Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 01:09:07 -0700 From: Les Earnest <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Census 2000 Long Form To: Matthew Gaylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Jim Warren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Accept-Language: en Kenneth Prewitt Director, Bureau of the Census U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, DC 20233-2000 Subject: Census 2000 Long Form Dear Mr. Prewitt: I believe that the subject form represents an unconstitutional attempt at invasion of privacy under the guise of fulfilling a constitutional mandate. I have completed the portions that name the residents in my home, in support of the valid counting of populations, and also identify our relationships and dates of birth. I have answered the silly question about race with a silly answer - we are all Mongrels - as I have done consistently since 1963. I must admit that this answer has caused a few problems and led to some amusing confrontations, as reported in an article I wrote for a technical journal a dozen years ago [1]. I decline to answer redundant questions, such as those about our current ages, because your computer can certainly figure them out. I will not answer the other questions because they deal with matters that are none of the government's business. This is the second time I have declined to fill out the long form. The first time, in 1972, I responded to a cover letter from Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans that said I had to fill it out. Nothing bad happened to me subsequently but Secretary Stans ended up in jail as a result of his participation in the Watergate cover-up. The concepts of racial and ethnic classification were invented long ago by racists and in practice have no scientific basis whatever. For some reason, when the civil rights movement began to be effective in the 1960s, oppressed "minorities" chose to embrace these absurd classification schemes as part of their identity and politicians of various colors have since used them to build constituencies. In my cited article [1], I describe how racial classification could actually be done scientifically using DNA testing, but I also observe that there does not seem to be much point in doing that. Because of the "urge to merge," we are destined to become a nation of "mongrels" or "mixed-race" or whatever term you prefer. This poses a problem for politicians and demagogues who depend on racial classification to maintain their constituencies but sooner or later they are going to have to get used to it. Sooner is better, I believe. Even though the new census form has been liberalized by allowing individuals to check multiple races, it has been reported that several governmental agencies have announced that anyone who checks both "White" and something else will be identified as "Minority." Utter nonsense! On that basis, given that "minorities" already constitute a majority in many parts of California and are destined to take over the whole country sooner or later, I think that we at least need some new terminology. My choice is to join the long term winning side now. The best thing that the government could do would be to stop perpetuating this nonsense by removing questions about racial or ethnic classification from the forms. Sincerely, Lester D. Earnest Reference: [1] L. Earnest, "Can computers cope with human races?" Communications of the ACM, Feb. 1989. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per month) Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd., PMB 176, Columbus, OH 43229 Archived at http://www.egroups.com/list/fa/ **************************************************************************
