Why Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.

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.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

To justify economic inequalities, a person could support the idea of meritocracy, in which people supposedly move up their economic status in society based on hard work and good performance.

In that way, one's social class attainment, whether upper, middle or lower, would be perceived as totally fair and justified.

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 (or at least neutral) light."

The results support and further explain a Pew Research Center survey from 2006, in which 47 percent of conservative Republicans in the U.S. described themselves as "very happy," while only 28 percent of liberal Democrats indicated such cheer.

The same rationalizing phenomena could apply to personal situations as well.

"There is no reason to think that the effects we have identified here are unique to economic forms of inequality," the researchers write. "Research suggests that highly egalitarian women are less happy in their marriages compared with their more traditional counterparts, apparently because they are more troubled by disparities in domestic labor."

The current study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Lefty Liberal Mouth Piece to be Jailed for Child Porn

Lefty liberal talk show host Bernie Ward (frequently called the "lion of the left" for his staunchly liberal views) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco on charges of using the Internet to send and receive child pornography in 2004 as part of "research" for a book he never finished writing.

Click here to read report at KTVU.com.

His attorney claimed, "It's really tragic that the government has decided to prosecute him for a judgment he made as a journalist and to treat him as a child pornographer when he is not."

However, it is a fact that this ex-Catholic priest who also hosts a show called "God Talk"used his computer to look at child pornography images and share child pornography images with other adults "when doing research for a book on hypocrisy". Thus by definition he is a child pornographer and hypocrit (a combination of liar, moron and hypocrite).

His lawyer claims it was an "error in judgement". Sorry, but if this pervert was being indicted for an "error in judgement" why weren't SWAT teams kicking down his door every time he went on the air? The sad thing is he will most likely be tried in San Francisco, so I doubt he will be convicted in the pervert capital of the world. Hell, he may even be elected Mayor. And Democrats call Rush a "big fat idiot"?