A friend of mine recently emailed me, and mentioned that a relative of his in Australia sent him a bunch of "statistics" regarding the impact of immigration in the US. Well, at least so far as its anti-Mexican aspects go. He asked if I knew of any way to counter those arguments.
So I merely googled the first statistic stated:
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"95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens"
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(try it; I would try to paste the screen capture here, but I think it would clog the internet tubes)
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In all my googling days I have never scored 100% with a phrase: following the first indented entry that referenced malkin, every single result referenced the same study, done by Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute. All on different websites.
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A pretty impressive showing that one person's research can turn up all over the place. No surprise someone's cousin halfway around the world has it at his fingertips. And sure, I realize that the purpose of thinktanks is to produce research to influence policy. I realize that statistics are dependent on methodlogy, and can be convincing enough to the point where the innocent reader might ponder that his/her next blood tranfusion will likely come from a turnip.
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Despite that I have no talent for analyzing statistics, this one gave me a big gut waitaminute
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I've lived in California for the past 24 years. I cannot tell you all the things I have heard attributed to "Mexicans" The "heartbreak of psoriasis" is about the only thing for which they haven't been blamed.
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The presence of Mexicans in this state does not mean the citizens have some concious familiarity with them. Once when working in a hospital in Santa Barbara, I called Medical Records to get an old chart on a patient who was just admitted.
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MOI: I need a chart on Jose Alvarez, DOB: blahblahblah
My call is returned:
Medical Records: No old charts for Jose Fernandez.
MOI: It's Jose Alvarez.
Medical Records: Sorry, I'll call you back.
My call is returned:
Medical records: Ok, no old charts on Jose Gonzales..
(At any rate, due to the "professional" environment I was in, I could not utter my first response: "You know, these names are not interchangeable.....")
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The other thing that occurs to me is:
Is this the same LAPD that never arrests African Americans on false charges? (yes, I know it's county vs. city, but LA is one big chunk of the county)
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So I just do not buy it. For all I know, they are including warrants for someone named Chavez, that erroneously went out the first 4 times under the names of Gonzales, Martinez, Lopez and Alvarez.