Not Just the Bullshit
Let’s call it the Bullshit de luxe instead. Tamara Wilhite (born Stagmatilhite) writes:
According to the Census Bureau, “The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million”. Does anyone else notice the similarity to the number of illegal immigrants supposed to cross our border per year?
Really stupid people often have many letters in their names. So does Tamara. Does anyone notice the similarity? Let’s continue:
Let us assume that the number of illegals coming in is a mere 1 million a year. Then 77% of the rise in poverty and 71% of the rise in the uninsured is merely from the addition of these illegal immigrants.
If you’re keeping score at home (whether you are doing so through back of the envelope calculations or the equally popular lion’s share method,) Tamara has just stated that 100% of illegal immigrants live in poverty. She has so much more to say though. So. Much. More.
Since many legal immigrants are college educated or came here for education, we cannot assume that a majority of legal immigrants are here in poverty. [Emphasis added.]
You can tell that whatever motivated Tamara (or her parents) to come to the US, it wasn’t education. And since only 27% of Americans aged 25 and over had a college degree in 2003, we can assume that 73% of Americans live in poverty. Hoozah!
It’s funny (in a wingnut, I write what I think, not what is factually accurate sort of way,) that Tamara goes to such great lengths with her mathematical proofs when she could have gone to the Center for Immigration Studies (a conservative DC outfit,) which has done what Tamara did, except they didn’t just pull the numbers out of their asses:
In 1999, 11.2 percent of natives (compared to 16.8 percent of all immigrants) lived in poverty. […] Our estimates indicate that of the three million illegal aliens from Mexico, 972,000 (33 percent) live in poverty […]
Isn’t it supposed to be 100 percent? Or at least the lion’s share? More? ok:
The high poverty rate associated with immigrants is not explained by the presence of illegal immigrants. Although their poverty rate is high, illegal aliens comprise only an estimated 22.5 percent of persons in immigrant households living in poverty in 1997. … the overwhelming majority of people in poverty living in immigrant households are legal immigrants or the U.S.-born children of immigrants[.]
Oops!
If we solved the immigration problem by shipping everyone back, our poverty rate drops by a third. It’s not a politically correct solution. It might [sic] not even be a practical solution. But it would be a real solution by the numbers.
Pray for us, baby Jesus. Then again, maybe that won’t be necessary after all:
Tamara Wilhite is an engineer by day, a wife and mother by night, and writes science fiction in the wee hours to help keep her sanity.
Science fiction? Looks like the joke’s on us.
Thanks to The Dark Window for the link.
“Isn’t it supposed to be 100 percent? Or at least the lion’s share?”
Technically speaking, “the lion’s share” IS 100%. Usage has taken it to mean simply the ‘largest share,’ but the original meaning was ALL.
Based on an old saying, which I have put into a quatrain:
One-third I claim as mine by right of the kill,
One-third is due to me as ‘king of beasts.’
As for the rest, dispute it with me who will.”
Thus the “lion’s share” is all whene’er he feasts.
… Actually, I know that common usage (“lion’s share” = “most”) will win out, but accuracy in language is occasionally useful.
Ed
Good work, Ed.
Hahaha. But why would a wing-nut ever want accuracy in language if they are rarely accurate in anything else?
Tamara Wilhite . . . writes science fiction in the wee hours to help keep her sanity.
Is it working? Sadly, No!
Dearest Seb, how can I make fun of Kerry Marsala claiming that Kerry had a “hot past buddy”, if you keep writing things like “Pray for us baby Jesus”?
Comma before a direct address, Seb.
Oh, now I remember – wasn’t Marsala the one who claimed she didn’t care about grammar precisely cause it bugs liberals?
Hey, Sadly, did I miss something? Isn’t there an even more basic problem here?
> “The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million”. Does anyone else notice the similarity to the number of illegal immigrants supposed to cross our border per year? >
Do “illegal immigrants” automatically become “Americans” when they cross the border?
I mean, strong work in pulling up the Census info, the actual statistics, etc but I’m a reporter who covers the White House, so I’m lazy, and I would have stopped at what looks to me to be a glaring internal contradiction that pretty much sinks this garbage argument.
No? Did I miss something?
Comma before a direct address, Seb.
It was the jetlag! Have mercy, John!
Even if you assumed she weren’t a complete idiot and hadn’t completely misunderstood the numbers she was looking at as well as Econ 101, her proposal is still really creepy. Basically it boils down to “Ship all of the poor people across the border. They’ll still be poor but at least we won’t have to look at them any more.”
I have always believed that Lion’s Share refers to “whatever the lion wants” (he is king, after all!)….. could be 100 percent, could be the largest part, could be the tastiest part, could be whatever he’s in the mood for….. Doesn’t this make some sort of sense?