Fuck the Republican Party.

[theresalwaysone]

Yeah but Forbes is such a liberal rag. A true conservative shouldn't read that crap.

Woa. Reading? We don't take kindly to folks like you 'round here.

[Alchemy]

Don't need critical thinking in Texas. Never have, never will.

[Miroir Noir]

[obzen]

WE AINT EVEN MAD

[TomAz]

Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

By ARTHUR C. BROOKS


WHO is happier about life — liberals or conservatives? The answer might seem straightforward. After all, there is an entire academic literature in the social sciences dedicated to showing conservatives as naturally authoritarian, dogmatic, intolerant of ambiguity, fearful of threat and loss, low in self-esteem and uncomfortable with complex modes of thinking. And it was the candidate Barack Obama in 2008 who infamously labeled blue-collar voters “bitter,” as they “cling to guns or religion.” Obviously, liberals must be happier, right?

Wrong. Scholars on both the left and right have studied this question extensively, and have reached a consensus that it is conservatives who possess the happiness edge. Many data sets show this. For example, the Pew Research Center in 2006 reported that conservative Republicans were 68 percent more likely than liberal Democrats to say they were “very happy” about their lives. This pattern has persisted for decades. The question isn’t whether this is true, but why.

Many conservatives favor an explanation focusing on lifestyle differences, such as marriage and faith. They note that most conservatives are married; most liberals are not. (The percentages are 53 percent to 33 percent, according to my calculations using data from the 2004 General Social Survey, and almost none of the gap is due to the fact that liberals tend to be younger than conservatives.) Marriage and happiness go together. If two people are demographically the same but one is married and the other is not, the married person will be 18 percentage points more likely to say he or she is very happy than the unmarried person.

The story on religion is much the same. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, conservatives who practice a faith outnumber religious liberals in America nearly four to one. And the link to happiness? You guessed it. Religious participants are nearly twice as likely to say they are very happy about their lives as are secularists (43 percent to 23 percent). The differences don’t depend on education, race, sex or age; the happiness difference exists even when you account for income.

Whether religion and marriage should make people happy is a question you have to answer for yourself. But consider this: Fifty-two percent of married, religious, politically conservative people (with kids) are very happy — versus only 14 percent of single, secular, liberal people without kids.

An explanation for the happiness gap more congenial to liberals is that conservatives are simply inattentive to the misery of others. If they recognized the injustice in the world, they wouldn’t be so cheerful. In the words of Jaime Napier and John Jost, New York University psychologists, in the journal Psychological Science, “Liberals may be less happy than conservatives because they are less ideologically prepared to rationalize (or explain away) the degree of inequality in society.” The academic parlance for this is “system justification.”

The data show that conservatives do indeed see the free enterprise system in a sunnier light than liberals do, believing in each American’s ability to get ahead on the basis of achievement. Liberals are more likely to see people as victims of circumstance and oppression, and doubt whether individuals can climb without governmental help. My own analysis using 2005 survey data from Syracuse University shows that about 90 percent of conservatives agree that “While people may begin with different opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages.” Liberals — even upper-income liberals — are a third less likely to say this.

So conservatives are ignorant, and ignorance is bliss, right? Not so fast, according to a study from the University of Florida psychologists Barry Schlenker and John Chambers and the University of Toronto psychologist Bonnie Le in the Journal of Research in Personality. These scholars note that liberals define fairness and an improved society in terms of greater economic equality. Liberals then condemn the happiness of conservatives, because conservatives are relatively untroubled by a problem that, it turns out, their political counterparts defined.

Imagine the opposite. Say liberals were the happy ones. Conservatives might charge that it is only because liberals are unperturbed by the social welfare state’s monstrous threat to economic liberty. Liberals would justifiably dismiss this argument as solipsistic and silly.

There is one other noteworthy political happiness gap that has gotten less scholarly attention than conservatives versus liberals: moderates versus extremists.

Political moderates must be happier than extremists, it always seemed to me. After all, extremists actually advertise their misery with strident bumper stickers that say things like, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention!”

But it turns out that’s wrong. People at the extremes are happier than political moderates. Correcting for income, education, age, race, family situation and religion, the happiest Americans are those who say they are either “extremely conservative” (48 percent very happy) or “extremely liberal” (35 percent). Everyone else is less happy, with the nadir at dead-center “moderate” (26 percent).

What explains this odd pattern? One possibility is that extremists have the whole world figured out, and sorted into good guys and bad guys. They have the security of knowing what’s wrong, and whom to fight. They are the happy warriors.

Whatever the explanation, the implications are striking. The Occupy Wall Street protesters may have looked like a miserable mess. In truth, they were probably happier than the moderates making fun of them from the offices above. And none, it seems, are happier than the Tea Partiers, many of whom cling to guns and faith with great tenacity. Which some moderately liberal readers of this newspaper might find quite depressing.


Arthur C. Brooks is the president of the American Enterprise Institute and the author of “The Road to Freedom” and “Gross National Happiness.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/op....html?src=recg

[PotVsKtl]

Headline: Why X Is!
Article: Why is X?

[jackstraw94086]

That article is the sloppiest, most absurd load of horse shit I've read in months, and it's blowing up the internet. All based on one stupid study from UF. The survey questions were no doubt idiotic and leading, and the obvious half-witted analysis is boring. Here's the full paper. I tried to find the surveys but the data was apparently collected in a very piecemeal way from different studies over 27 years. I have no doubt that the surveys or methods of collecting data were geared towards a fairly narrow or traditional notion of happiness, with little thought towards a broader, more general notion of well-being. There isn't much comparitive analysis of liberal/conservative vs. age/class/income which is probably far more likely to be driving "happiness" as defined by these surveys. Chart that shit properly and I'll bet you'll find these idiots have a fallacy of causation on their hands. And their analysis of religiosity is fucking retarded. Of course people who are religious in a religious society would probably be happier. They're living the local definition of happiness so no shit they've convinced that they have happiness. I seriously doubt their findings would have been the same on that score if they polled folks in Scandanavia or places where religion is not necessarily the norm.

Of course people who "have it all figured out" would seem to be happier.
Basically what this study is confirming is "Ignorance is bliss" . kthnx University of Florida.

[TomAz]

Look how unhappy you are, jack.

[jackstraw94086]

you're not considering how much pleasure I derive from saying such things.

[TomAz]

I never see you smile any more, is the thing. You used to be so happy-go-lucky.

[jackstraw94086]

doth not the appetite alter?
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor?

[roberto73]

An excerpt from today's Rush Limbaugh show:

"Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie -- what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane? ... Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It's going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they're going to hear 'Bane' in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie -- 'Oh yeah, I know who that is.' There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think -- 'You're really underestimating the American people who think that will work.'"

Apparently he got tired of bashing the Muppets.

[stuporfly]

Reading Rush Limbaugh is nearly as perplexing as listening to him.

[java-do]

36hkec.jpg

[MissingPerson]

Republicans having gay affairs - will it ever stop being funny?

[Somewhat Damaged]

An excerpt from today's Rush Limbaugh show:

"Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie -- what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane? ... Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It's going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they're going to hear 'Bane' in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie -- 'Oh yeah, I know who that is.' There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think -- 'You're really underestimating the American people who think that will work.'"

Apparently he got tired of bashing the Muppets.

This is almost as stupid as that asshole in the movie thread a few months back who said the giant bat in Cabin in the Woods was meant to capitalize on the new Batman movie.

[java-do]

Republicans having gay affairs - will it ever stop being funny?

Wait..........wat?
I am still way too confused from that speech,to even process this story

[Miroir Noir]

This ran in the local paper yesterday, the day we commemorated the 165th anniversary of the Mormon pioneers entering the Salt Lake valley.



Edit: I shouldn't find this as funny as I do, but I can't believe that there's actually a fully-written Wikipedia article called "Mitt Romney dog incident."

[jackstraw94086]

An excerpt from today's Rush Limbaugh show:

"Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie -- what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane? ... Anyway, so this evil villain in the new Batman movie is named Bane. And there's now discussion out there as to whether or not this was purposeful, and whether or not it will influence voters. It's going to have a lot of people. This movie, the audience is going to be huge, lot of people are going to see the movie. And it's a lot of brain-dead people, entertainment, the pop culture crowd. And they're going to hear 'Bane' in the movie, and they are going to associate Bain. And the thought is that when they start paying attention to the campaign later in the year, and Obama and the Democrats keep talking about Bain, not Bain Capital, but Bain, Romney and Bain, that these people will think back to the Batman movie -- 'Oh yeah, I know who that is.' There are some people who think it will work. There are some people think it will work. Others think -- 'You're really underestimating the American people who think that will work.'"

Apparently he got tired of bashing the Muppets.

I really hope Rush manages to see the movie to put his own comments in context. And also because it's terrible.

[Miroir Noir]

[obzen]

Romney, it seems, will choose Paul Ryan as his VP running mate.

[obzen]

Romney probably could've gone center-right and their base probably would've turned out anyway; they detest Obama that much. He goes far-right.

[guedita]

the fucking fuck.

[TallGuyCM]

From what the media's saying, I gather that Romney is putting all of his eggs in Ryan's strong debating skills basket, hoping that that will somehow overshadow the Medicare stigma attached to him, budget stigma, etc.

This will be interesting, to say the least.

[gaypalmsprings]

[gaypalmsprings]

[TomAz]

Usually candidates select a VP who will help them win the election by attracting voters they would not have otherwise gotten. Instead, Romney concedes the center to Obama. This isn't as bad a choice as Palin but it's up there.

[mountmccabe]

There are some fiscal conservatives who will be excited by this. There will be those who were concerned about a Mormon president who will be happier with a Catholic VP (really, there must be some, right?) There are people more excited about Paul Ryan than Mitt Romney.

This isn't going to grab many who would have otherwise voted for Obama but it likely will grab some votes from people who otherwise would not have voted or would have gone third/fourth/etc party.

[TallGuyCM]

[obzen]

hahahaha