Comments on: Michele Bachmann: Unpatriotic Lawbreaker

By: thom

thom — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:34:59 +0000

I’ll be very happy to see the middle class privileged white lady not counted.

By: Ray Ingles

Ray Ingles — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:31:22 +0000

A whole lot of people objected to the long form last time, so it was decoupled from the Census, and now is called the “American Community Survey”. This appears to be what she’s objecting to.

Sometimes even crazy people get things right once in a while. I didn’t fill out most of the ACS either. After a case of minor identity theft, I’m very careful about who gets that kind of information about me, and nobody seems to take proper care of information security these days. (Not to mention the historical abuses Jim Lippard points out.)

I’ve been unable to find a single case of someone actually being fined for not filling it out – people have been fined for not participating in the basic census, but so far as I can tell, not the ACS. It seems like the Census Bureau isn’t anxious to put their authority to do the ACS to a judicial test.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:17:21 +0000

I feel for you Minnesotans, I know how it feels. We in Iowa have our own cross to bear in Steve King.

By: GrayGaffer

GrayGaffer — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:11:36 +0000

Is she being callously consistent or is this a sign that she really does believe her schtich?

By: Jim Lippard

Jim Lippard — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:18:48 +0000

I think she has a point on this one, given the arguable unconstitutionality of the census long form, which asks questions about income, number of rooms and bedrooms in your house, value of home, amount of rent paid, whether you have telephone service, what vehicles you own, how long you’ve been in the country, your immigration status, employment status, languages spoken, etc.

Although the safeguards of confidentiality of census data were officially restored in 1947, it didn’t take much to take them away in 1940, and the census data was used to aid identifying people to be sent to Japanese internment camps. This was confirmed in 2007 after decades of denials from the Census Bureau: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=confirmed-the-us-census-b

The Constitution gives enumeration for determining apportionment of representatives as the sole justification for a census.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:15:13 +0000

Oh, no, Ouchimoo, she’s all for censors. Very supportive.

By: Ouchimoo

Ouchimoo — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:04:22 +0000

But I thought it was Ebil Liburls who ate puppies. They eat kittens and babbys too. That’s obviously why she’s American, and censuses are clearly un-American, because she never learned the difference between census and censor.

By: Jason Thibeault

Jason Thibeault — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 18:00:09 +0000

CyberLizard: apparently it’s in your constitution, and someone saw fit to write a law providing a monetary incentive to following it. Now, if only someone could make a fine per waterboarding…

itzac and rob: perhaps we should hold hearings to find out which puppies demonstrate anti-American tendencies. Then eat the ones that turn out to hate America.

By: rob

rob — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:46:18 +0000

nah, she hates kittens.

she likes puppies. they taste like chicken.

By: NewEnglandBob

NewEnglandBob — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:29:29 +0000

Bachmann spreads her hae and ignorance as wide as she can. This is not surprising.