Doug Casey on the Census

(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator

L: Hi Doug, what’s on your mind?

Doug: Government bean counters. Last week we spoke of the government treating citizens like cattle – well, it’s now the season for the U.S. government cowboys to count up the herd. I want to encourage a little civil disobedience.

L: Ah. The census. What did you do when they came a-knockin’?

Doug: Fortunately, since they started sending out the forms, I’ve been in countries that are a little freer in that regard – Argentina and Uruguay. To my knowledge, neither has a census, actually.

But I should start with an apology to readers of The Casey Report, because much of what I want to say is the substance of an article we just published in the current issue of that newsletter. I feel a significant reluctance to diminish the exclusivity paying subscribers to The Casey Report should enjoy, but I think this may be more important than most people realize, and if I don’t say anything now, it’ll be too late for another ten years. And there really aren’t any hot stock picks related to this topic, so I won’t be giving away any investments that TCR subscribers have paid to take advantage of.

So, I hope TCR subscribers will grace this with a little indulgence, and we can chalk this one up to good karma.

L: No harm, no foul.

Doug: That’s how I generally prefer to play the game... Anyway, most everyone has a decision to make in the next little while. Namely, whether they’re going to cooperate with the census. So I hope subscribers will let me skate on this one, for the greater common good.

L: Okay then. But before we get into the why and how of non-cooperation with the census, do you happen to know what the penalty for non-compliance is?

Doug: I did look that up, but I have to say that I’m not a lawyer – thank God – and am not giving anyone any legal advice. That said, it’s my understanding that up until the last census in 2000, there was a $100 fine for refusing to comply. And I read that the last time the government prosecuted anyone was in 1960, and then only two people were fined. But this time around, they’ve upped the ante and you’re theoretically subject to a fine of up to $5,000.

L: Maybe they are hoping people will refuse to comply in droves so they can fine them – it could be a back-handed way to try to make up for the budget shortfall.

Doug: [Chuckles] Well, in the immortal words of Baby Bush, “Bring it on.” But yes, as with any form of civil disobedience, there is always some risk involved. For all I know, census takers have been asked to record their opinions of the attitudes they encounter. If you seem particularly uncooperative, maybe they put you on a list. But at this point, I really don’t give a damn. The NSA, among other agencies, is well known to have giant buildings full of computers tapping and recording all sorts of electronic communications; they probably already monitor your emails and telephone calls with an eye to whether you have an attitude problem.

It’s probably not even possible to count all the lists you might be on, similar to, but less obvious than, the TSA’s infamous “no-fly” list. Everyone is probably on a bunch of lists already, so one more likely won’t matter.

L: It occurs to me, Doug, that there’s actually a valuable service you provide to our readers that they may not be aware of: you’re our coal mine canary. As outspoken as you are, if you can keep flying in and out of the country interacting with officialdom as you go, and not be arrested, I figure the rest of us lower-profile troublemakers are pretty safe. Once they arrest you at the border for making a joke or resisting a grope, we’d better all watch out.

Doug: That thought has crossed my mind, but if it’s so, it only underlines how incompetent these people are. I’m happy, but more than a little shocked, to say that I’ve never had any trouble with any of these agencies.

L: [Laughs] I’m not superstitious, my friend, but you’d better knock on wood.

Doug: [Laughs] Yes, speak of the devil… and he might appear. But when you reach a certain stage in life, you should basically imitate Admiral Dewey: “Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead.” It’s just not worth the damage to my ego to be intimidated by these bastards. Gotta go for the gusto. On the other hand, spending most of my time out of the U.S. as I do, perhaps it’s just a case of “out of sight, out of mind.”

L: Perhaps so, but you’d think that if they’re actually doing anything with all these lists they’re building, these conversations would get you on them.

Doug: Well, just the other night I was talking with a friend of mine who used to work for one of the most nefarious of these agencies, and he was telling me about the truly gargantuan piles of data the U.S. government is accumulating on… everybody. And actually this problem could be its own solution, because the more they bury themselves in information, the less they know what to do with it. A thimble of information is something they can digest, an ocean drowns them.

L: That makes sense, for now, but I wonder if it’s a bit naïve, in the face of the accelerating pace of technological change. Moore’s Law. They may not be able to crunch all that data now, but as computers get ever faster and more sophisticated, there will come a day when every single bit of information the U.S. government has in all its files today will be a triviality to sort through in seconds. If that.

Doug: You may be right. But if so, that only highlights the importance of dragging your feet when it comes to ever-increasing demands for information from the state.

L: Okay then, but what about the Constitution? As an anarchist, I know you don’t necessarily consider yourself bound by it, but does it matter to you at all that the census actually is one of the things the Constitution gives the U.S. government the legal authority to do?

Doug: Well, first, legal authority is not moral authority. Second, the part of the Constitution that’s important to me is the Bill of Rights, which actually protects the citizens against the government. The rest of it is pretty much minutiae about who gets to be president of the senate, how electoral districts should be gerrymandered, etc.

L: Hm. I rather like the bit in Article One, Section 8, that states that all powers not specifically given to the federal government in the Constitution are reserved to the states and the people. That’s the part that says that the federal government has no authority to require people to buy medical insurance, or any of the host of other things they do in blatant disregard of the Constitution.

Doug: Well, they overlook absolutely anything that’s inconvenient – like the part that says only gold and silver are to be used as money, or only the Congress can declare a war, and a dozen other important things. And the Bill of Rights is a dead letter. We’ll have to do one of these conversations deconstructing the document some day. In any event, they only observe the trivia, basically Robert’s Rules of Order stuff, about how they run Congress. The census falls in that category. It’s now as if the Constitution was about nothing other than how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – as meaningless as it is useless.