Posts Tagged ‘census’

Silence Is Golden …and American

Friday, 19 June 2009
Minn. lawmaker vows not to complete Census by Stephen Dinan in the Washington Times

I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home, she said. We won't be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that.

Shelly Lowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau, said Mrs. Bachmann is misreading the law.

She sent a portion of the U.S. legal code that says anyone over 18 years of age who refuses to answer "any of the questions" on the census can be fined up to $5,000.

Ms Bachmann is reading the relevant law just fine, and Ms Lowe is engaged in treason.

The United States Constitution is the supreme legislation; no part of it can be annulled by an ordinary act of Congress. The Constitution provides for a census, but the Fifth Amendment protects us from having to offer more information than the identities of those in our households.

In the last two Censuses, all that I have provided was that information. In the first of these, I received a telephone call from the Bureau of the Census about my failure to provide more information, and I stated my refusal firmly. They dropped the matter, because they know that the legal code will not pass constitutional muster; it is a bluff.