.
To which she said, "Yeah, right." Yes, the child who managed to convince her best friend's parents that our dad was related to the Beach Boys found the prospect of the U.S. Census to be just a little too far-fetched. It took the surveyers coming around in the flesh in 2000 to finally convince her.
In her defense, she was in elementary school at the time. I don't at all blame a small child for being skeptical of the census. But when nationally televised columnists and actual U.S. Congresspeople get in on the act, I have to shake my head. WTF?
So, apparently there are a fair number of right-wingers who are convinced that the 2010 census (now hiring!) is an Obama/socialist/new world order plot to take their guns... or something. Look, there have been serious problems with the accuracy of the census in the past, and - as with any government agency - there's potential for politics to interject. But it's kinda required by the Constitution. If Michelle Bachman has ideas about how to improve the census, she's in a position to do that with legislation - not by ranting on TV.
Haven't the wingnuts thought this through? Don't they know that the census is the primary tool for assigning Congressional districts (the House of Representatives is and always has been based on population) and all-important Electoral College votes? So, NOT filling out your census form (aside from being against the law and a healthy 210-odd years of legal precedent) is pretty damned counter-productive.
Think it through: you, a hard-core small-government anti-Obama conservative trash your form. The worst-case scenario has you firing your assault rifle at the census-taker and inciting the next Ruby Ridge. Best case: congratulations, now the government doesn't know you exist. Your Congressman and Electoral vote now go to, say, my Obama-lovin' district down here in N.C. where me and the other Young Dems have made damn sure that everybody is counted. Don't you feel better already?
Sweet merciful Jesus, what's happened to the Republican party in this country??? I, a flaming liberal, am downright begging you to stand up and contribute some ideas to fix our country, and please please pretty please take your party back from these idiots that would have you go the way of the Whigs. You deserve better than leaders who are only going to scream at you about flash-in-the-pan "issue of the week" BS that does NOTHING to advance your philosophy.
If our positions were reversed - if I were a GOPer watching the Dems fan the crazy - I'd probably be encouraging it, or at the least sitting back, watching and smirking. But this is bad for our country, people. We've got two wars to manage, a climate change bill that just cleared the House, president-mandated health care reform and a continually shaky economy. Going all apesh*t conspiracy theory on one of the oldest traditions in our country (one that arguably does more than any other to promote our direct representation) is just stupid. The census-bashers need to grow the hell up.
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