By: Zachary Newkirk and Jacob Arem

On September 13, 2009, a body was found in rural southeastern Kentucky, hanged in a cemetery, naked, and with bound hands and feet. The deceased person was identified as Bill Sparkman, a U.S. Census worker. Disturbingly, it seems that the victim was targeted because of his participation in administering the census; he was found with the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest. Is this horrific act of violence a single isolated incident or the beginning of a violent anti-government campaign?

Bill Sparkman, 51, was a single father who worked both as a substitute teacher and a census worker in order to support himself and his 19-year-old son. He battled Non-Hodgkins Lymphona, a type of cancer. He persevered through the disease and earned his teaching certificate. His brutal murder was met with horror in the local community and prompted the Census Bureau to halt door-to-door interviews for the time being in Clay County, where the body was found.

Why was this man killed? Why would a single father who works two jobs have to fear for his life as he does his duty for the census? The prospect of increased anti-federal government violence is a very frightening possibility. It was strong in the 1990s and abated for most of the 2000s as control in Washington shifted from one political party to another. The most infamous and certainly the most horrifying incident of anti-federal government violence was of course the 1995 Oklahoma City Federal Building bombing by Timothy McVeigh in which 168 people were killed and nearly 700 injured.

To some, even members of agencies as apolitical as the census bureau can be viewed as “the government,” and therefore evil. In this extreme case, the census worker was punished for being a representative of “the government”.

There are those among the left who wish to attribute the murder of Bill Sparkman to right-wing demagogues such as Rush Limbaugh, and the new darling of the conservative movement, Glenn Beck. There may be merit in that but the root may lay much deeper in the antipathetic relationship of many Americans, particularly rural Americans, with the federal government. However, on the surface, if you watch these hateful programs on Fox News – and you probably hardly do if you are reading this publication – then you may be shocked at the amount of abhorrence that these so-called pundits spout.

To them, and to millions of ill-informed Americans, Barack Obama represents fearful possibilities, such as the loss of their guns to federal agents and their grandparents to death panels. Into this fear-mongering storm of hate stepped a white man, a census worker who had moved to Kentucky for the sake of helping Boy Scouts and with aspirations to be a math teacher. How dare he do his Constitutionally-mandated job that is done for the purpose of figuring out how many representatives the state of Kentucky can send to the House of Representatives? His punishment was to be stripped naked, bound with duct tape and hanged in a remote part of rural Kentucky to be discovered only days later.

Perhaps his death was caused by an ill-informed criminal hoping to do justice to this country by ridding itself of an evil servant of the Census Bureau. Too many conspiracy theories exist about the census and it is unfortunate that some elected officials not only do not deny them but seem to perpetuate them. Take Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), who said that there was a link between the census and Japanese internment camps during World War Two, and hinted at the possibility of using the census in the future for more internment camps.

Commentator Neil Boortz said once that the census “is designed to help the government steal from you in order to pass off your property to the moochers. They're looters.” Classy, Neil. Even more ludicrous is the claim that President Obama is aiming to indoctrinate schoolchildren to collect census information. It would be cuter, anyway. And perhaps most ridiculous is the claim, made by Douglas V. Gibbs of the American Daily Review, that the census is aimed at giving information to United Nations personnel so they can round people up once Obama lets foreign soldiers occupy the United States. Silly conspiracy theories aside, the possibility of a future wave of violence is a serious problem. The tense emotions in town hall meetings, normally very dry and bland places to be, are representative of the tense emotions running among some segments of society. The threat is real and it will not subside for quite some time.

This senseless act of violence should serve as a reminder of the dangers of extremism and the national response to this murder should be a turn toward moderation.

Left or right, pro-government or not, be aware that others have different opinions. Respect one another and do not use political or ideological differences as justification for hostility or even violence. That being said, we should mourn Bill Sparkman as a man who died in his own line of duty and honor his legacy through making sure acts like this never happen again.