So just what am I in for?

[r3126]

Let them try to prosecute someone for failing to fill out all of the extra questions and you will see the constitutionality of this law challenged.

I am reading all of this and I'm not sure I understand what all of the discussion of constitutionality of the census amounts to. I wouldn't argue that the Constitution does not define much of what and what not should be polled. However, that being said, BloodyEclipse's cite of the US Code, that is, Title 13, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Section 141, Paragraph a:

(a) The Secretary shall, in the year 1980 and every 10 years thereafter, take a decennial census of population as of the first day of April of such year, which date shall be known as the “decennial census date”, in such form and content as he may determine, including the use of sampling procedures and special surveys. In connection with any such census, the Secretary is authorized to obtain such other census information as necessary.

makes it rather clear to me that the legal requirement to answer the questions contained in the census is included in US Public Law.

It would seem that if one wishes to be the bellweather case before the SCOTUS, one has that privilege and can exercise civil disobedience. However, until and unless that portion of the law is determined to be unconstitutional, the law requires you to respond.

I don't like it any better than anybody else.

 

[ocsdor]

Food for thought: This country wasn't founded by men who obeyed the law and the war wasn't won in the courthouse.

 

[CarmelHP]

Food for thought: This country wasn't founded by men who obeyed the law and the war wasn't won in the courthouse.

So, therefore, we should ignore the Courts and institutions they established? In order to somehow honor them?

The first enumeration began on Monday, August 2,1790, little more than a year after the inauguration of President Washington and shortly before the second session of the first Congress ended. The Congress assigned responsibility for the 1790 census to the marshals of the U.S. judicial districts under an act that, with minor modifications and extensions, governed census-taking through1840. The law required that every household be visited and that completed census schedules be posted in ‘‘two of the most public places within [each jurisdiction], there to remain for the inspection of all concerned...’’ and that‘ ‘the aggregate amount of each description of persons’’ for every district be transmitted to the President. The six inquiries in 1790 called for the name of the head of the family and the number of persons in each household of the following descriptions: Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s industrial and military potential), free White males under 16 years, free White females, all other free persons (by sex and color), and slaves.

They asked more questions than just those required for enumeration in the very first decennial census after ratification of the Constitution.

 

[dross]

I don't like that they are asking questions that are none of their business, and I think there is an argument to be made that they are abusing the 9th Amendment with those questions, but it's far from cut and dried.

I think it might be possible to win if you took it to the Supreme Court, but the best you could hope for would be for Justice Kennedy to provide the fifth vote, and judging from some of his decisions, I think it would be a faint hope.

It always concerns me that some people think that they have some sort of direct line to the absolute and correct interpretation of the Constitution's meaning. Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but reasonable people - even freedom-loving reasonable people with more than a passing knowledge of constitutional law - can disagree.

 

[ocsdor]

Everyone must draw their line in the sand.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So71C74E4CY]YouTube - Michael Badnarik "How bad Do Things Have to Get Before YOU Do Something?"[/ame]

 

[henktermaat]

Is now the time for civil disobedience? Some would think so.

They might pass this health care bill without voting. We are simply not being represented.

 

[tedbower]

Unless they send it to my house certified mail and obtained a signiture I never received it.

 

[CarmelHP]

I hate listening to people whose opening premise is so clearly wrong and ill-informed. It sets a tone for everything afterward to be just as wrong and ill-informed. Hitler did not receive "98% of the vote in Austria-Hungary." Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. And it wasn't peaceful, it was in response to Nazi fomented violence, street rioting and the Reichstag fire. The Nazis vote high water mark was about 33% in national elections, which gave them a plurality from which they seized control totally. Austria-Hungary ceased to exist in 1918 so they didn't vote on anything. If you're using historical examples as a springboard, at least know what you're talking about. By the way, Kristallnacht was a Wednesday, not a Saturday, November 9, 1938. Sloppy facts, sloppy thinking.

 

[Blue Tile Spook]

Well...when the spousal unit handed me the mail, he said, "Deal with this how you see fit."

Isn't this grounds for having his "man card" suspended or revoked?

 

[JetGirl]

Isn't this grounds for having his "man card" suspended or revoked?

Sure...but YOU get to tell him that!

 

[WabashMX5]

They asked more questions than just those required for enumeration in the very first decennial census after ratification of the Constitution.

Thanks -- you beat me to it. The guys who drafted the Constitution apparently didn't object when, three years after ratification, the 1790 Census asked for breakdowns by gender and over/under age 16, as well as separately counting free whites vs. free non-whites, when only slave/free would've mattered under the 3/5ths compromise.

It's completely legitimate to object to government tallying of race on public-policy grounds -- but if there's a constitutional objection, it's not in Art. I, Sec. 2. (Equal Protection, maybe, since tallying race is an engraved invitation to violate Equal Protection by discriminating on the basis of the racial data collected....)