Cow tipping is assault.

Wait, maybe it's animal cruelty. Either way, I hate "gratuity added."

I'm guessing all the liberty loving anarchists would be upset if the census were done via sampling, which is more accurate and is likely to require zero of their time, because the government would rig it?

We get that you hate government but it's really hard to see how "counting the number of people in the country" is some wildly tyrannical display of jackbooted thuggery.

no one is saying that.

ZOMG IF YOUR PLAN ISN'T THE ONE THING THAT ENDS THE GOVERNMENT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT

good speech dvaut. at least you're keeping this nonsense short enough for me to bother reading it. I wonder if your longer posts are equally silly.

lol yeah taso, because your heroic stand against the evil Census slavery, you may contribute JUST A TINY BIT to the takedown of the American federal government. No, no, you're not deluded enough to believe this will be the one big event, but there's still the possibility our descendants may someday erect statues in your honor, a monument to that day when you mustered all your courage and threw that 2010 Census form in the trash. No, it wasn't the straw that broke the camels back, but those straws get heavy, each and every straw counts, and each and every Census form in the trash means another Census Taker has to come find you and leave a callback form on your door, and at some point, all those straws end up in Libertopia and LESS SLAVERY, probably.

2p2 Politics Forum ftw

The biggest problem with that statement is the 5 minutes to deal with the form, there is 1, and only 1 question that should be on the form and that is "How many people reside at this residence?" That is all the constitution allows and for the form to suggest that you are compelled to provide any more information than that is wrong. It may seem petty, but you have to look at the bigger picture if the government is allowed to cross one line after another and isn't called out on it they will continue to do so and they will be bolder each time. Is it wrong to draw the line somewhere on this?

In the long run the implications of answering questions that the census bureau has absolutely no legal right to ask in the first place can be way more -lifeEV.

FWIW in 2000 I was a recipient of the long form, GD thing reminded me of the SAT test. I returned the booklet unanswered and informed them in a letter that 3 people resided there. They sent workers to my door 3 times, each time they were informed that 3 people resided there and got the same answer a few times when they phoned eventually they gave up. In the end I spent far less time dealing with them than I would have answering that form.

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to you if you provide no more data than how many people, they may attempt to abuse power and threaten you but until there is a constitutional amendment compelling anyone to answer anthing more than that. Providing anymore data than that is going to be +lifeEV for the moochers, and -lifeEV for the producers.

flame away

What would happen if nobody filled out the Census form?

another great speech but you're not making any arguments of any coherence. BBV4life is >>> that way.

I have no idea. Your guess is as good as mine.

There's no argument and you shouldn't expect one. You think your throwing the census form in the trash is some kind of effectual rebellion against slavery. There's no "argument" to rebut that but pointing and laughing at how deluded you are. Sorry.

"Not doing what you're told isn't any kind of rebellion against slavery"

cool story dvaut, you're making a lot of sense.

1. How many people live there?
(I like this one, really hits home with the idea of counting people)


2. Who lives there friends, family, temporary transient types?
(Ok, would rather to stick to numbers here)


3. Do you own your house free and clear, do you have a mortgage left to pay, or do you rent.
(What?)


4. What's your phone number?
(What?)


5. Name everyone in the house.
(Does my dog count?)



6. Are they men or women?
(We are thinking about repealing women's suffrage.)


7. Age and date of birth for everyone.
(We want to send them a birthday card.)


8. Is person number one hispanic?
(Hispanic count?)


9. What race are these people?
(Poker people.)


10. Do these people stay anywhere else?
(Every time they go somewhere else.)


Oh and btw, we're going to take GPS coordinates of your house for shi** and giggles.

Well, I was just continuing what I thought was at least a part of what vhawks point was. That being, that if you want the Census to go away, less people doing it the simple way (filling out the form) is a good way to start. There is probably some tipping point where if less then x% of people fill it out, the govt probably stops doing it.

It's a Constitutional requirement, they can't stop without a Constitutional amendment.

I'm guessing that if there really was some kind of mass movement to stop filling out the Census, they'd probably just use sampling, which would remove the great and terrible slavery millstone placed on Americans of having to fill out a 10 question form once a decade.

It's also the easiest to avoid. Baby steps!

BTW, not tipping will not end the tyrranical tipping regime.

If there's one thing the history of this country has shown us its that the government cannot violate the constitution.

DVault is on fire. Eloquent and very funny. #33 is pure gold.

On the issue of tipping vs. not-tipping, the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs would be hard to top.

I am eagerly awaiting the day when they do it via sampling, which is pretty clearly way more accurate and way cheaper, and the ACbot tardfest continues with "I'm not being counted, LOLZ" or "here comes the riggage, LOLZ" or "I am going to delete this e-mail they sent me and not take the 30 seconds to reply because that will send a message/make a difference/whatever."

.

can someone plz splain why sampling is more accurate? i understand that it is in theory, but how do they actually go about it? what kind of sample size do they use/etc?

The census episode of WW was very good.

Statistically speaking the validity of polling does not increase by including more people once you sample 1200 or so individuals, assuming you're not under-representing or over-representing any groups in the sample. It's not really debatable that the current system over counts wealthier, whiter people because they are alot easier to track down than urban, poor, mostly black and brown residents. And of course homeless people aren't counted w/ the door to door method (of course they don't vote, but it still contributes to inaccuracy and they are therefore under-represented in congress).

Of course if sampling were implemented people at every point on the political spectrum will go ape**** crying foul at the composition of the samples that are used, and there's really no way around that even though I'm sure the group responsible for conducting the sampling would be non-partisan.

In practice, we would likely see sampling in urban areas and old-fashioned counting in rural areas. The result would almost certainly be greater accuracy at a fraction of the cost.