Lying with Statistics

Eleven percent of the population of Mexico is in the United States illegally. Did you hear me? Eleven percent! Well, I think the math is right. I mean, the population of Mexico is 106 million, and there are supposed to be twelve million illegals here, almost all Mexican … but maybe Mexico doesn’t count them, so it really should be 118 million … or maybe it does count them, so there’s actually only 94 million in Mexico. God, confusing, isn’t it. But they don’t count here, I think, so the 296 million Americans is accurate, I think. But maybe it’s 308 million, um, people in America. Or maybe it’s 284 million real Americans, and then these 12 million other illegal people.

But something around 10% of Mexicans seem to have sneaked over our, um, border. I guess a border is just an imaginary line on a map, a sort of gentlemen’s agreement, and not an actual geophysical phenomenon, or some sort of enforceable geopolitical reality. Good thing we’re not serious about it, though, because it could really get ugly, if we decided to think it was an actual for real border, like with passports and laws and stuff.

How ugly? Well, Joe R. Hicks, again, writes, “A 2005 Pew Hispanic Center survey on attitudes toward immigration, conducted in part in Mexico, found that an estimated 70 million adults in Mexico would come to the U.S. if they had the means and the opportunity. About half of those said they would be willing to move to and work in this country illegally. The study also found that 35% of Mexican college graduates want to come to the U.S., even if that means they would have to work at a job below their qualifications — and many also said they'd be willing to come illegally.”

Um. Uh. So, like literally two thirds of Mexicans want to be in America. No, wait! - that's like all the Mexicans - all the adult Mexicans. Seventy million - there must be 36 million kids in Mexico, I'd suppose. That's ugly - a depopulated Mexico, abandoned except for all the kids. And such a noise of weeping ... at least from the kids ... the adults would be celebrating up north, maybe outside city hall. How crappy must Mexico be, that no adult wants to be there? Even a third of the educated people, the ones with real opportunity and chances for success - that tiny little fraction - want to be here. And these people are racist for themselves, over this? Well, no, that’s not it, of course. It isn’t that Mexico is crappy. As not-American countries go, it’s okay. It’s just that it isn’t America.

You’d think they’d be more respectful, though, right? Since they don’t want to be there, and are lucky enough to have gotten away with sneaking over the border, here. Maybe their racism for themselves warps the mind, so they can’t think straight. Ah well. It’s a mystery.

And me? Well, I kid, because I love.

J