Census

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I have just finished filling in the census online. Now I often read folk complaining about the census, their complaint appearing to be that it implies an infringement of the 'liberty' and an imposition into their 'freedom' in some way. I often wondered why this would be as it appears rational in my mind for a government to wish to know who exactly is living within the borders. I have no complaints about this and fail to see why others ought to complain. I do however object to 'civil partnerships' being regarded alongside marriage, and found myself wondering about the 'Who will be there on Sunday night with you' question. Who on earth would wish to be here with me? Not counting the 'Masochist Maidens Group' obviously, but we will not go into that! Questions regarding who is in the house on a given date appear normal census stuff to me. Indeed it can be seen by some as an intrusion, however it is always possible to ignore a question that is too nosey or just put down a lie. 


However I did find myself a bit irked at being questioned about my life in this small way. It does indeed appear an intrusion although it falls far short of an imaginary 'Big Bother' ideal. There is a thin line between 'freedom' to live your own way and the needs of the society around us. Today especially the 'spirit of the air' encourages people in the west to demand their right to be an individual. This encourages selfishness and cutting people off from others leads only to a breakdown of society and a more uncaring world at all levels. This is seen around us today, based on 'individual liberty' but in the end leaving us with only ourselves and nothing else. I do not see that as good. 'Liberalism' appears to offer 'freedom' to be yourself but in the end just allows us to put our needs before another's, and then we can justify our 'self.' It is actually in putting others first that we become more 'our self,' although this is not easy as the 'self,' that centre of our being, dies hard!


It is amazing how we can object to an intrusion by the census but rarely consider the information a supermarket has on us. All our shopping trends for years past can be located on their servers, many government departments keep records of our contact with them, individual organisations also have info stored away, all secure, we are told, under the Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation. Only you know how much information the police have on you, I couldn't possibly comment. Should we worry about this? I am not to worried at the moment, however we can so easily be taken over by a draconian government and all this information would soon fall into their hands. Ten years can see many major political changes, who knows what the situation will be ten, twenty or thirty years hence?  I must be more careful next time I buy mince!


Many who do object to such population investigation satisfy their objections by inserting daft answers, such as 'Jedi' for religion therefore making this one of the nations fastest growing religions! It speaks much about such people that they wish to join a people who can build spacecraft the size of a planet but fight with swords rather than guns!  While the census will give an overall impression of the nation it cannot include those who willingly avoid it, illegal immigrants (10 million according to some at the 'Daily Mail.') criminals on the run (3 million according to the 'Daily Mail.'), legal immigrants who believe this will be used against them and have them classed as 'dangerous, (five mill....you get the picture...) and anyone too stupid to fill the thing in properly. We all know someone like that! What you looking at me for?  Anyway I have done mine so that those looking into their history in one hundred years time can find information about me and my life. Good luck to them I say!




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