Ever heard of it? Neither did I until a few weeks ago when I got an email from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Census Bureau. The email advised me that I had been selected to take The American Community Survey, told me that federal law REQUIRES me to take the survey, and provided a link to fulfill this obligation. I hit delete.
A couple of weeks later, I received a thick, heavy envelope through snail mail from the Census Bureau sent to “Resident” with my home address. Yep, it was a paper copy of the survey, a mind-numbing series of questions directed at every resident of my address. A pamphlet with the survey told me, and I quote, it was “used to decide where to locate new highways, schools, hospitals, and community centers” in addition to “show a large corporation that a town has the workforce the company needs” and “many other ways.”
WTF? Don’t local residents and their elected officials make decisions about highways, schools, hospitals and community centers? YES!!!! Don’t corporations, large or otherwise, use due diligence to decide in which community to operate? YES!!!! Oh, the pamphlet reminded me that “Your response to this survey is required by law (Title 13, U.S. code, Sections 141, 193, and 221). Title 13 as amended by Title 18 imposes a penalty for not responding.” Ooooo. Sounds serious, doesn’t it?
Let’s cut to the chase and get to Question #47 of this survey. It asks you to identify every single, solitary source of your income. All of it. Wages. Salaries. Tips. Dividends. Interest. Trusts. Rental. Royalties. Pensions. Social Security. Alimony. Food Stamps. Disability. Workmen’s Compensation. Child Support. And on and on. The survey essentially asks for all of the information you have to report only to the IRS. And you are required to not only identify yourself, but every other person at your address and answer the same questions for them.
Uh, no. Not gonna happen. Ever. My response was to clip off the identifying address on the paper survey and send it back in the postage-paid envelope to the Census Bureau totally blank. Your response may be to just shit can the survey. Whatever. The best response to this survey is ……. silence.
Bureaucrats gone wild, just trying to preserve their paper shuffling propensities. It’s time to start pushing back!
Push back IS what is beginning. Starting with tough, freedom minded people like SSS and other types on here, but soon to be emulated by many, many others.
It’s a very simple process and once it gets rolling, all bets are going to be off. It is resistance in a decentralized, low profile and ongoing manner that is the result of the pendulum swinging back. It can include economic push back (changing an account from Chase to your credit union or buying from local rather than big box chains) to refusing to fly as much as possible to the kinds of resistance SSS wrote about.
The beauty of this approach is, the more you do it, the more others will do it. And the more others do it, the LESS likely anything anything happens to ANYONE. It is a truism they can only pick off the odd person when numbers are small. When millions tell them FUCK THE HELL OFF they are going to be powerless. And as they are shown to to be so, more will join in the festivities.
I am tired of my small city blowing money on developer connected projects while streets are potholed and water pressure is less than pissing. Guess what? In Texas, at 65 (or disabled) you can defer all property taxes with a simple, one page form that has been in effect since the 70s…but hardly anyone knows about. Odd, that.
So, I will be removing my property tax funds from the pool of slush funds known as the tax base for this city. There goes the endless money to “educate” the uneducatable by those who are ignorant. I don’t care what happens to my home after I go, I won’t be here to worry about it. In the meantime, I’ll have thousands more to lavish on myself and my pet projects and not some City Hall fuckhead’s ideas.
Do it. For the love of God, do it. Just start resisting in the easy ways and you’ll be emboldened to take it further. It’s the last hope. The system won’t save us, voting won’t save us, and our good looks won’t save us.
Time to resist.
SSS, they came to me with the same shit a couple of months back, and because i ignored it, they sent a man to my house who was kind enough to explain my legal obligation to participate. My response was to tell him, “why don’t you go fuck a duck, and come back with whatever person you have that is going to enforce this”. So far, i haven’t heard back.
The only legal obligation you have is to tell them how many people live in the house for the 10 year census. Everything else is bullshit.
I didn’t think about mailing it back in the envelope provided. Good one.
Mine is sitting in a pile of burn crap.
I got these at my business 10 years ago and they went into the shredder. They got more and more threatening but I repeatedly ignored them. Nothing ever came of it.
I’m guessing that about 90% of all compliance to this kind of farcical crap is voluntary. People live in perpetual fear of the government when they are not being completely ignored by it.
The census is an enumeration, once per 10 years, no more.
I dealt with this years ago. Even had a couple in person visits. The last one caught me in my garage working. They don’t take to kindly to a shirtless sweaty man telling them to get off his property NOW, then taking pictures of their vehicle. Never had an issue since.
I got one of those…after we moved 4 yrs ago, I ignored
it. I got phone call reminders but no visits. Eventually
I did fill it out (anxiety prone) but I just wrote down a
coupla things…the intrusion and data collection is off the
charts. Never heard anything back. IMHO the bureaucrats
need to justify their existence. That stuff is our tax $ at work.
I’ve read that 97% of the public replies to this survey! Talk about sheople. I received one of these hideous, 29-page surveys and showed it to everyone who would listen and they all agreed it was far too intrusive. I also pointed out that it’s totally unconstitutional, as the Constitution only authorizes a census every ten years (I received this survey outside one of those ten year intervals). Unfortunately, most people shrugged about the latter point (I think some even rolled their eyes).
There was no way in hell I was going to fill in that survey and I discarded it. Well, that wasn’t the end of it. For over a YEAR, every few months they’d send a new lackey to my house to ring the doorbell and bang on the doors. Usually the same person would visit every few days for a while before giving up and then it would be several months before they sent a new freak to bother me. One creepy bitch actually parked in my driveway for over an hour at dinner time waiting for an indication that someone was home. I just ignored her but I felt like I was being stalked. I wondered what kind of a person has the audacity to sit in the middle of a stranger’s driveway for an hour and evidently has no life of their own that they can afford to waste an hour sitting there doing nothing.
Just when I thought they’d given up on the ACS, I received ANOTHER, different survey, something called the Household Survey or some such baloney, and the harassment began anew! I ignored those creeps too and it’s now been a few months since any stalkers have rung my doorbell. You can recognize these census creeps because they all seem to drive nice new cars and carry laptop computers. Although I admit to being slightly paranoid when it comes to the government, I can’t help but think that there’s something more to these surveys than meets the eye, especially considering the extremely intrusive, personal nature of the questions asked. These surveys strike me more as a voluntary interrogation than a survey.
These people who work for the government are the worst examples of humanity.
Ian
In addition to only every ten years it only authorizes the “Enumeration” of the population for tax apportionment and Congressional and Electoral representatives.
This requires a simple count.
The creepy part is that they are quite likely gauging your response to the survey as much as anything else. Then when the time comes they know who to throw in the FEMA camps first.
Well, I will tell you that I personally know someone who did NOT return her census paperwork and who lives to tell the story. Since I actually find Bernays’ Public Relations methodology fascinating, I like to see how easy it is to convince people they “know” what you want them to believe they “know.”
My photobucket filled up and I discovered that deleting images doesn’t open up “space” which leads me to believe that PB as a “company” finally realized that giving away a free photo and video storage ability in the cloud in hopes that those using the service would buy a bunch of crap from their advertisers was a poor business model. Now that they have a clientelle, they’ve decided to charge them to use their photos on a regular basis. Sigh… American ingenuity sure has changed.
At least I KNOW the difference between dogs, wolves, coyotes and a fox. However, I don’t know that I’ve come upon a jackal in my lifetime.
http://hubpages.com/animals/Canidae-Association-Dog-vs-Wolf-Jackal-Coyote-and-Fox
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&sp=6cc9b158268d180c1e9fff6aa0e341e8[/img]
It just occurred to me after posting my comment that many people who commented here received the same survey. One thing these commenters have on common is that they read this site, and probably many other “alternative” sites. That reinforces my belief that these surveys might be targeting non-sheople types as a form of surveillance.
Ian
I wonder if EC remembers my telling him he didn’t know what he thought he knew. And I wonder if that still bugs him?
Maggie I have missed the photos of the coyote, such a strong gaze in that creature’s eyes. Still I am glad that you and EC buried the hatchet.
I remember. No, it doesn’t
If there was a hatchet, it was probably made of nerf.
Anyone remember the nerfball machine guns for sale for children age 7 to 10 at Christmas in the 70s? Those were the days, weren’t they?
Looking forward to your bunny tales.
Song of the day:
Maggie, for extra points, what is the significance of this song?
Hint: Dolly Parton
I’d never put the Chicken Ranch into the context of this song. It makes sense now, though.
Perhaps I don’t always know what I think I know, either.
Nerfball machine guns…..Pffft! I still have a set of original lawn darts or Jarts with 2.5″-3″ of brain tickling steel on the business end of ’em! The name of the game in my neighborhood was to throw those things straight up and stand in place until the returned to Earth. Not everyone survived but those that did were wiser! Those were the days!
Just quickly jot down a few lies and send it back. They will never know the difference.
Like Hillary. You won’t be prosecuted for lying too the Feds anymore right?
Edit: “to” not “too”.
My wife and I went through this a couple of years ago. Not only is the “ACS” intrusive, ridiculous, and a stellar example of federal overreach, it is blatantly un-Constitutional (Article 1, sec. 3). It even admits its illegality by calling itself a “mid-decade” census, which is nowhere authorized by the Founders. I sent back the packet with a letter telling them “as a matter of courtesy” that, “residing at this address were two citizens of the U.S.” and that, “you are not entitled to any further information until the next census.”
We received a couple of phone calls, which were ignored. Finally, a government drone stopped by and I told her, “You’re either 3 years late or 7 years early.” She went away and we’ve not heard from them since. Screw these people!
Never invite the vampire across your threshold and don’t volunteer for anything where .gov is concerned.
I may have never seen it stated better, Bea!
Similarly, I received a ‘request’ to participate in a survey recently also. (This is in Oz).
It was some nonsense pertaining to vehicle usage or some such stupidity – virtually all the information they were ‘requesting’ would have been held on the system anyway.
The killer was that there was this mandatory aspect to participation and a deadline for ‘compliance’. Failure to obey their edict? A $150.00 PER DAY ‘penalty’. The first letter got opened but the second, which I assume was a ‘polite’ reminder, got returned RTS unopened.
I refuse to subscribe to the notion that “Resistance is Useless”. I’ll die on my feet, thank you.
If anyone here works for the government, just know that you are actively supporting this shit. Tell yourself you aren’t but you’re just bullshitting yourself.
Shit is fucked up and bullshit.
During the 2010 Census they collected GPS locations for front doors. Once Hillary is President they won’t send a person to knock. Incoming
HSF probably has farm surveys, they went from maybe two pages to quite long. my response that thanks to the gov i choose to retire early. then there was the million man vet survey, wow most intrustive thing i ever saw, questions about my grandmother, she died in 1906, that went straight in the trash. all my non vet friends just never got where i was coming from when i tried to equate it to their existence. bring hilliary’s actions into the equation, or bill allowing perjury to be fine.
Wow. Gov-loving, Gov-retiree SSS is complaining about the ACS. Too funny. Yeah, I get it–filling out a survey may lead to hard-core writing of 900-page novels down the road, just like your “smoking weed leads to heroin addiction” stupidity.
/sarc off
But yes, I received one of these surveys a few years ago and had a census worker come to my house since I never mailed it in. I told him I would first need to ask my congressman about the legitimacy of the ACS and sent him packing. He came back a couple of times and offered to take my answers on his laptop but I declined. I did some research on what the penalties were and could not find anyone who was fined or imprisoned. Actually, several people WANTED to be fined so they could challenge the ACS in court.
I think SSS is coming around to the dark side since the FBI he used to know and love gave cankles a pass. They no longer even bother with hiding their corruption.
This is why TBP is such a wealth of unexpected information from obviously intelligent sources.
Thanks.
SSS, good for you! I’ve mentioned this survey a couple of times here on TBP. I received one quite a while back. I’ve NEVER replied to a Census and I sure as hell was not about to reply to this ACS. I actually took the time to type out many of the questions asked on a separate sheet of paper and detailing the ridiculous nature of the questions and why I was not going to answer them. I told them that I disagreed with the purpose of the survey, thought that the questions were too intrusive, that I did not agree with how they were pissing away my tax dollars and that most, if not all of the info requested could already be found in govt. databases and there was no way in hell I was going to help them collect it if they didn’t have the good sense to find it themselves.
I went on to tell them to shove their survey up their asses and to send agents to arrest me if they thought that imprisoning a hard working, tax paying citizen was in their best interest. I never heard another word from them.
The next time I get a census or ACS in the mail I intend to fill out only the portion asking about my sex, race etc and check every single box except white/christian/male before telling them to fuck off. The Obammy admin has admitted to using census data to diversify neighborhoods in ‘Murica which is why many of us have seen zoning laws changed to build section 8, ghetto rat apartments in areas where it was too white. The govt had given the cities a subsidy of some kind several years early under nebulous terms which the cities spent as part of their budget. They then threatened to take away these funds if they did not agree to change zoning laws to diversify pale neighborhoods. I think I even posted an article about it here.
Fuck ’em all!
Same old refrain, to be used for power and control. Not a sheep, not gonna answer (well, haven’t received one, no interest in it if I did).
I suppose you could run the survey through a nice crosscut shredder before sending it back.
I knew a guy a while back who used to get those annoying DNC/RNC type fundraising letters with the bar coded SASE, he found out that there was no weight limit on them and the recipients would be billed for postage, so he used to get a big ole box fill it with whatever he need to get rid of an old tire, some busted concrete you get the idea, he would tape the SASE on top and send it
Not saying to do that, just reminded me of that story
I’ve done that Warren. I used to send bricks to the credit card companies.
I tried to wrap a brick with a SASE envelope, but the postman wouldn’t take it. Now, I just empty my junk drawer and mail it back.
Wrap your bricks with an old brown paper bag then tape the SASE to it with clear tape. I used to drop ’em off at the post office. As far as I know they went through.
I used to grab a handful of garbage and stuff their SASE’s with it. Mailed ’em a chunk of dunnage I had in the garage once too!
I finally found a opt out option to remove my address from the mailing lists and I haven’t had a credit card offer or catalog for almost a decade now.
I threw mine away the last time they sent it to me. And we didn’t bother answering the door for the dude who came knocking at 8-9PM one night after work, either. If they want my info, they can steal it like everyone else does.
What a turdball census bunch of crap. I was curious about what “Law” they used to justify why we “Have” to answer the questions and it jumps around the answer in true government fashion.
https://askacs.census.gov
The first two links they provide only talk about sentencing and nothing about their justification. Finally the third link lists out the punishments. The short version is you can be fined $100 for refusing to answer and $500 for providing false information.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2011-title13/html/USCODE-2011-title13-chap7-subchapII-sec221.htm
Still no reason why they get to ask questions outside of the constitutionally appointed ten year interval.
Man I hope I get one of these. It’s been to quiet lately. 🙂
Its very simple. Just fill out the info as a bankrupt home owner facing foreclosure, with no income, no job, out of unemployment benefits, and with huge credit card debt, huge student loans, and huge car debt with numbers totalling over 100M. The readers of your survey will toss it in the trash and never contact you again as you do not fit their desired info. Believe me it works! Best part is they never will send you another survey of any kind as you are a downer to their statistics.
“No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.”
―Edward Abbey
And your non compliance will be duly noted. You will be marked as a subversive. And you will spend some time in the Gullag in the near future.
When people come up to visit we have the dogs all sit together at the top of the driveway until I release them. I have taught them a lot of tricks, but my favorite is “SMILE!” – they all bear their teeth and hold it. You get a pack of dogs doing that it’s disconcerting even when you know they’re just waiting for a treat.
I’d do that for the next census taker that feels the need to visit and then ask them a few questions, like “Did you think to bring another pair of pants?”
That is great HSF.
Nothing discourages someone from knocking like a big dog trying to get through the door to tear them to pieces.
My wife and I were harassed by a census worker a few years ago about an in-depth “medical survey” the gov was demanding our participation in. First time, I let her explain what it was she wanted along with the fact it would take an hour to 90 minutes to complete. I told her we wouldn’t want to participate and the decision was final. She made several closing attempts and finally got discouraged and left.
About a week to the day later, she shows up again. I asked if she was there for the same reason, she said yes and that it’s our patriotic duty to participate. I told her that’s a bullshit reason to give up one’s privacy and that she was trespassing, should immediately leave or I was calling 911.
Never heard from her again.
“I’ve read that 97% of the public replies to this survey!”
—-Ian
Correct. According to figures from the Census Bureau itself, just 3% don’t respond, with only 1% of the total recipients falling into my category – refusal. That is disheartening. A nation of sheeple is a very kind and generous description of our country today. It is much worse than that.
” According to figures from the Census Bureau itself, just 3% don’t respond,”
Yeah, well…. even if figures don’t lie, liars can still figure. I wouldn’t put too much faith in the bureau’s figures. I didn’t get the “invitation” to take their survey, probably because I didn’t respond to the last two census inquiries. Mail addressed to occupant goes in the round file here.
I got that questionnaire about ten years ago. After I got to the part where they wanted to know specifics on which electronic products every person in the household used, I set it aside and never picked it up again until it lost priority and went in the trash.
I’m not sure my pups could do that, HSF, when the two of them stand on the fence and snarl, they can be pretty impressive.
I have faced this many times as a business owner. I was “randomly” selected two years running once. Random is not random, come to find out. I ran them around for months. Lost in the mail several times. Who signed for it? I sent it back already. Copy? Sorry, did not keep one, I trust the USPS, oops. Finally they sent a human to my office. They left sorry they came. Never did fill that survey out. It would literally have cost me thousands to do so, as it oud have required a week of accounting work.
BTW – SSS, any info re the Cankles debacle? Why did the FBI roll over? Have not heard a peep out of them since – no leaks, nada. It is disgraceful.
My boerboels just stare at folks. Very, very intimidating. I tried to get a friend to say hello to them. “Oh hell no” was his answer.
I got a huge form from Chicago every year wanting to know EVERYTHING about my farm; I tossed them all and the follow-up notices. Why can’t they use the public Daily Market Reports from Chicago? Why should I have to take the time to tell them how many chickens and tractors and berry bushes I have? So Comrade Obama can send a big enough crew and truck to confiscate it all and give it to the FSA?
Rhs, i don’t buy federal crop insurance these days because of the intrusive nature of the paperwork. Plus they want you to provide an ongoing stream of information that would require endless hours to comply with. Obama is gone in six months. We will see which way the wind blows then.
We got this crap a few years ago. Threw the first one away. Another came. A few threatening phone calls, finally some ruse woman at the door.
I was out of town, wife gave her my number.
Meanwhile, I actualy found the law requiring it. $100 fine for not complying.
Woman called me one afternoon. Threatened to put me on a non-compliance list. Please do, I say. Back and forth a few times, never heard from them again.
Exactly, $100. When I looked it up I laughed. They’re trying to make you think they’ll take everything from you when they can only offer a tiny slap on the wrist.
I wonder how much of their time I can waste before I spring the fact that I actually read their law and call their bluff.
The most important part of these “surveys” and the census is the sex, race, religion part. If you are white I suggest checking every box except white or christian. I haven’t seen one in awhile but I plan to self identify as a transsexual, sub-saharan black, dyslexic midget, muslim, pacific islander, eskimo with a rabid love for voting democrat and suggest that they address me properly in all future communications or prepare to be sued for discrimination.
If Rachel Dolzeal and Elizabeth Warren can self identify as a nigger and an injun then I can self identify too bitchez!
Have you noticed Caucasian has been replaced with white on surveys? So I write in Caucasian. I also add in a stupid pro noun. zhe being my favorite, especially if you are waiting to be called at an office. fucking liberals, don’t understand their own bullshit.
Just trash these along with the rest of the junk mail…