Jardine, charming as usual I see.
Sometimes we have to do things we don't like to do, like filling in census papers...and interacting with you.

No one likes paying taxes, but we do it for the good of Australia and its people, so completing a census paper is not too much to ask reasonable people.
You can always fill it with 'c##p if you really object.

Hi Suse,

I can't recall any questions on previous Census forms which were too intrusive - if anything, I was a bit pissed off that the questions asked were so few, and so superficial. I would have been quite happy to tell them a lot more if they'd only asked.

For instance - given my obsession with Indigenous higher education - I would love to know what general qualification (primary school, secondary school, university qualification) did the parents of an Indigenous graduate have, because I think that quite a high proportion of today's 16,000 Indigenous university students and 40,000 graduates have graduate parents, or at least one. That sort of thing.

And, as you say, if you don't like a question, you can always fudge it, so I'm told.

Cheers,

Joe

Susie, dishonest as usual I see.

If you weren't aware that it's morally wrong to force and threaten people to get what you want, you wouldn't have tried to deny and minimise and justify it when confronted with what you're doing.

Precious of you to be offended by words, when they only point out that you advocate people being physically attacked and threatened and harassed, for the grand high purpose of you doing family history.

And presumably you're fine with any other group or person getting any information they want in the same way?

Dear Suse,

<<Why is answering a few questions such a trauma?>>

Well, if we were all rational beings like yourself then the world would have been such a boring place. In the case I mentioned, the person was highly sensitive and superstitious while the very insensitive pollster, in the particular way she came after dark and the threatening language she used, gave her the scare of her life and made her flee her home.

<<I just don't see why filling in census forms is such a drama though...>>

For most people, having sex is not a big drama, but when one is made to do it under threats, it suddenly becomes such a big deal... How irrational of us - isn't it the exact same activity?

Then of course there are those who took a vow of celibacy - and others who took a vow of silence.

<<You can always fill it with 'c##p if you really object>>

Take the case of Swami Kripalvananda: he was so keen on the principle of 'Satyam', or truthfulness, and so disgusted by his own failing at it due to the inaccuracy of his own everyday statements, that he made a vow and remained silent for the last 18 years of his life. This allowed him to reach the highest union with God just before he died. Now imagine what horror it would be for him if he lived in Australia and had to fill the census, in which it's so easy to tell a slight-untruth when none of the options fits exactly!

For you it may not matter, you seem to not even care if 100 years later you discovered incorrect information about your grand-grandmother who did the 'c##p thing, but for someone who devoted his life to perfect their avoidance of lying, that's devastating.

Well if we all refused to answer the questions on the annual tax form; 'nuff said!