This topic has been on my mind since we received 2 of these ominous 14 page surveys.

A WND article yesterday lays out a sampling of it’s ludicrous questions and the extent of the intrusion into our personal lives that the federal government is trying to pull off:

The federal government is forcing 3 million Americans to disclose sensitive, personal information about finances, health and lifestyle in a 14-page survey – including questions about availability of household flush toilets and difficulty with undressing and bathing.

The 2009 American Community Survey, an annual supplement to the decennial Census, asks about residents’ personal relationships and whether a home has hot and cold running water, a flush toilet, bathing facilities, appliances and phone services. It also asks how many rooms are in a home and what vehicles are used at each household.

The article also brings to light a very important mis-representation as to the legal aspect it:

While many recipients may consider the questionnaire to be tedious and meddling, the Census Bureau warns that citizens are required by law to complete it and may be fined as much as $5,000 for willfully refusing. While an individual may feel uneasy about answering each question truthfully, the fine for filing false information can be as much as $500.

(snip)

While the U.S. Constitution allows Americans to be counted for purposes of taxation and political representation, Jim Harper, a privacy expert at the Cato Institute, told the New York Post the survey is “a classic example of mission creep over the decades – this constitutional need to literally count how many noses are in the United States has turned into a vast data-collection operation.”

Rep. Ron Paul blasted the government for spending “hundreds of millions of dollars” on the survey and called the questionnaire “insulting” in his Texas Straight Talk column.

“The questions are both ludicrous and insulting,” he wrote. “The survey asks, for instance, how many bathrooms you have in your house, how many miles you drive to work, how many days you were sick last year, and whether you have trouble getting up stairs. It goes on and on, mixing inane questions with highly detailed inquiries about your financial affairs. One can only imagine the countless malevolent ways our federal bureaucrats could use this information. At the very least the survey will be used to dole out pork, which is reason enough to oppose it.”

read the article in it’s entirety here

OK, so tell me, how can they impose fines on only a certain portion of the population that is chosen at random? How did we get to be chosen as 1 of only 3 million of the over 300 million residents of this country?

I am not a legal scholar nor even spent a day in college, but my knowledge of the Constitution and my Common Sense smelled a rat and thus the threat of being fined or arrested for not filling this form out did not send me into a tizzy to get right on it and send the federal government mine and my families personal information. Quite the contrary.

What I did was sit to start filling it out with much sarcasm:

ancestry/origin: Natural born US citizen

when did you move into your home: after the furniture was in place and the utilities turned on

how many separate rooms in the domicile: enough to be comfortable

appliances: yes we have the ones that we need at this time, no they do not all work all the time

autos: depends on if you are asking about ones we own or ones the neighbors own

home heating fuel: we’re working to recycle the livestock gas to save the neighboring farmers from being unduly taxed, we’ll let you know how that all works out

food stamps: no thank you, we either cut back or get an extra job

taxes: yes, they come due annually

and my fav was…any physical, mental or emotional condition: only when government intrudes where it has no business being, lying, threatening us that we will be fined or prosecuted for not answering this illegal survey

 While I was filling out the form, the phone happened to ring and I am sure they wished they had skipped our number as it was a representative/acorn red-shirt calling to again assist me in filling out the form. I say again, as they had already called to inform me that it would be coming and I had told them we had already received a survey, I just hadn’t sat down to fill it out.

But this time when the call came, having opened the survey and seeing it for what it was, and being dressed in full sarcasm, I decided to bait the red-shirt caller and conceded to let them ask me a few questions. What I did not do was give them the answer they wanted. Instead I asked them what these questions had to do with a constitutional head count of the population for election purposes and what article or clause in the constitution required me to answer them?

After repeated rounds, them asking and me asking back, they never did answer my question, instead the caller abruptly hung up with no good-bye or even a thank you for taking their call. HOW RUDE!! But on the upside, it has been 3 weeks since that call and they have not made any attempts to re-contact us and we haven’t been arrested or served with a federal citation for refusing to divulge personal information that is none of their business.

So, now you know my story of the census survey. If you have gotten one of these surveys and have not fallen into the illegal trap of our corrupt government and already sent it in…DO NOT…It is NOT illegal to refuse to fill it out!!!