House of Eratosthenes

Unhappy Found this article via Boortz that says conservatives are much happier in life than liberals, and tries to find an explanation for this differential.

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found.

Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person’s tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.
:
If your beliefs don’t justify gaps in status, you could be left frustrated and disheartened, according to the researchers, Jaime Napier and John Jost of New York University. They conducted both a U.S.-centric survey and a more internationally focused one to arrive at the findings.

“Our research suggests that inequality takes a greater psychological toll on liberals than on conservatives,” the researchers write in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, “apparently because liberals lack ideological rationalizations that would help them frame inequality in a positive light.”

Yeah, pretty much. Except the term “rationalization” seems to me to have been pre-selected as a pejorative one, and this could have a skewing effect even on an educated mind in discerning how all this stuff works.

To my way of thinking, the liberals are doomed to be gloomy, or at the very least perpetually confused. Their world view is full of contradictions.

Let’s start with the perception that there is socioeconomic inequality and that we have to do something about it. By now, it should be no secret to anyone that liberals tend to be secular. Their ranks have been swelled with atheists — not the agnostic kind, passively deprived of faith, humbly awaiting evidence of the Almighty to help make up his own mind about things. But the forceful, pugnacious kind. The kind who says “It is a simple matter of logic that there is no God, for I have decided there isn’t one.” And who further “proves” that anyone who doesn’t agree with him is an idiot.

There is, of course, a residual “Old Guard” of liberals who believe in a Higher Power, or at least go through the motions of so believing. But to them, this is a decidedly private thing. It’s not a truism of the cosmos, because they are adamant that someone else’s perception that the one true deity is Allah, or Gaea, or Ganesh, or chaos — these are all equally valid. And lest anyone start to think otherwise, let us get one thing straight here: A private article of belief is a decidedly inferior one. Their more public articles of belief are clearly meant to reign supreme. Single-payer healthcare is the way to go…we’re too civilized to “torture” our detainees…a woman has a right to choose…and if you think otherwise, you are an indecent person. If I’m a liberal and I believe in God, other people who believe in other gods, or no god at all, are all okay. Private article of belief. But I think we need to emit less carbon, and on that point if you disagree you are a sub-human Bush-loving knuckle-dragging red-state so-and-so…the more denigrating adjectives I can toss in, the better liberal I become. In fact, one can’t help but wonder if I’m going to be demoted or defrocked or spanked at the next liberal meeting if I fail to put in certain adjectives.

“Next order of business: The wooden paddle is for Liberal Bob. Liberal Bob, you were seen arguing with a Bush-toady in your cubicle at work on Thursday afternoon, and although you called him a thug and a fascist and a Nazi and a Freeper and wingnut, a you neglected to call him a chickenhawk. Now step up here, and grab your ankles.”

Their man-made codes and taboos and proscriptions are universal and brook no deviance…sealed shut with not a single loophole. That does not apply in any way to the “religious” dogma embraced by “religious” liberals. The Pope says abortion is wrong — how many pro-choice Catholics do we have, just under the Capitol dome, rolling their eyes, clearing their throats, shuffling nervously and staring at the ground? So it’s pretty well decided by now in liberal-land. Religion doesn’t exist, for the most part. And where it does, it doesn’t really count.

Now, just tuck that away for a minute and consider this:

The dirty little secret about liberals, is that each one of the ones capable of deep, philosophical thinking, is engaged in a highly secretive process of contemplating the costs of their policies. The inconveniences. The “drawbacks,” if you will. This stops, abruptly, at the great cloakroom doors that are locked shut behind them. They treat their ideological peers, in effect, with exactly the same courtesies and senses of discretion, that their fellow Americans have consistently been asking of them — said fellow Americans being consistently denied this. Liberalism loves to air America’s dirty laundry to the rest of the world, but it will not air dirty liberal laundry to the rest of America.

Think about all the liberal policies that have a downside, and how the liberals address that downside. They always address it with dismissal. They don’t even debate it. Abortion results in dead babies…you aren’t allowed to think of them as “babies.” Gun control deprives law-abiding citizens of their constitutional right…that right simply doesn’t exist. Waterboarding isn’t torture…yes it is. We need to know what these captured terrorists know…you aren’t allowed to call them “terrorists,” they’re “detainees.”

Global warming isn’t the end of the world…yes it is, we have scientists, and don’t you dare question them because you’re not a scientist. Okay, well these scientists over here disagree…well they don’t count because they’re “dirty.”

See the pattern? Liberals won’t debate the downsides of the policies they have in mind for us. They always dismiss. They always lecture us that we should be looking at the matter under review, only from one side — the side most beneficial to what they want to put in place. All other perspectives don’t count. The liberal will be drummed out of the liberal-club if he brings up those other perspectives, and also, by extension, if he allows you to even think on them for awhile.

The trouble is, that liberals don’t follow their own instructions here. They do think about the downside…in the privacy of their own craniums. A lot of liberals are poor — and a lot of liberal policies are most injurious to our poor. If you live in a rural area with distant neighbors and a lengthy response time from emergency services, that might not even be available…not being able to have a gun, hurts. If you make minimum wage and your employer’s profit margins are slender, and you’ve got a lot of colleagues who also make minimum wage…when your employer is suddenly forced to pay all of you another buck fifty an hour, just the ones he wants to keep on-board before he sends the rest home…that hurts. When your child is in a failing school district and you can’t apply for a voucher to move him somewhere else…that hurts.

So liberals have to sacrifice things for their own failed policies. And they aren’t allowed to talk to anyone about that, except for other liberals. Who will tell them, to coin a phrase, to “move on.”

Now, think about the implications of all this. There is no God; and if there is one, He doesn’t really count for anything. But even though God doesn’t really count for anything, we still have all these pain-in-the-ass rules that cost us a lot, and hurt us a-plenty. And like any rule from God, we aren’t allowed to deviate from those rules, to think about breaking them, to speak out against them. Worst of all, though, these rules did not come from God. They came from nameless, faceless, anonymous fellow liberals…who are not held accountable for their effects. Nor do they feel those effects, since these nameless faceless liberal mortal leaders are all richer than snot.

So sum it up. There is no God. There are rich people and poor people, and we liberals are here to close up that “wealth gap” — by being the very worst offenders, because when the richest among us make up new rules that hurt the poorest among us, it’s our place to tolerate it. Clearly, we believe in authority when it suits us to do so. But what authority is offended when rich people are richer than poor people? Not God, since He doesn’t exist and doesn’t count. And not the actual mortals we obey, the rich liberals. You don’t see them writing extra checks to the Treasury after tax season because they weren’t taxed enough. So the biggest problem in life that’s supposed to shame everybody, really doesn’t even offend anyone, but we have to pretend that it does, so we can fix it, since it’s our fault if it stays broken, but nothing we do will have any effect on it, and if we do manage to fix it we can’t take credit for it, but of course we’re never gonna fix it. And in the meantime, we should be really angry about it.

Hell yeah. I’d be unhappy too. There’d be something terribly wrong with any liberal who was not unhappy. I mean, worse than just being plain-ol’ liberal. Liberalness is both causative of, and symptomatic of, a most exquisite unhappiness.

Very very good. I’d argue a finer point on this one, though:

If you live in a rural area with distant neighbors and a lengthy response time from emergency services, that might not even be available…not being able to have a gun, hurts.

This whole “you need guns in rural areas more than you do in urban areas” doesn’t wash with me. Having grown up in a rural area, and having looked at crime statistics, you need one even more in urban areas. Don’t get me wrong, you still need one in rural areas. All I’m saying is that this argument plays into the hands of those who incrementally, and intentionally, erode the second amendment.

Even when emergency services are “short” — they are still at least on the order of minutes. In these situations, seconds count.

So just keep in mind, even in the city —

When seconds count, the cops are only minutes away.

– philmon, your staunch second amendment supporter. (I’m really going to have to get that jerking knee problem looked at. 😉 )
- philmon | 05/09/2008 @ 11:11
Well okay, that’s a good point, especially taking into account that urban areas are more likely to be suffering from strict gun control laws than outlying areas.

I do know that there has been a great deal of energy spent to bring down response times in those urban areas, and I have some measure of respect for the personnel who are tasked with doing the responding because let’s face it — it’s a helluva job, you don’t know what you’re wakling into. How well they’re doing, how it stacks up against the demanding timeline of some act of vandalism or home invasion in progress, I dunno. Certainly I can take a guess, but I don’t want to bash the efforts of someone in that line of work without better information.

As far as the rural areas…well, I like to pick on them for the practical reason that I don’t need that much information. To engineer a three-minute response time, way out in those township areas, wherever there might happen to be some people — quite impractical. What I have in mind for that, is places like the “mitten fingers” in Michigan. And then if you move west another time zone, you’re getting into areas where the nearest neighbor is half a mile away, or more; North Dakota, Montana, etc.

So you might say, what I’m doing is ducking the whole argument as to whether a three-minute response time is adequate or not, by taking a look at the areas our blue-beak gun-grabbers would just-as-soon ignore. This is one of my favorite activities in blogger-world; liberals have this glowing reputation for thinking of “the needs” of “everyone,” and honestly I don’t know where they got this. It’s quite far from the truth. They provide for the needs of people who are like them, or fit into their narrow worldview of what everybody should be like. Some redneck guy living out in the boonies, they don’t think he’s worthy of any kind of protection — nine one one OR nine mill. He and his family should just be left to the wolves.
- mkfreeberg | 05/09/2008 @ 12:40
Oh, yeah, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing but respect for a guy who takes a job as a cop. They get high stress, low pay, and the suicide rate is phenomeonally high.

I’ve taken training from a guy who trains cops, is an ex-cop and ex-EMT as well. He tells me, and it supports what I’ve heard and read elsewhere — that most actual cops (those on the street and not behind desks) are for armed citizens and especially for people doing conceal & carry. They, themselves understand the fact that when seconds count, they are still minutes away … and that there’s not much that they can do about that on a GOOD day. The average gunfight is over in less than 5 seconds. They want the good guy to win and the bad guy to lose just as much as you do. They’d rather come get your report and statement than paint an outline around your body. They’d much rather paint around the goblin’s body.

I think you may have talked about this before, but I’m personally done with ducking the issue (though I completely understand the incentive and urge to do so having done it my self for so long) because ultimately it leaves the people doing the anti-gun charge with the impression that everyone agrees with them. This causes the idea to spread and become accepted by people who otherwise wouldn’t accept it if someone gave a well-articulated argument to the contrary.

Truth be told, you’re much safer in a rural area statistically – but if someone decides you’re going to be their target it’s much easier to isolate you in the country. Still, you’re much more likely to own a gun if you live in the country … which just might be why you’re safer in the country.

Your point about them deciding what “the needs” for everyone is very well put. Especially because most of these same people claim to be open/broad-minded and accepting of multiple viewpoints. But they’re really not. They’re open and accepting of people, who as you say, are like them, that love to show how worldly they are by “appreciating” other cultures (except for gun-totin’, beer-swillin’, Jezuz luvin’ white American culture — that’s bad!). But see, that appreciation is akin to appreciation of the world through Disneyland. They get to see them collected and all getting along. They eat at their restaruants to show off their worldly tastes, secretly thinking how quaint their backward customs are as they look at them as if through an old fashioned store-window display.

Anything but what is considered traditional American culture must be preserved. But John Wayne must be squished like a bug.
- philmon | 05/10/2008 @ 22:52

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Thursday, May 8th, 2008