Letter from a Marine Wife

Last week Dana Milbank, the Washington Post's most visible liberal hack, wrote that he was surprised to find that despite warnings from conservative talk personalities and tea partiers that the census was designed to invade privacy, et.al, more people from conservative areas sent in their census forms than did "democrat" voting areas. My letter to Milbank, published today in the Washington Post, is below:

You can count on conservatives

Regarding Dana Milbank’s April 11 Sunday Opinion column, “Conservatives come to their census”:

’Tis a puzzlement why Mr. Milbank doesn’t get us. I’m talking conservatives, libertarians et al. who may or may not have been “party to” the Tea Party but who oppose current administration policies and the roughshod processes of government.

We are a reliable lot, and we tend to do responsible things — such as sending in our completed census documents — whether or not we’ve heard the “rumors” about the “dire” uses of the data collected “against us.”

Mostly, we’re educated, thoughtful people and, having read the census questionnaire, we gathered that — except that its composers didn’t much care about anyone except Hispanic folks — there wasn’t much in it to fear. Dadgum, huge numbers of us filled it out and sent it back pronto!

Shocking that the compliance in “blue” areas ranks below “red” voting constituencies. That’s how it goes with us normal, run-of-the-mill Americans, Mr. Milbank. We don’t take our marching orders from anybody. Though, I admit, we give long shrift to the words of men like Washington, Jefferson, et.al.

Susan P. Clifton

Posted with her permission