Become a Jedi Knight

[Private_Piles]

Got this e-mail today and thought it was quite amusing.
Sorry it isn't really relevant to this board but then again neither is having slagging matches with Americans or asking about sas books. So here goes:


" As some of you may know there is a census coming around on August the 7th. For those who don't know, a census is where the government gets your details like number of people in the house, religion, etc.
If there are enough people in the country, about 10 000, who put down the same religion, it becomes a fully recognised and legal religion. It is for this reason that it has been suggested that anyone who does not have a dominant religion put down "Jedi" as their religion. Don't worry, you can't get into any trouble. You're just helping to mess with the government in a small way. So send this on to all your friends and tell them to put down "Jedi" as their religion and we can have "Jedi Knights" running around. Yes, this is a Sci-Fi thing, but it will also **** with the government. So if not because you love Star Wars, then just to annoy the government....and annoying people is very important...

(Note: If you dont forward this to all your friends your skin will turn green like Yoda's - which may not be such a bad thing, young Jedi) "

______________________________________
May the force be with us on August 7th


[This message has been edited by Private_Piles (edited 04-07-2001).]

[zeroalpha]

Hehe,

Same thing happened in NZ last months census.

I am now officially a Jedi.

My the farce be with me.

[Tracy]

Piles,

After the weekend I just had, this post hit the spot. Good on you.

Ya' know, if it gets recognized as a religion, you all could do a Monty Python and walk around in Jedi Robes, doing a Gregorian chant, and smack yourselves with the script from Episode One every eighth beat...
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"Try not! Do or Do Not! There is no try!" -- Yoda.

[Marauder]

So when do you get your official issue Lightsaber (tm)? Hopefully it isn't made by the same company that produces the SA80 for youse guys. http://www.specialoperations.com/ubboard/wink.gif

[Paintman]

I'm passing this one around!

[DFC5343]

I prefer the darkside.

[Daredevil]

Well my Brit friends, I came across this article today. Looks like your little scheme won't work.

The 7 August 2001 Australia and 29 April 2001 United Kingdom censuses have afforded pranksters an opportunity to wreak a little mayhem by messing with the official results. E-mailed incitements to list "Jedi" as one's personal religion began appearing in inboxes in March 2001 with the incentive to do so offered as the living out of one's childhood dream of fighting for interstellar justice, light saber in hand.

Truth is, marking down "Jedi" isn't going to change a thing, least of all what officially gets considered a religion. The U.K.'s Office of National Statistics has confirmed the stunt will not work. "There won't be any coding for Jedi," a representative of the ONS said. "So it won't be called a religion even if 10,000 people do it." Besides, it is not up to the ONS to decide such a question. They may be an arm of the government, but it doesn't fall within their province to confer official status (whatever that might be) on a religion any more than it would be up to the Boy Scouts to designate New York City a national wildlife preserve.

The situation for hopeful Jedis in Australia is even more forbidding than it is in the U.K. Not only won't marking "Jedi" in the appropriate box gain official recognition for a non-existent religion, but the head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics census program, John Struik, has stated that anyone who falsely provides information on a census faces a $1,000 fine.

Mr. Struik said that a putative religion must demonstrate a formal organizational structure and a belief system to be recognized. "If we get 10,000 Jedis, they will go down as no official religion," he said. They might lose a thousand bucks each as well.

New Zealand weathered a similar Jedi incitement during its 6 March 2001 census. In an e-mail reportedly sent to thousands, Star Wars buffs encouraged New Zealanders to declare their religion as "Jedi", claiming if 8,000 did so it would be officially recognized, along with the others listed: Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, and Jewish. Once again, wishful thinking met up with cold reality: According to New Zealand census office representative Elizabeth Clements, there is no magic number that will put any religion on the list for official recognition.

So why are people so hot to participate in such a scheme? On the plus side, there's the fleeting joy of tweaking bureaucracy's nose and the possibility of momentarily revisiting childhood fantasies about saving the galaxy from the evil Darth Vader. The other side of the ledger, however, is considerable:


The premise of the call to arms is flawed; there is no official status to be gained. That part was purely the invention of the prankster who wrote the original letter.

Even if there were official status to be gained, none of these governments would be swayed by a number of yahoos writing "Jedi" into a blank space on their census forms. They'd want to see tangible proof of an organized and thriving religion before they handed out the brass ring.

At least in Australia, those who decide to take part in the leg pull are risking a $1,000 fine.

Demographic information gleaned from censuses is used to allocate funds in such a way that the identified needs of taxpayers are met, thus providing false information does everybody a disservice in that the funds don't go to the right places.

Marking "Jedi" on a form doesn't make anyone a Jedi any more than writing "I can fly" will turn that person into a bird. Religious belief is a matter of what's in your heart, not what you jestingly inscribe on an official-looking piece of paper.
It's natural that the very human resentment against having to provide a wealth of personal information to the deeply mistrusted government would spark a desire to screw with the process. Our chafing at having to be part of this enumeration finds expression in this "Let's all be Jedis!" nonsense; it's a way of at least feeling we're asserting a measure of control over a situation that otherwise makes us feel powerless. The census, as well, is seen as dehumanizing in that it appears to reduce each person's hard-won reality into a series of impersonal numbers and checkmarks. Messing with it thus becomes a way of taking back a measure of one's humanity.

But at what price? Accurate census information is vital if social programs are to be properly administered or even to determine where a particular service should be located. Giving whimiscal responses as a form of protest over feeling like a number might provide a momentary sensation of empowerment, but the long-term cost of such unthinking behavior is almost beyond reckoning, if enough people choose to engage in this form of acting out.

Luke Skywalker would not approve
-Barbara Mikkelson

[Marauder]

Eh, fooking killjoys, says I.

[zeroalpha]

Well Im still a Jedi, so there.

Nahnah nanahnah

[Private_Piles]

mesa not happy....

Yoda is reported to have issued the following statement, "rrrrmmmmmmmmmmmm much confusion I see.... rmmmmmmmmmmmm toilet I need rmmmmmmmm census form I use rmmmmmm."

[baboon]

Well I don't know about this Jedi thing but I'm sure one guy I know puts down " Northern Bulls " on these sort of forms (the poor sick bastard).