Quote:
Originally Posted by braingonebad
Just so you know, i'm here legally.
My prob is this - why do they want to know?
How many people are here? Okay, I'll tell them that. They do not need any further info. That's just MHO.
Why do they care if I'm under 30 or over 50? Or how much we make? Or what race we are? None of their bee's wax, I say.
There's a website where you can check all the stats of any town - pie charts and all. Everything you want to know about the town and the people who live there. Real interesting. Level of education, ratio of men to women, break down of age groups and income levels, how many own vs rent their homes, etc.
Pretty neat if you're thinking of moving TO someplace, but a little creepy knowing your own town is disected that way.
I'm sorry I don't care to be a statistic.
People got all freaked because you can see your house via satelite on the internet. Well, this is the same kind of invasion to me.
Again, why do they want to know? They are not just using this info so they can give money at equal amounts. For one thing, you know they base what they say where on this kind of info. They know certain ideas, words and phrases play better with some crowds than others - and that helps candidates win. |
They want to know for the same reasons they wanted to know 220 years ago when they first began taking the census.
You can google it anywhere but here's a trusty source:
http://www.census.gov/
There are only 7 mandatory questions. Do you know what they are?
Name, sex, age date of birth, race, ethnicity, relationship to the head of household and whether the home is owned or rented .....It takes about 10 minutes to complete.
See the thing is, you're a citizen of the United States. The rights you're accustomed to are granted by this Democracy. You are governed. You agree to be governed, it's what you do in exchange for citizenship. You're not entitled to rights in the USA simply because you're a human being, you're 'entitled' to them because the government (we elect) defined those rights and upholds them FOR you.
In order to be a citizen, you agree to hold up your end of the bargain. In this country, that includes filling out the census. It also includes paying taxes (do you find those intrusive? The IRS knows more about your financial situation than will ever be gathered in a census, and we gladly or grudgingly (depending on your situation) provide that to our government because them's the rules and that's how we keep things moving along and get the stuff we depend on (or.... take for granted again, depending on your situation)
If you really don't think the governing body of your chosen country has any right to gather information about the citizens it supports, provides services for and defends, I struggle to understand how you expect that country to be successful at any of it.
my two pennies.