There are many reasons you should refuse to participate in the upcoming American census; this blog touches upon several.

Before doing so, however, I want to address a reason that is usually overlooked. The upcoming census is one aspect of government's ongoing campaign to disrupt the very basis of civil society in order to benefit its goals of social control, of social engineering. The basis of civil society is the respect or legal protection that each individual accords to the person, property and peaceful actions of every other individual. Politically, a civil society approaches 'rights' as a universal concept; for example, my freedom of speech and yours are equally protected, with no legal privileges or abuse accorded due to status, gender, race, etc. Economically, it consists of free exchanges and respect for private property rather than theft or government expropriation (e.g. taxes). Regarding lifestyle choices, it means minding my own business rather than imposing my view of "good" behavior upon peaceful consenting adults. Libertarian theory has long recognized civil society to be the main competing alternative to and, therefore, the enemy of government control.

One way in which civil society breaks down -- and social engineering ascends -- is by making individuals turn against each other so that the peaceful activities of my neighbor are seen as harmful to me. Most of the current arguments for participation in the American census are based on the idea that my desire for privacy damages society. How? The very purpose of the census, we are told, is to determine how government money and power (electoral districts) should be allotted. If I wish to claim my right to privacy and *not* answer invasive questions about my medical conditions, employment, etc., then my silence 'under-represents' the community in which I live; thus, my community will receive less than its fair share of government hand-outs and representation. My privacy becomes a harm I inflict upon my neighbors.

I saw the power of this argument at work in my own community; even though it was/is Canadian, the political dynamic is identical. A neighbor became a census-taker in the last round of head counting up here. This neighbor always seemed to be fiercely private and has spouted off at parties about "taking a gun to any government agent who came on her property." And, yet, she knocked on the doors of other neighbors, asked intrusive questions at the government's behest, and turned the names of non-respondents over to officials. Why? Because our schools are under-represented in funding and everyone had to be counted for the 'sake of the children'. It was everyone's duty to tell the government how many toilets were in their homes...for the sake of the children.

Everyone wants their share of government's promised money and power; it has become a social entitlement. Government has convinced people that your right to privacy denies to them what is their as a matter of simple fairness: that is, their share of the government pie. And, so, government introduces a Hobbesian state of nature (a war or all against all) that slowly replaces civil society. It creates a dynamic by which my rights damage you instead of the protection of equal rights enriching everyone. On this basis alone, the census should be rejected.

How did the census evolve from its modest roots into a weapon of social engineering?

Over two centuries after the Constitution authorized an extremely limited census for extremely limited purposes, the scope of the census -- like that of all government functions -- has expanded exponentially. All the while, bureaucrats assure the people that data will never be misused. Indeed, the Census Bureau loudly declares that it is illegal to disclose information from census forms. This allegedly prevents data from being shared with other agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service or Immigration and Naturalization.

Alas, Government assurances have a short shelf life. The original Social Security cards explicitly stated that they were not for identification purposes. Today, the SSN is virtually a national I.D. card without which you cannot so much as open a bank account. The government is constructing a huge national database with the goal of including detailed racial, age, financial, medical, educational and relationship information on every American. It is criminally naive to assume that bureaucrats can resist the temptation of dipping into the rich information on census forms.

At the beginning of the 19th century, statisticians began to urge the federal government to expand the type of data collected. The 1850 census was the first to collect "social statistics" such as wages and the value of property. The 1940 census has been called "the first contemporary census." The foregoing captures some of the dates, but not the spirit that has transformed the American census. The spirit lies in growth of the American government over two centuries into a Leviathan state that intrudes into every aspect of daily life and tries to skim every dollar produced.

The census is a symbol of social control's triumph over civil society.