King David demanded a census of the people of Israel and Judah, one that 2nd Samuel 24 of the Bible states angered God so much that he sent a pestilence through Israel that killed 70,000 men. It was the census of the time that caused Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem where Mary gave birth to Jesus.

The western world saw a new form of census initiated in 1665 when Quebec and Nova Scotia conducted their own people counting. Iceland, Germany and Sweden followed in the mid-18th century, but it was not until 1790 that the U.S. conducted its first formal census. At that time U.S. Marshals took to horseback to count the 3.9 million residents of our new nation, something this country has done every ten years (a decennial census) since that time.

In 2000, the rate of return for census forms was 72%. To date, approximately 65% of census forms have been returned in the 2010 census. As census data is used to distribute approximately 400 billion dollars in federal aid, it should be obvious to every citizen of the need to insure that they are represented when this massive financial pie is carved up. Nevertheless, 600,000 census workers must take to the streets of America to gather information from those who simply neglected to fill out or intentionally chose not to return their household census forms. This extra work and labor will cost taxpayers 1.5 billion dollars, monies that surely could be put to better use, like, for example, to pay down the national debt, pay school teachers for our children, prop up social security, lower our taxes, etc.

The information gathered is for statistical use and not to identify illegal aliens or gun owners, or to further tax an overtaxed population. It is not conducted by “big brother,” and, in fact, is protected by law, specifically Title 13, a law that prohibits gathered information from non-census use. There will always be those that believe in massive government conspiracies, that the government is reading all of our mail and listening to all of our telephone conversations and otherwise watching our every move. In 1951 the U.S. Secret Service sought access to census information to aid them in the protection of then President Truman. They failed to get the access they sought as, according to Title 13, such information only becomes accessible (to citizens or government agencies) after 72 years.

Still mistrust of government continues and some see census takers as representatives of a government trying to uncover our personal information and use it somehow against us. For these fringe of the fringe, their right to remain silent extends to all aspects of their life, including the 10 census questions asked of them in their postage free envelop that they threw into the trash, or, more likely, ran through a shredder to insure the government agents who go through their trash on a daily basis can’t ID them as having disposed of a government form.

Census workers are warned about the potential violence that could be directed against them, this due to their employment or simply due to their being in potentially dangerous neighborhoods that historically have low rates of return of census forms. In 2000, for example, a Denver census taker was hijacked and stabbed, a Chicago worker was thrown down a flight of stairs, a California worker was grabbed and forced into her car when she lingered on a homeowner’s property, and in Indiana a worker was mauled to death by a pack of dogs.

When census worker Bill Sparkman’s nude body was found hanging from a tree in rural Kentucky last September, this with the word “fed” written on his chest and his census ID card taped to his head, many rightfully wondered if he too had become victim to the paranoia that exists concerning the upcoming census. Was he victim to the flames of distrust of government that are fanned daily by those with something to gain personally? There are always fear mongers who love to watch others jump into the emotional abyss that they or other far right or even far left wingers create and then back away from saying, “that’s not my fault!’ In the case of Sparkman, as I discussed at the time on The Ed Schultz Show, his death was believed by investigators then, as it is today, to be a sad suicide. The “crime scene” reflected the act of a challenged man who took his own life in a bizarre manner designed to afford his family access to his life insurance, this while creating a media fire storm concerning the circumstances of his death.

And while some in the media continue to feed the frenzy surrounding the census by “insightful” comments concerning what to do if a census worker approaches their home, others have taken up this very challenge. Recently a man in rural Idaho, a state that has seen many “fringe of the fringers” in the past, fired a shotgun near a census worker who merely attempted to deliver a census form the individual had apparently not sent in on his own. And while most census workers injured on the job can relate their injuries to automobile accidents and even heart attacks, some, unfortunately, will become victim to the very people they are attempting to help.

The bottom line is that the census is nothing new and nothing sinister. It is designed to insure, as best as possible, that the federal money pie is distributed as equably and fairly as possible among 310,000,000 Americans, and this can only be done if all surveyed answer the simple questions asked of them. Part-time census workers are just that, part-time citizens making roughly $15 per hour, many of which would otherwise be unemployed in these challenging times. If you are too lazy or too paranoid to fill out the census form, at least do your fellow citizens a favor: leave your gun mounted over your fireplace and don’t use it to intimidate or hurt someone who is only trying to help you and every other American get your “piece of the rock.”