MAGI
03/01/06, 09:12 am
On this article, compliments of BuzzFlash:
If conservatives are so happy, why do they act so sad?
http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=52
I have a very hard time reading George Will's articles and CAN'T stand to look at or listen to him................as well as a few others............
last paragraphs of the article:
"Don’t worry, be happy!
Vote Republican!
And if a pollster calls tell them you’re as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory, because, after all, unhappiness (and the creative rebelliousness it may produce) is for losers.
That said, I can’t deny that some small “happiness gap” probably does exist between Democrats and Republicans (though nothing like the huge difference suggested by the Pew poll results). This would certainly be consistent with other polling results indicating that important demographic groups which tend to trend Republican, like married people, report greater happiness, on average, than comparable groups, such as single people, who trend more Democratic.
Besides, why not just come right out and admit it? Self-satisfied complacency probably is a happier state of mind, in many ways, than following the dictum of Edward Kennedy’s funeral tribute to the spirit of his recently assassinated brother, Robert, “Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask why not?”
But then that takes us to the unavoidable question, doesn’t it? Just what is this happiness thing?
And while we’re at it: Just how important is it anyway, when compared to other aspects of life?
Not wanting to dive too deeply into something this, well, deep, let me approach it this way: Ex-presidents are always a good source for metaphor. So, who do you think has had the “happier” ex-presidency, George HW Bush, who largely uses his time to cash in on his name and play golf, or Jimmy Carter, who travels the globe promoting world peace and an end to human suffering?
Obviously, there’s no way we can know. What we can know beyond any doubt, however, is which has been the more worthwhile.
And maybe that’s all the answer we need. "
If conservatives are so happy, why do they act so sad?
http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=52
I have a very hard time reading George Will's articles and CAN'T stand to look at or listen to him................as well as a few others............
last paragraphs of the article:
"Don’t worry, be happy!
Vote Republican!
And if a pollster calls tell them you’re as happy as a mouse in a cheese factory, because, after all, unhappiness (and the creative rebelliousness it may produce) is for losers.
That said, I can’t deny that some small “happiness gap” probably does exist between Democrats and Republicans (though nothing like the huge difference suggested by the Pew poll results). This would certainly be consistent with other polling results indicating that important demographic groups which tend to trend Republican, like married people, report greater happiness, on average, than comparable groups, such as single people, who trend more Democratic.
Besides, why not just come right out and admit it? Self-satisfied complacency probably is a happier state of mind, in many ways, than following the dictum of Edward Kennedy’s funeral tribute to the spirit of his recently assassinated brother, Robert, “Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask why not?”
But then that takes us to the unavoidable question, doesn’t it? Just what is this happiness thing?
And while we’re at it: Just how important is it anyway, when compared to other aspects of life?
Not wanting to dive too deeply into something this, well, deep, let me approach it this way: Ex-presidents are always a good source for metaphor. So, who do you think has had the “happier” ex-presidency, George HW Bush, who largely uses his time to cash in on his name and play golf, or Jimmy Carter, who travels the globe promoting world peace and an end to human suffering?
Obviously, there’s no way we can know. What we can know beyond any doubt, however, is which has been the more worthwhile.
And maybe that’s all the answer we need. "