I’m not sure this is a worthy subject for a blog entry, since it’s something literally everyone in America does or soon will know about. But I just got a Census document in the mail saying nothing important, but reminding me that in a week I will be receiving another census document. Government documents receive free postage, so this probably didn’t cost them very much, but I do wonder at their choice of priorities. There are a lot of things the government wants us to do — join the army, don’t murder, pick up litter — but direct mail is seldom a preferred medium for propaganda.
If you adopt the libertarian line, it isn’t surprising that the Census is going all-out. Large bureaucracies, in this view, make sustaining themselves and increasing their responsibilities their primary goal. Few agencies deal more intimately with paperwork than the Census bureau, the people tasked with collecting basic information on every American, filing it, and tabulating the hell out of it. The paper-pushers for the Census clearly have the most to gain in a professional sense by sending out these mailers, trolling for as much paper to play with as possible during those lean years not ending in zero.
The difference between me and libertarians is that they find this paper agglomeration wasteful and sinister. I kind of think it’s adorable.
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