Why Are Republicans WRONG about EVERYTHING?

During the health-care debates of 2009, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) brought a poster on the House floor: “The Republican Health Care Plan: Die Quickly.” In the summer of 2012, when Obamacare was threatened by a presidential election, writer Jonathan Alter argued that “repeal equals death. People will die in the United States if Obamacare is repealed.” Columnist Jonathan Chait wrote recently that those who may die are victims of ideology — “collateral damage” incurred in conservatives’ pursuit “of a larger goal.” If these are the stakes, many liberals argue, then ending Obamacare is immoral.

Except, it’s not.

In a world of scarce resources, a slightly higher mortality rate is an acceptable price to pay for certain goals — including more cash for other programs, such as those that help the poor; less government coercion and more individual liberty; more health-care choice for consumers, allowing them to find plans that better fit their needs; more money for taxpayers to spend themselves; and less federal health-care spending. This opinion is not immoral. Such choices are inevitable. They are made all the time.

Tucker Carlson said on Fox that more children die of bathtub drownings than of accidental shootings. They don’t.

Leonard Pitts should do better research.

Instead of celebrating what many conservatives had hoped would be a moment to put Democrats on the defensive over the difficult question of terminating late-term pregnancies, Republicans again found themselves drawn into a debate about whether their party was being unsympathetic to women who have been raped.

Some Republicans expressed dismay that they were grappling with a familiar situation: how to fix another self-inflicted political wound. It has been a bumpy beginning for the new Congress. In the House, the year started with 12 Republicans voting against Mr. Boehner for speaker. Last week there was another divided vote over ending legal recognition for immigrants who entered the country illegally, many of them as children. “Week 1, we had the vote for the speaker. Week 2 we debated deporting children. Week 3 we’re debating rape and incest,” said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania. “I just can’t wait for Week 4.”

How many of the drownings in your link took place in a bathtub? According to the CDC, less than 20% of child drownings are in bathtubs.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6119a4.htm

In 2002 the CPSC reported 69 cases of bathtub drowning.
https://suite.io/jenny-evans/1v7h2k1

Your link shows 167 firearm accidental deaths in 2002.

Looks like Leonard Pitts does OK with research, no?

Edward, I don't think you're a maroon. The CDC just had a graph, I would interpolate their graph to be between 10 and 15%. The hard numbers I found for bathtub drownings was the number posted above for 2002, significantly less than the firearm deaths in you link for 2002.

Maybe by basing my thinking on only one year's worth of data I'm the maroon.