Census 2010: The Right's Super-Secret Plan to End All Plans

Pssst. Hey, conservatives ... I want to let you in on a devious little plan being hatched by your leaders in the media.

It goes something like this: President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the federal government are evil. They already have too much power and want to take even more control over your life. They're out to take away your guns, liberty, freedom, paycheck, and perhaps your mother's apple pie! Worse yet, now they want to count you. Have they no shame?

That's right. In Obama's unyielding quest to impose a socialist-fascist-communist-Marxist police state, the president is going to send his minions from ACORN to your door to count you for the decennial census.

And their solution to the president's pompous power grab? Sitting out the census.

Seriously.

Over the past few months, an increasing number of conservative media figures and news outlets have encouraged their audiences not to complete the 2010 U.S. census or expressed support for those who've decided to skip the count. Some have even stated that they wouldn't complete it, either -- even though the law requires respondents to complete it.

They often cite the participation of the community organization ACORN -- the right's bogeyman du jour -- in the recruitment of workers who will collect data as a reason to be wary, even frightened of the census.

Never one to skip an opportunity to put his special brand of crazy on full display, Fox News' Glenn Beck recently said of the census, "[T]here's a lot of people that are concerned with it because they don't want to fill it out. They're not comfortable with ACORN members coming to find out all this information." One can't be sure where Beck got such precise numbers -- "a lot of people" -- but it's a safe bet the U.S. Census Bureau won't be following his methodology. Later in the segment, Beck confessed that he's "considered not filling it out."

Over on Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose, a caller stated that he, too, wouldn't fill out the census because of ACORN's involvement, prompting co-host Rose Tennent to Beck-ingly say, "ACORN being recruited by Obama for a mission -- that is so frightening," adding that "it scares me to think that these thugs are getting this information from us."

Then there's syndicated radio host and convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy -- a man who has acknowledged plotting, but not following through on, a few murders, kidnappings, and a bombing. He praised Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota for her refusal to complete the census, saying that "she's worried about the involvement of ACORN ... in next year's census. ... I hope that she refuses, and I hope that they charge her, and then I hope she takes ... that thing right up to the Supreme Court of the United States and gets this question resolved." You see, Liddy is no fan of government "intrusion." During the 1990s, he reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents.

All this ACORN paranoia from the right is pretty nutty, but it is hardly its only problem with the census.

On his radio show, Neal Boortz told a caller, "I received a census form the other day asking me a whole bunch of questions about my small business. I threw it in the trash. I'm not going to answer it. None of their damn business." He added that "the federal government and the state government, they have a legitimate reason for knowing how many people live where. ... [M]ost of the rest of the information is designed to help the government steal from you in order to pass off your property to the moochers. They're looters."

A sentiment apparently shared by former Bush administration speechwriter Meghan Clyne. She recently wrote that the census questions "forc[e] Americans to disclose sensitive information about their finances, health and lifestyles." While Clyne did let readers know that answering the census is mandatory, she went on to write, "The good news is that I called the help number on my form and a Census representative finally conceded that the government was unlikely to pursue punishment if I didn't respond, saying it would be 'a waste of time and money.' " Apparently, Clyne doesn't mind if folks break the law, so long as the law isn't likely to be enforced.

I suppose this would a good time to let conservatives know why their war against the census is both politically naive and tremendously foolish.

Those detailed questions that seem to be causing conservatives such heartburn? They help determine where federal money is best spent. The U.S. Census Bureau notes, for example, that "long-term care providers and community planners use information about disability to help them decide where to locate services and facilities." It would be a shame if conservatives actually listened to the right-wing chattering class, skipped the census, and missed out on badly needed public service projects.

Of a more pressing concern to political junkies: The census helps determine population shifts throughout the country that inform the redistricting of congressional seats and truly impacts the balance of power in Washington. So, if conservatives aren't counted, they could lose seats in Congress -- something a high school government student would likely know.

If the right wants a path back to power, it might first consider putting an end to this fool's errand, lest it cut off its nose to spite its face.

Karl Frisch is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Follow Karl Frisch on Twitter: www.twitter.com/KarlFrisch

Comments

[propitiousmoment]

Now why did you have to go and TELL them?!!

[MacGregor57]

It's a little known fact that repubs. that blog on this site are automatically traced by a special ouija board server that sends the info. to the NSA who in turn send out agents disguised as Acorn reps. that acost residents at their front doors, do a Spock mind meld and get all the info they want. When it's over they use their MEN in BLACK mind erasers so that they remember nothing and they are led to believe they are democrats AND Maria from West Side Story. Do not, do not, let M. Bachmann get wind of this.

[Lahonda]

...biadolical!!!

[MacGregor57]

naive and tremendously foolish. That about wraps it up, eh?

[Peabodies]

Census forms are also anonymous. The ACORN canard is a good one, though. I think we should push it to the max so that the gops uncount themselves into oblivion.

Kidding, of course.

I want everyone counted just as much as I want everyone to have Medicare for all, single payer.

[rf dude]

Census, schmensus!

Don't like filling out government forms that ask for personal information?

Let'em blow off filling their TAX forms - see where that lands'em!
--

[Lahonda]

Would the mean that all the repugs who didn't fill out the census would turn into dark matter, thereby accelerating the expansion of the universe to the point that it tears itself apart?

What a great plan!

[SiberianRat]

One of the many absurd hypocritical aspects of the Right is that Jesus was a socialist!

[SiberianRat]

Glenn Beck frequently advocates breaking the law--why on earth is this guy still on the air??

[RobinSeattle]

Pretty soon, the GOP will be running against the intergallactic Masonic conspiracy from Antares and ask Obama to prove that he's an earthling. .

[SeanGardner]

I Karl. I love you and the staff at Media Matters. Once again, you hit it out of the park. But as great as your post is, it still lacks one other element: the uncomfortability of many whites (like Limbaugh, Buchanan & Beck) about what the U.S. Census is going to reveal: that the Latino population is much bigger than anyone thought, and that African-Americans and Asian-Americans have have numbers higher than previously reported.

Yes, the Census will confirm this.

The Census will also confirm that the percentage of whites in this country comes in less than 60%. This fact will scare the hell of many whites (mostly on the right, and even some on the left) because it means the day when whites will be outnumbered in this country is fastly approaching.

So yes, you're right: "The census helps determine population shifts throughout the country that inform the redistricting of congressional seats and truly impacts the balance of power in Washington." But guess what? A whole lot of the seats won through redistricting will go to non-whites.

So your analysis is powerful and true. But you can't leave out the racial and ethnic component that is also at the heart of the hysteria about the Census. Yes, Republicans are certainly scared because the very thing they mocked Obama about ("his community organizing skills") is the very thing that will ensure the most accurate count in the history of the Census.

[lazercat2008]

The Conservative Party, NO taxes, No Census, No Healthcare, No country. I guess it's every man for himself.

[urweatherman]

The Liberal Party.....­Unemployme­nt 8%, 10%, 20%, 50%.......No employment, no country....it will be every man for himself then! Mainly because they will have no one left to pay more taxes!

[Dana Legg]

Well, after 30 years, your way has failed. Don't you think we should try a better way?

[ondamony]

http://clinton4.nara.gov/WH/New/html/20000112_1.html

Thats what your boy George inherited. We all know what he left Obama.
Quit living in fantasyland.

[Peabodies]

urweatherman -- you have the NERVE to bring up unemployment, right now, and blame it on the "Liberal party"? After all the outsourcing of good jobs that the "UnLiberal Party" has caused since Raygun came along???????? That has DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS!
Shame, shame, shame!

[JBS]

... and devil take the hindmost.

[JRsNana]

I think it sounds great that they don't want to fill it out. Red states like Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. will then receive LESS funding and give more to the rest of the country and they will have no one to blame but themselves. Oh, and they could lose some representation in the House. Oh well. As long as it's their decision. Who cares if it's Constitutionally mandated? The President is black so we're not doing it. It's really a perfect solution. And Michelle Bachman has Minnesotans all lined up to not fill it out. This is really a windfall for the rest of us.

[atoonce]

I only hope that M Bachman and Glenn Beck tell their followers to refuse to pay their taxes and refuse to vote. That will show 'em!

[lazercat2008]

No conservative counted in the census, I guess all the funding will go to the Poor, minority, gay, whale loving, pro-choice, organic farming, nature lovers.

[urweatherman]

What funding? There wont be any money to give anybody? How stupid was that comment of yours?

[Dana Legg]

Pot? Meet Kettle.

[RedPower09]

I consider myself a pretty hardcore conservative but this is just stupid. I can understand not liking or supporting ACORN (since it's allegedly corrupt and all) but skipping out on the census? Political parties are stupid. All of them.