Thursday, September 23, 2010

Attacking the Census

The same motive in every country it's happening:
Politicians are trying to kill the census in hopes of gaining an electoral advantage -- by wiping millions of opposition voters off the official rolls. There's nothing ideological going on; it's not a matter of economy or privacy or morality. (Indeed, if the roles were reversed and the undercounted leaned to the right, it's a very good bet that Labour and the Democrats would be the ones trying to kill the census.) It's merely a political dirty trick, a sleazy campaign to use phony numbers to rewrite reality. But it strikes at the heart of how our democracy -- and democracies around the world -- function. And once these censuses are dismantled, there will be no going back.

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