Maggie's Farm

Just to remind you, my friends ... as of January 2010, the Government is sending its Representatives to your home, to question you for the census. We, you and I, would do well to plan the encounter beforehand, if we want to avoid being flabbergasted by governmental arrogance in requiring us to answer a multi- page questionnaire of Constitutionally unjustifiable questions. Our Constitution requires that we tell the census taker how many people live in the house. That's all. Nothing more. Personally, I don't plan to let the census taker into my house, since I have a covered front porch, and our brief interview can take place there. I don't usually let strangers into my house in the first place. If I don't know them personally, they don't get in. That's common sense when one is elderly and no longer spry enough to defend oneself.

I don't plan to tell him/her how many rooms the house has, its square footage, the number of bathrooms, much less the number of televisions, computers, and other technological marvels and luxuries that we may possess. Also, we'll not confide our Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, annual income and other private information from which they can deduce much other formerly private data.

We've lost too much of our privacy already. We've had our identity stolen once, and are going to try to see it never happens again.

The encroachments of governmental busybodies on the lives of American citizens are growing ever bolder. We need to resist in this area as we need to resist in other areas. Liberty is stolen a handful at a time.

Marianne