I finally get “census’d”.… sort of.

I got “census’d” today. What fun! No, I did not par­tic­i­pate. I talked to the cen­sus taker for about 45 min­utes. She was pleas­ant and pro­fes­sional. I did not answer her ques­tions except for telling her, for pur­poses of a Con­sti­tu­tional cen­sus, the num­ber of peo­ple is “two”. I declined my name, phone num­ber, race (duh), whether I was mar­ried (or who the sec­ond per­son was), or any other infor­ma­tion. I don’t know what she thought, but i guar­an­tee that after my 45 minute solil­o­quy, she “thought”.

There had been about 3 attempts by the cen­sus by vis­it­ing my home. They left a notice with a name and num­ber to con­tact them regard­ing sub­mit­ting their form, but as I explained to the cen­sus taker, I saw no rea­son or oblig­a­tion to reach out to them. I fig­ured that if they showed up when I was home it would happen.

So, today, as I worked in my yard the cen­sus taker approached me by walk­ing up the dri­ve­way to where I was work­ing. Her name is Karen Paster­ski. She showed the req­ui­site ID and pre­sented her­self well. She was polite and pleas­ant. She was no dif­fer­ent than many peo­ple I come across in my daily con­ver­sa­tions. Most believe what they have been taught in school, told by their par­ents, read and see in the media, and informed of by the gov­ern­ment. I did not seek to change here way of think­ing to match mine, but rather to chal­lenge her own way of thinking.

She asked me the basic ques­tions like, what is your name, age, phone num­ber, race…. I declined to answer any ques­tions. I told her that the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for a cen­sus to be taken every 10 years for the pur­poses of set­ting the num­ber of rep­re­sen­ta­tives. For such pur­poses, I told her the num­ber is two. She then told me that she needed at least 3 answers to con­sider the form “com­plete”. I replied that any other infor­ma­tion is out­side the author­ity extended to the gov­ern­ment by the Con­sti­tu­tion. She agreed, but then said that “…today, the infor­ma­tion is also used for fund­ing…” I asked her to quote the Con­sti­tu­tional pro­vi­sion that extended the pur­pose of a cen­sus to cover “fund­ing”. She admit­ted that the cen­sus is used for such pur­poses, but could not cite any con­sti­tu­tional provision.

She went on to say that Collinsville relies upon the cen­sus for fed­eral dol­lars to which I replied I would rather it not receive fed­eral dol­lars. She said that Collinsville may choose to pay for a spe­cial cen­sus, to which I replied it would be one more cen­sus to not par­tic­i­pate with since I did not par­tic­i­pate in the last spe­cial cen­sus which resulted in Collinsville receiv­ing home rule status.

I went on to com­ment on how gov­ern­ment has failed and has shown to be more of a threat to lib­erty than a pro­tec­tor of it. I com­mented on how the peo­ple, and only those wish­ing to form such, were the mas­ters of gov­ern­ment but the tables have turned and the peo­ple are now sub­servient to gov­ern­ment. I told her that I, in good con­science, can­not coop­er­ate in sup­port­ing gov­ern­ment in any way. I told her that I had renounced my cit­i­zen­ship, had no SSN, received no priv­i­leges or ben­e­fits, and pos­sess no civil rights. She seemed very curi­ous and allowed me to explain my statements.

She agreed on many points, but thought it more effec­tive to remain “below the radar” than to stand up to the sys­tem. I dis­agreed, say­ing that I believed myself to pos­sess cer­tain tal­ents and abil­i­ties which empow­ered me to stand defi­ant against the system.

Even though I dis­agreed and refused to coop­er­ate with the cen­sus, I under­stood her posi­tion and hoped she ther­fore under­stood mine. I told her that if she needed a min­i­mum of 3 answers she was wel­come to to com­plete her form as she saw fit, using, if need-be, pre­sump­tion drawn from her own infer­ences pur­suant to our dis­cus­sion. I told her I cared not what she put on “her” form, but I would not assist in pro­vid­ing spe­cific details. What she put on the form… I have no idea.

In 45 min­utes I told her about my run for polit­i­cal office, being detained by Home­land Secu­rity, my web­site, the dif­fer­ence between being an Amer­i­can and U.S. cit­i­zen, and my renounc­ing U.S. cit­i­zen­ship. Should I have not said any­thing? Why not take the oppor­tu­nity? Every mind is a poten­tial ally. Maybe expo­sure to the truth will give them pause and cause them to think about things. I told her, “I have noth­ing to hide, but I have every­thing to hide.” It is not what I have to hide, per se, but what I choose to dis­close. She was just a pleas­ant woman doing what she thought was legit­i­mate and law­ful. I saw no need for con­fronta­tion, antag­o­nism, or dis­re­spect. I treat every one with the ben­e­fit of the doubt that they are pos­si­bly as igno­rant as I once was.

I have read so many emails and posts about peo­ple in the “patriot” move­ment hav­ing an expe­ri­ence with the cen­sus taker. Many of them range from encoun­ters which are con­fronta­tional, antag­o­nis­tic, and abu­sive.  Peo­ple are the ones who pos­sess the nat­ural, sov­er­eign, and absolute power and yet we allow our­selves to act from a posi­tion of fear­ful and igno­rant oafs when we encounter a gov­ern­ment actor. I refuse to paint with a broad brush and dis­count such peo­ple as lost souls. I too, at one point, used to pledge alle­giance and proudly wield my SSN.

After it was all said and done, we shook hands and she left. What she does from there is of no con­se­quence to me.  I would give the same speech to any­one who came wield­ing “author­ity”. I don’t expect any neg­a­tive con­se­quences from our meet­ing. I hope she stops and reflects on what we dis­cussed. All we can do is sow seeds.