4.15.2010

2010 Census Ads' Message is Fundamentally Wrong and Misleading.

You've seen all these ads for the 2010 Census. Now that the White House has commandeered the execution of the Census (for the first time ever), it is spending more than has ever been spent on advertising the Census ($300 million). And given this administration's mannerisms and agenda, it's no surprise that there is a purely political and misleading message in the 2010 Census advertisements encouraging people to fill out and return their Census forms.

It's subtle, but there is an intentional and fundamental flaw in almost every Census ad, wherever you see or hear them; on the side of a bus, on TV, on a billboard, in a newspaper, on the radio.

The ad I just saw is a perfect example. The happy man in the ad says that he's just one person, but when he fills out his Census form, he's helping his entire community get the resources and funding it needs.

A person who understands the Constitution and the structure of our Republic might recognize the flaw in that happy man's statement. The problems is; The happy man might as well be saying he puts on his shoes before his pants! Put another way; You are wrong, happy man!

Filling out and returning your Census form is not the way you get the resources and the funding your community needs. The way you your community gets those resources is by having its representative decide to vote for the disbursement of those resources to your Congressional District. A lot must happen before that Congressman's decision is made. He could decide to vote no on such disbursements. And your community could decide to find other ways to get the resources it needs, and avoid requesting Federal funds.

The Constitutional purpose of the Census is to determine the population distribution so that Congressional Seats can be re-allocated as populations shift.

Simply filling out your Census form, and making sure your community is fully-counted, does not automatically bring resources and funding to your community. It only makes sure you are proportionately represented in Congress. What the people in your community then decide to seek and demand from your Congressman is another issue entirely. We all know that this would never happen, but in theory, there could be an enormous Congressional District with 1 million people in it, every single one of them being a strict Libertarian who only votes for candidates who promise to bring zero Federal funds to his District, maybe so as to avoid Federal money corrupting his/her community and reducing the role of his State's government. Thus, in accordance with his constituents' wishes, that District's Congressman never brings home a single dime of Federal money. In that very unlikely example, every single person filled out and returned his/her Census form, the Census properly counted those people, their Congressional District was drawn, they elected their Congressman, they asked their Congressman to not bring home Federal money, and the Congressman decided to not bring home any Federal money to their community, because that's what the community wants.

The Census ensures that you are counted for representation. It does not tell you how to use that representation. It doesn't tell your representatives that they must bring home more money just because your community has grown. In the time between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses, a community could have grown, in theory, by losing 30,000 middle-class workers, and gaining 50,000 Amish residents. Does that newly Amish-majority Congressional District want or need that $30 million After-School Recreation Center that was proposed 5 years ago but got stalled due to lack of funding?

You see, Obama wants everyone to demand more and more money from their government. It's part of the strategy espoused by 60's radicals like Saul Alynski (whose teachings and techniques Obama studied and mastered) and Cloward-Piven. A key part of the job of a Community Organizer, working for ACORN, following the Alynski approach, is to rile up a community so that it continually demands more money and services from their local, state, and federal representatives. That is how the Uber-Leftists can accomplish their goal of continually growing the size of the government. Thus, it makes perfect sense that Obama's Census ads would contain language that assumes the viewer wants more federal funding for his/her community, and encourages him/her to have that mindset. The ads deliberately avoid the notion that the opposite might be the case. They don't even make it sound like an option. The ads present the Census as if the government is saying; "We, the government, are dishing out money whether you like it or not, and you won't get enough money if you don't fill out your Census form. You do want more Federal money, don't you? If you don't, then you're not an American. That is what the Census is for, you silly fool."

But no, the people have the choice, via elections, to send fiscally conservative representatives to D.C who won't dole out hundreds of millions of dollars to their local political cronies' side-projects. Don't fall for the subtle but plain lie you'll hear in almost every 2010 Census ad. It is in your interest to be counted. But your community might not need more Federal money. And as strange as it might sound, it might not even want more Federal money (and the strings attached to it)! Obama just wants you to think and assume that it does, and always will.

-Sic Ibid

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really? It took you over 900 words to say nothing at all until coming full circle and shooting down your own argument in the end?

"But your community might not need more Federal money," you write. The ad is exactly correct when it says "he's helping his entire community get the resources and funding it needs"; if it needs none, he'll have the opportunity to elect a representative who will bring the community no funds.

You spend way too much time trying to find evil where there is none.

Sic Ibid said...

Apparently it takes you reading some unknown number of words beyond the 900 mark before you understand the point of what you're reading.

Happy Super Tuesday!