Census protest ends in fine

As you've probably heard, libertarian Nik Haden was fined severely for burning his census form in protest at the imposition on his privacy, and unilaterally promoted by TV3 to party leader. (You just can't trust these journalists, can you.)

Two decades ago, local Objectivist Bill Weddell ( a mentor of many present day Objectivists including Lindsay Perigo) took a similar principled stand against the census, although without the benefit of a warming fire. His statement to the court is worth studying by any student of freedom:

"In failing to comply with a government order to disclose private information concerning my private life and private property, my intention is not to flout the Law as such, but to lodge formal protest against the Statistics Act, and to register my rejection, on moral grounds, of the widespread practice of State expropriation of private property and related information under threat of forcible punishment.

"I hold, as a moral absolute, the conviction that in a civilised society all relationships between men must be voluntary; that compulsion abolishes morality altogether, and must be outlawed; that no man shall gain a value from another by the use or the threat of force; and that it is the only proper function of the Law to protect men against those who do.

"I have declined to plead or to offer any legal defence since the very existence of the Statistics Act abolishes objective justice, the only legal principle that could defend me. The Law as it stands arbitrarily declares the contradiction that guilt defined by Law can co-exist with and overrule provable innocence in objective reality.

"I do not regard my actions as a crime, but as an act of self-defence...

Read on here for Bill's full statement.