By Warner Todd Huston ——Bio and Archives--October 5, 2009
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The Census Bureau just announced its largest advertising campaign ever—some $300 million—to urge Americans to do their constitutional duty and take part in the nationwide headcount.No, Eve, there is no “Constitutional duty” to take part in the census. There is a Constitutional duty to implement one, but there is no corresponding duty to participate. No one is forced by order of law to participate in the census. Conant goes on to discuss the political football that the census always becomes. But, once again, this does not describe any anti-census sentiment. It describes the political problems of the day that the census naturally is applied to. But then comes the only real reason she wrote her piece, her attack on conservatives. Conant details one census controversy after another coming from the right side of the aisle. Conant describes such incidents as Minnesota Republican Representative Michelle Bachman’s claim that she won’t fill out the detailed questionnaire and will only tell the census the number of people living in her home, the worry that illegal aliens and gay marriages will be counted as legitimate census data and other such controversies over the census. The problem is that Conant presents all this turmoil as “anti-census” sentiment. But it isn’t. Conservatives are not generally saying that they are against a census. What they are against is the illicit use that census data will be used for. They are also against corrupt bargains with shadowy “community organizations” like ACORN getting federal funding to carry out the census. Finally, they are worried that census data will be used to redraw federal representation to reflect liberal agendas instead of to actually count legitimate Americans and legitimate statistics. But few if anyone on the right are against the census itself. Yet Conant’s entire story presents the right as anti-census, regardless. Of course, the worst thing is Conant’s blaming of Mr. Sparkamn’s death on conservatives. It is outrageous to say that conservatives want census workers dead and linking Sparkman’s death to the right is irresponsible, especially since there isn’t a single fact known about the motives for his murder.
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Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
He is also the owner and operator of Publius’ Forum.