Posted on 02/08/2008 8:44:55 PM PST by Squawk 8888
After virtually ignoring happiness for more than 100 years, social scientists are making up for lost time. They're churning out hundreds of research papers on the subject each year. There are happiness conferences, a Journal of Happiness Studies, a World Database of Happiness. Happy, you might say, is the new sad.
All of this cogitating about contentment has revealed much about who's supposedly happy and who isn't. Most studies show that wealthy people are marginally happier than poor ones. People with pets or children are no happier than those without. People with active sex lives are -- surprise! -- happier than those without. No single morsel of happiness data, though, is more intriguing than this: Republicans are happier than Democrats.
A 2006 Pew Research poll found that 45 percent of Republicans describe themselves as "very happy," compared with only 30 percent of Democrats (and 29 percent of independents). This is a sizable gap and a remarkably consistent one, too. Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey, conducted biannually by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, began asking about happiness in 1972.
What to make of this finding? Is there something about being a card-carrying member of the GOP that induces a warm, fuzzy feeling, a sort of political Prozac? Or does the river of causality flow in the other direction: Are happy people more likely to become Republicans than Democrats? Or maybe neither explanation holds water and it only appears as if Republicans are happier than Democrats.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
My view:
Repubicans are happy becuase they read and understand history.
Our moments in the sun are great, but we also know that the bad times will pass. They always have.
Candidate for Quote Of The Day
Won’t happen. The Dems are chronically unhappy. They just feel soooo guilty that they will never feel true happiness.
couldn’t have said it better myself ;)
Life has to really suck being a Democrat. We know we are blessed.
It has to suck in ways that we can't even imagine.
THey have to be on the hunt for a constantly new crusade to sustain themselves.
They have to be constantly coming up with new lies in order to fit reality into their lead-colored glasses view of the universe. They have to come up with more lies in order to figure out how to gouge out a permanent 'just a little bit more' tax money to support their crusades.
They have to be constantly in motion, never able to take the time to be content and look at the beauty of the world around them. Never a chance to see the beautiful world as it is, instead of the dark side that their minds require.
Pitiable creatures, they.
Not surprising. The self-loathing of liberals and leftists is blindingly obvious - extends from their feelings about themselves to their feelings about the nation and society they live in.
Put me in the incredibly happy camp. Life is great.
WHEN it’s all about MEEEEEEE....it makes for a very unhappy life.....and that’s a liberal....takers, NOT makers. Self centered, control freaks.
You wouldn't know that from reading FR lately. ;)
< SNIP >
When you have to pretend that you believe that the Constitution actually matters while in fact you believe its language to be an obstacle to “social progress,” your language is not going to be as confident.
They despise the language of the Consitution but they can’t openly say it, so they are forced to call their organizaiton “the American Constitution Society.” They must playact. They can never, ever say what they mean. That’s why they sound unsure of themselves.
The lie, for all its power, always trembles in the face of truth.
8 posted on 07/08/2007 10:56:48 PM PDT by denydenydeny (Expel the priest and you don’t inaugurate the age of reason, you get the witch doctor—Paul Johnson) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1862843/posts?page=8#8
Happiness is knowing you’re right. ; )
I have the same thoughts whenever Stephen Harper does something I don’t like. Sure he’s not perfect, but warts and all I think history will judge him as our greatest PM since Laurier.
The D's got there first and it's the normal sort of vitriolic disgustingness that you'd find at DU.
One reason that I'm happy is that to me politics is a hobby. When I walk away from FR and other political sources, I have a life to live that I enjoy immensely.
If you read some of those comments, you'll see that Dems never put it to bed and enjoy themselves. I read with particular interest where one says that they moved to Canada because he hated R's.
I have politics in my life. Their lives are about politics.
We need one page of these that are fronts and, one page of these for the backs, that we can print and cut, to fill the prepaid envelopes from the RNC and the ACU.
There will be a price to pay for supporting McCain.
We can vote conservative on Senate and House primary seats, and vote for anyone other than McCain on the Presidential seat, including a democrat in the general election.
Yeah, but even the happiest people in the world get PO’d now and again :-)
I agree with what you said completely.
Couldn’t say it any better than #11 by Heartland of America.
But also i believe Republicans are happier because we are Realists and work harder at solving problems rather than just complaining about them.
Dems seem to be more idealistic and since the reality doesn’t measure up to their idealistic dreams, they are perpetually unhappy..Many think they are intellectuals because their ideal worlds-Utopias- are better than the real worlds we deal with. But that sort of thinking causes much stress in their lives, hence more unhappiness.
No surprise. Liberalism, socialism, communism — they are all based on the premise that nobody should have more of anything than anybody else. Ergo, everybody has to eventually share the misery. So, liberals are extremely unhappy that we haven’t reached the nirvana of everybody being equally poor and totally miserable (aka Soviet Union). It is a weird and destructive belief system.
I read with particular interest where one says that they moved to Canada because he hated R's.
LMAO that clown must be miserable now that the Conservatives are resurrecting the REAL Canadian values :-)
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