I filled out the Census! Did you?

[Donal]

Nah, I'm not going to bother.

Shocker.

I'm surrounded by idiots and knaves. They've already won.

I'd make a joke about living in a house of mirrors, but I'm above such things.

By the way, 'patriot' really doesn't apply here -

Self satisfied blow hard definitely works better.

I've nothing to do with the yahoos or tea-baggers, which I think you're trying to imply.

Not ambitious enough?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Because the agencies that deploy resources to various districts use the Census data to figure out where to deploy how much of a resource.

That's like saying:
" Farmers don't feed people, they just grow the food that the grocers distribute.. "


Do you work for the Census Bureau ?

Just wondering... You seem well schooled in bureaucratic double-speak ...

 

[Donal]

Actually, ya. Temporarily anyway. But, I would have found the silly little rants about white guys not wanting to identify their race dumb anyway.

And by "double speak" you must mean "how things actually work".

 

[slingblade]

My, oh my.

Whether one is male or female (or some other sexual category) is a very real thing.

'race' is not.

If you were to wake up not white tomorrow, would your life be any different?

The effects of race are real, even if the notion of it is a construct.

The false notion of race has been used to cause a lot of harm over the years. I'm not interested in continuing the fine tradition.

"Whites locate racism in color consciousness, and its absence in color blindness." --Bob Blauner.

Ignoring the false notion of race doesn't make the effects of that false notion go away. Lots of people have to deal with those effects every single day. They don't get the option to just ignore it that you get.

That's one of the hidden effects of racism.

 

[LostAngeles]

How many folks could have filled out an online census form?

You can't.

I'm sure the other Census workers here can tell you how *********** serious the Bureau takes confidentiality. It's serious *********** business and I've seen a number of people get terminated for cause over it.

It happened, dude. It was the Census Bureau out of KC MO.

I don't know why that's so hard to believe.

It's not like I made an extraordinary claim, dude.

That division is not the Decennial Census folk, it's likely the American Community Survey. The Decennial gets population stats, the other gets a sample.

I sent mine in and was notified that I needed to send mine in. Maytbe someone didn't like how I filled in the Racial category questions and wants to debate the issue in person. Or maybe an attempt at reducing the numbers of certain ethnics in order to assuire an equitable distribution of the pie.

I forget how many of the questions need to be filled out in order to be considered complete for the housing unit forms. On the Individual Census Reports (used for places like dorms, jails, and the homeless), it's 3 out of the first 5.

The why do they claim the data will be used to determine how billions of dollars will be spent ?

Have you seen the ads?

"If we don't know how many schoolkids there are, how do we know how many schools we need?"

Just as an example.

The Dept. of Transportation can't walk up and say, "Hey, so who lives over in Tallahassee? What are their names and addresses and ages and such?" No. The DoT would ask, "Hey, how many people live in this area of Tallahassee? We're trying to figure out if we should send additional funds for highway and public transit maintenance/construction."

And more cynically, since it determines the allotment of Representatives, it determines how much pork y'all get.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

"If we don't know how many schoolkids there are, how do we know how many schools we need?"

Just as an example.

The Dept. of Transportation can't walk up and say, "Hey, so who lives over in Tallahassee? What are their names and addresses and ages and such?" No. The DoT would ask, "Hey, how many people live in this area of Tallahassee? We're trying to figure out if we should send additional funds for highway and public transit maintenance/construction."

Nonsense ! We went over that in the " Stupid Census Question " thread ..

Local school districts and transportation authorities have a more current and accurate indication of trends than the census can provide. It's called attendance and ridership ..
That advert from the Census Bureua about the buses is hilarious .. Imagine the local transit authority waking up one morning and proclaiming:
" Oh My ! Where did all these people come from ? We need to get more buses ! "

And more cynically, since it determines the allotment of Representatives, it determines how much pork y'all get.

Based on gender and race... I's called discrimination ..

 

[LostAngeles]

Nonsense ! We went over that in the " Stupid Census Question " thread ..

Local school districts and transportation authorities have a more current and accurate indication of trends than the census can provide. It's called attendance and ridership ..

Not everyone attends school. Also, counting the number of schoolkids there will be, married couples who might be having children, etc allows them to project how many there will be.

Based on gender and race... I's called discrimination ..

No, based on number of people. But hey, let me know at least one case where a state got an extra representative because of gender and/or race.

They take demographics so they can see the growth and change in the nation. Historians love that ****.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Not everyone attends school. Also, counting the number of schoolkids there will be, married couples who might be having children, etc allows them to project how many there will might be.

The census data does not tell them who is married and who will be having children, or who will be dying or moving ..

Day to day enrollment figures give them a real-time picture of local student populations.
Census data is pretty much meaningless for this purpose by the time it is tabulated ..

No, based on number of people. But hey, let me know at least one case where a state got an extra representative because of gender and/or race.

Then why do they need race and gender information ?

They take demographics so they can see the growth and change in the nation. Historians love that ****.

There are other sources for that ..
I happen to not agree ,that it is a legitimate function of the Federal government, to gather this information with a census, at a much greater cost than is necessary, to simply enumerate people .

 

[LostAngeles]

The Census report will be on the President's desk on December 31, 2010, so I don't see how it will be outdated. Noticing trends will help the departments be able to plan out how much funding will be needed. If the current trend of people living longer is continuing without any signs of abating, we will likely need more hospitals and other long-term care facilities. Do you want those to start getting built when you need them or do you want them there and ready when you need them?

Also, I think you have a misconception of what the Decennial Census takes to do.

They count everyone. And they mean everyone. They spend months gathering addresses, determining what kind of address it is so they know which enumeration operation it requires (and there are several. Remote areas require different approaches than urban), finding homeless encampments and making contact so the homeless can be counted, contact with places like monastaries and school dorms, and so on. The forms you get mailed are just one part.

There is no other source that shows as much of the population as the United States Decennial Census. It's a population count, not a sample count. If you can find another source that shows just as much, if not more, I'd love to see it.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

It's a population count...

Then that is all they need to do ..

Census Form:

 

[Skeptical Greg]

P.S.

Are you, by any chance, working for the census Bureau ?

 

[slingblade]

P.S.

Are you, by any chance, working for the census Bureau ?

Ad Hominem fallacy.

It wouldn't matter to the falsity or veracity of the statements if any poster in this thread was the head of the Census Bureau. The statements being made are true or false (and/or variations thereof) regardless of who makes them.

 

[Complexity]

Then that is all they need to do ..

Census Form:

Thanks! I agree.

 

[slingblade]

Then that is all they need to do ..

Census Form:

And how do they count the people living in caves?

How do they count the people sleeping in a different doorway each night?

How do they count those living in tents, in their cars, under bushes, or in tree platforms?

I'm pretty sure none of those places gets mail delivery...



How do they know how much in funding to allocate to the various Tribes and Nations (over 500) with which the U.S. Government still holds treaties and treaty agreements without asking people to self-identify themselves by race/ethnicity?

How would they come up with figures such as: 13% of the U.S. population self-identifies as black/African-American/Negroid, yet this population makes up over 70% of the prison population (indicating that racial profiling is still taking place across the country)? How could we begin to address that inequity without having that racial data?

You keep saying there's no use for the data, even though uses have been shown to you. I have decided you do not care to acknowledge that your argument might be based on lack of information, and you further have no interest in educating yourself to get that information. You'd prefer to keep telling us there's no use for it, even after we show you examples of the uses.

More examples:

Back in the 1990’s, deciding how to count the multiracial population was a hot political controversy, pitting two sides of a debate on race and identity against each other. According to Williams (Williams, Kimberley M. 2006. Mark one or More: Civil Rights in Multiracial America. Boston: Harvard University Press), multiracial organizations argued that the previous approach forced mixed-race children to choose one race and one side of themselves. Civil rights groups argued that this would weaken the population bases and the political power of monoracial groups, unnecessarily complicate the tracking of enforcement of civil rights legislation (which uses Census counts), and, unofficially provide an option for individuals who wished to abandon their race. Introducing “check all that apply”, not a single multiracial box, seemed like the perfect resolution. Multiracial people could be enumerated and be linked back to their component groups for tracking dynamics of monoracial communities.

[...]

Quantifying “treatment” is never an easy task, but any cursory look at social trends tells us that lives are lived very differently by race. The level of school segregation by race is nearly as high as it was in the 1960’s (Sikkink, David, and Michael O. Emerson. 2008. “School Choice and Racial Residential Segregation: The Role of Parent’s Education.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31:267-293), neighborhoods continue to be segregated by race (Wilkes, Irma and John Iceland, 2004.”Hypersegregatation in the 21st Century” Demography 41 (1): 23- 36), and while interracial marriage is increasing, its far lower than one would expect if race were not a factor (Qian, Zhenchao and Daniel Lichter. 2007. “Social Boundaries and Marital Assimilation: Interpreting Trends in Racial and Ethnic Intermarriage.” American Sociological Review 72:68-94). White per capita income continues to exceed Black per capita income by more than 12,000 dollars and Blacks can expect to die on average 5 years sooner than their White counterparts (Heron MP, Hoyert DL, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Kochanek KD, Tejada-Vera B. Deaths: Final data for 2006. National vital statistics reports; vol 57 no 14.[pdf] Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2009). Despite declines in reporting overtly racist attitudes, minorities continue to report confronting racial prejudice and growing number of studies report that having these experiences is significantly detrimental to their health (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008. “Table 688. Per Capita Money Income in Current and Constant (2007) Dollars by Race and Hispanic Origin” in Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, Current Population Reports, P60-235. Author tabulation of difference between the per capita income (in 2007 dollars) for Blacks (alone or in combination), which was $18,107, and non-Hispanic Whites (alone), which was $31,051).

http://www.racismreview.com/blog/20...he-census-the-unfulfilled-wish-for-more-data/

That's one article. It holds several examples of how sociologists, among others, can make necessary use of the census data.


Really, if you want an answer, is it all that hard for you to do some of this research yourself?

 

[LostAngeles]

P.S.

Are you, by any chance, working for the census Bureau ?

As sling said, irrelevant.

Again, how does your example count the homeless or, as sling said, people living in caves? Or people with non-standard addresses.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Ad Hominem fallacy.

It wouldn't matter to the falsity or veracity of the statements if any poster in this thread was the head of the Census Bureau. The statements being made are true or false (and/or variations thereof) regardless of who makes them.

You need to study up on what ad hominem means, as well as what a fallacy is.

I just keep hearing what sounds like a Census Bureau, employee indoctrination lecture, and I'm really curious as to whether or not I am talking to a Census Bureau employee ..

I have no doubt I am being told the truth, I just don't agree with the justification of some of the questions being asked, and how the information is being used ...

 

[Skeptical Greg]

LostAngeles:

Again, how does your example count the homeless or, as sling said, people living in caves? Or people with non-standard addresses.

It doesn't .
That's where some exceptional actions may be justified ..

While we're at it, how do those homeless people and cave dwellers, figure into the pork distribution ?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

slingblade:

That's one article. It holds several examples of how sociologists, among others, can make necessary use of the census data.

I'm sure they can. I don't happen to agree they are entitled to acquire the data at taxpayer expense .

Really, if you want an answer, is it all that hard for you to do some of this research yourself?

I'm not looking for answers. I'm protesting the improper ( IMO ) use of millions of tax dollars ..

 

[Complexity]

slingblade:

I'm sure they can. I don't happen to agree they are entitled to acquire the data at taxpayer expense .


I'm not looking for answers; I'm protesting the improper ( IMO ) use of millions of tax dollars ..

And the illegitimate use of government power to attempt to compel us to answer questions irrelevant to the constitutionally-mandated census.

 

[slingblade]

You need to study up on what ad hominem means, as well as what a fallacy is.

Oh? Really? Supposing you tell us what an ad hominem fallacy actually is, then, since you know and I apparently don't?

I just keep hearing what sounds like a Census Bureau, employee indoctrination lecture,

That only means you've never been employed by the census. You obviously have no idea what employees are told.

and I'm really curious as to whether or not I am talking to a Census Bureau employee ..

I have no doubt I am being told the truth, I just don't agree with the justification of some of the questions being asked, and how the information is being used ...

Have you read any of the non-government articles linked for your edification?