Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals

We already knew this given the generally grumpy demeanor of liberals, but it's nice to see the facts in print:

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 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."

It's the preoccupation with "fairness" and "equality" that drives liberals to promote solutions based on class warfare, such as increasing taxes on upper income Americans, or thinking they can solve racial issued with reverse discrimination. Throwing money at poor people through welfare programs effectively destroyed the black family when the welfare check replaced the father as the breadwinner. And was the war on poverty a success? Nope.

For liberals what counts is good intentions, not results. As long as you feel the right way about what you want to do, it doesn't really matter if it works or makes things worse. No wonder they're so unhappy. They're in a constant state of cognitive dissonance.