Monday, April 5, 2010

GOP Tries To Ease Census Concerns

The right has been bashing the 2010 Census for a couple years now, with popular pundits like Glenn Beck or newly anointed CNN contributor Erik Erickson fear mongering, making wild accusations that the census will be used to expand government, and the rhetoric is not limited to television personalities, but includes elected officials as well, such as dimwitted Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann, who had alluded to past United States Censuses being used during World War II to gather Japanese-Americans for special internment camps. Now, it seems, with the recommended deadline passed, Republicans are changing their story, or at least some Republicans are speaking some sense.

From an article by Jason Linkins at The Huffington Post, conservatives are now concerned because the rise in anti-government rhetoric coming from conservative organizations, mainly the various Tea Parties, may actually lead to decreased participation in the Census, which you would think is a good thing, but with all things Tea Party, the GOP has discovered that their conspiratorial propaganda may actually hurt the Republicans, mainly because lower conservative participation will basically weaken strong GOP held seats for the next ten years. I find this humorous because the Republicans have been tolerating the Tea Parties because they motivate the conservative base, while at the same time, it seems that the GOP is constantly being undermined by a ragtag conglomeration of right-wing extremists that view many Republicans as too liberal.

This is probably why some Republicans are finally coming to their senses, such as Rep. Patrick McHenry (R., N.C.), the top Republican on the House subcommittee that oversees the census, who posted on conservative haven Redstate.com that filling out the census was actually a "constitutional duty," and in simpler terms, that means returning the census is a good thing, but McHenry may be too late, because fellow Redstater Erik Erickson had his own opinion regarding the census that he wished to share, which sounded more fitting for an episode of Squidbillies then a website claiming to offer legitimate political discourse.
What gives the Commerce Department the right to ask me how often I flush my toilet? Or about going to work? I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door. They're not going on my property. They can't do that. They don't have the legal right, and yet they're trying.
As we have seen play out over the past two years, inflammatory rhetoric seems to win out over logic and reason, and this is partially due to the GOP's subservience to their base.

While I would want everybody to fill out the census, I am of the mind that the anti-American sect of the conservatives would be doing the political landscape a favor by not filling out and returning their census forms because they will help further marginalize their already marginal fringe, restoring the balance that they have worked so hard to disrupt, but being the ignorant trash that they are, I am certain that once the census is done with, and conservatives suffer some losses, the right-wing echo chamber will cry out "taxation without representation," and they will bully their way back into the media once again.

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