Federal Snoopervisers on My Doorstep

The U.S. Census Bureau -- in the person of Virginia, a mild-mannered lady with an official government I.D. hanging around her neck -- showed up on my doorstep yesterday. Lucky me: I have been statistically selected to "participate" in an "interview" known as the American Community Survey.

"There is a great need for information about the types of homes in which people live and the characteristics of these homes," says the postcard that Virginia left with me. The interrogation...oops, "survey"...will eat up about 45 minutes of my ever-diminishing time on this planet, and I will be "asked" all sorts of questions about my house, my sources of income, where I shop, what I buy...you know, all the sorts of intrusive details that the Founding Fathers surely intended when, in the Constitution, they provided merely for "an enumeration" of the population every ten years.

"Your community is counting on you!" the postcard blares on its front, stamped in big black letters over a photo of the kind of house that Beaver Cleaver lived in during the 1950s. And just in case I disappoint the expectations of My Community, there's a little detail that the postcard doesn't state: I can be fined $5,000 for refusing to spill my guts to Virginia about all the personal aspects of my life and finances.

So, who wants all this info, and for what?

Well, the federales surely do: It provides statistical ammo for those "progressives" always looking for rationalizations to expand governmental programs and spending that are already wildly out of control. "The government makes investments and allocates tax dollars with guidance from a survey that costs $225 million this year, with the resulting shaping choices and projections made by the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Transportation Department among others," reports The Fiscal Times. That's why (according to a publication called Government Executive) "the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress" and "the Census Project, a coalition of 600 associations, think tanks, academics, local officials and civil rights groups" is fighting congressional efforts to restrict the Census to the "enumeration" intended by the Framers.

Also, private businesses mine the Census for free economic and demographic data that they otherwise might have to pay for by conducting surveys of voluntary  participants. That's why such crony-corporatist outfits as "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, and the Mortgage Bankers Association have previously lobbied to protect the ACS," according to The Fiscal Times, "saying it’s vital for shaping business investment. As an example, the ACS contains 24 questions about housing. This includes the age of your home, its plumbing, its insurance costs, and the type of heating fuel used. For bankers and economists trying to evaluate the state of the real estate sector after the 2008 bust, it’s essential information."

How nice for them to get all that, by ordering me by law to be interrogated for 45 minutes under the threat of a $5,000 fine -- and, I assume, incarceration should I refuse to pay the fine.

Virginia is supposed to call me at 5:30 pm today. I will tell her, politely, to tell her bosses that Mr. Bidinotto refuses to participate other than affirming the number and identity of the people in his home; and that he looks forward to the opportunity to write high-profile articles about all of this, naming names, should the Census Bureau decide to prosecute him for non-compliance.

Oh, and have a nice day.

Margaret Thatcher, R.I.P.

 

I've been watching the news coverage about the life and legacy of the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher. And I am struck by how applicable her example is to our own situation here in the United States.

When she launched her political crusade, entrenched all-out socialism permeated and gripped every part of Great Britain's economy and political life. Unapologetic communists ran the trade unions, which held a stranglehold on many industries. The economy languished in deep recession. The public was demoralized, adjusted to the "new normal" of British decline. When she spoke, her message was reviled and ridiculed by all of her nation's "intellectuals," culturati, and media -- a hatred that was echoed here, across the Pond. And her own party was run by people who would make John McCain sound like Ludwig von Mises (look him up). She had no firm allies, no base of support.

But this one woman, the daughter of a grocer, armed with nothing but superb intelligence, a thorough grasp of free-market economics, and an unyielding commitment to moral principle, stood up courageously against them all...and she won. Not only did she eventually beat all of her opponents, including treacherous "allies" in her own party, but she turned around the entire British economy, government, and -- most importantly -- its Narrative about itself and its place in the world.

One woman. The Iron Lady. An instructive example of the power of a principled individual against the mindless mob.

If a single Republican politician grasped the message of her life, I have no doubt that he or she could turn our own nation's wretched course 180 degrees. For here, we have a legacy of individualism unknown to Europe.

Our "progressive" left, of course, wants to convince us that its ascendancy is inevitable. They want to paralyze all opposition, leaving us in despair and defeatism, to pave the way for their complete takeover of our lives. In fact, they believe this fantasy. Committed determinists, Marxists smugly declared that communism was "the wave of the future"...

...until the wave turned, and swept them away. The left would not grasp, still refuse to grasp, that "waves" of history are set in motion by the undeniable force of pivotal individuals unwilling to bend to the tides of stupidity.

Will we find our own Thatcher in coming years? Will a Marco Rubio, or Rand Paul, or some figure yet unknown step up to fill the moral vacuum of our age, and lead a rebirth of liberty?

I do not know. All I do know is that Margaret Thatcher showed how much is possible.

Now, we shall discover whether America still has men who can match this brave, towering woman in intelligence and unbending conviction.

An "Endangered Species Act" for Ex-Cons?

The federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EOEC) has made it a federal crime for an employer to "discriminate" against hiring certain "protected" classes of convicted ex-felons, unless the employer jumps through all sorts of hoops of justification.

In fact, it is easier for the employer to refuse to hire an ex-con who happens to be white; however, he has to leap ever-higher legal hurdles of justification if the convicted former felon happens to be a member of a "protected" minority.

Folks, I am not making this up. Eminent legal scholar Richard Epstein offers this long article about this particular symptom of "progressive" insanity. Writes Epstein:

With the [EOEC's] Enforcement Guidance [document], all private employers and all state employers must use detailed and particularized inquiries before turning down a minority applicant who has a criminal arrest or conviction on his record, even though employers can turn down a white applicant with the same past record without going through such hoops.

You can read that EOEC "Enforcement Guidance" document for yourself. Here is an excerpt from Section V (my translation of bureaucratese is in brackets):

A covered employer is liable for violating Title VII [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act] when the plaintiff [i.e., the ex-con seeking a job] demonstrates that the employer’s neutral [that means NON-discriminatory] policy or practice [of hiring] has the effect of disproportionately screening out a Title VII-protected group [i.e, someone regarded as "protected" due to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin] and the employer fails to demonstrate that the policy or practice is job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.

Translation: Even an employer who has a perfectly non-discriminatory policy and record regarding hiring minorities, but who refuses to hire some convicted ex-felon who just happens to be a member of one of the "protected minorities," may still be breaking the law...unless he first somehow manages to prove that even his neutral policy of refusing to hire ex-cons is required "for the position in question and consistent with business necessity."

Got that? The businessman is "guilty until proven innocent" for refusing to hire some guy who may have been convicted for robbery or violence...simply because the businessman hasn't proved that his policy against hiring thugs is "job-related."

But wait...it gets even worse. Section V continues: 

With respect to criminal records, there is Title VII disparate impact liability where the evidence shows that a covered employer’s criminal record screening policy or practice disproportionately screens out a Title VII-protected group and the employer does not demonstrate that the policy or practice is job related for the positions in question and consistent with business necessity. [my emphasis]

What does the EOEC mean by "disproportionately screens out a Title VII-protected group"? The document goes on, in Section V. A. 2, to grouse that "Nationally, African Americans and Hispanics are arrested in numbers disproportionate to their representation in the general population." That, you see, is prima facie evidence of how "unfair" things are in Racist America, folks. Never mind that members of these minority groups also are "disproportionately" responsible for committing far more crimes per capita than Caucasians do...which of course happens to explain their higher arrest and incarceration rates.

No, the "disproportionate" number of minorities behind bars is simply assumed to be unfair, per se. From the mere fact of these incarceration statistics, the EOEC's conclusion must be read slowly, to be understood and believed:

National data, such as that cited above, supports a finding that criminal record exclusions [from hiring] have a disparate impact based on race and national origin. The national data provides a basis for the Commission to further investigate such Title VII disparate impact charges. During an EEOC investigation, the employer also has an opportunity to show, with relevant evidence, that its employment policy or practice does not cause a disparate impact on the protected group(s). For example, an employer may present regional or local data showing that African American and/or Hispanic men are not arrested or convicted at disproportionately higher rates in the employer’s particular geographic area. An employer also may use its own applicant data to demonstrate that its policy or practice did not cause a disparate impact. [emphasis added]

What does this mean in practice? Take this example:

A local restaurant owner refuses to hire some Mexican gang member who's just been released from the slammer. The ex-con, because he is Hispanic, and thus a member of a "protected minority," files a complaint with the federal EOEC. The EOEC then investigates, looking for a "disparate impact" against minorities. The hapless small businessman may already have a number of other minority employees -- obvious evidence that he doesn't discriminate based on race or ethnicity. But that is not enough. Now he is also supposed to prove that his "practice does not cause a disparate impact on the protected group" -- Hispanics -- by somehow digging up "regional or local data showing that...Hispanic men are not arrested or convicted at disproportionately higher rates in the employer's particiular geographic area."

Leaving aside the outrageous reversal of the legal burden of proof -- leaving aside, too, the enormous cost to this small businessmen of hiring attorneys and jumping through all these egregious legal hoops -- who will subsequently bear liability for a massive lawsuit if he hires this former felon, and the thug then goes on to rape a fellow employee or swindle his clients?

Richard Epstein's excellent piece offers a detailed legal analysis of this ideologically driven absurdity, which can allow thugs to be hired as security guards and thieves as bank tellers...if they're demographically lucky enough to fall under the protections of this twisted, "progressive," racial/ethnic variation of the Endangered Species Act.