Well, at least there is a provable smugness gap.
And the arrogance gap is really quite impressive.
Now-Tell us something we didn’t know.
All this proves that the right is good at promoting self-serving studies.
Does anybody really believe these researchers were not aware what result they were supposed to come up with?
This probably comes from the same kind of people who were certain that that McCain volunteer was
beaten and mutilated by a large black Obama supporter. Or still believe that Bush wants to balance the budget and reduce the size of government.
Their record of honesty speaks for itself.

“After years of reading the words of Democrats, their bitter hatred of Bush and conservatives, it’s not hard to see who is happy and whose life is a little too wrapped up in politics”
considering how much time you spend here bitterly attacking liberals and democrats and writing about politics, it seems that you might be projecting. seriously, you have your young kids all wrapped up in politics, too.
i don’t see that huge of a gap. your headline paints liberals as a bunch of downers. that’s just not the case. in my opinion, it comes down to money – or lack of – and empathy. republicans (the party of the corporations) love to roll in their money, while a big proportion of the poor tend to be democrats (the party of the people) and struggle often to reach a level of comfortable living. many democrats have either experienced stressful times or are still in them, so empathy with those who are less fortunate comes much easier. it reminds me of a bumper sticker i saw last week or so that said “you’re a republican until it happens to you.”
looking at the numbers, the real gap is not between democrats and republicans in the “pretty happy” category, but in the 2 extremes. it also makes some sense that it would be found there, too, as a lot of research has found that higher stresses are put upon lower income earners. i’d bet that it’s that demographic that skews the numbers, i for one don’t care about such indexes (like the “generosity index”) because they’re not very good reflections of just how people really live their lives. it’s just more propaganda for michele and conservatives to use to say, “see how pathetic your sorry liberal lives are? we’re happy because we have money and religion.” eh… maybe it’s just because i’m a happy liberal.
i wonder what the 9% of unhappy republicans have to say…
btw, most liberals don’t hate bush or conservatives. many of my friends and family are conservative, so i just don’t know where you come up with your conclusions. obviously being called “marxist” and “unpatriotic” and “unamerican” and other various names doesn’t make us appreciate you or your ideology of division and fear mongering. think of it as us hating the sins (like neoconservatism), loving the sinners (republicans). in fact, if you look at it that way, there are plenty of moderate republicans (conservatives) who are pretty bitter with bush and neocons, too.

Hate to use a cliche, but WOW is it fitting here:
“Ignorance is bliss.”

Also this oldie-but-goody:
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it, too.
He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment checks because some stupid liberal didn’t think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the system before the Great Depression.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans.
The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

James, Beliefnet has a category for “politics”. That’s where this blog is listed.

Gillian, I do know that at one point, both liberals and conservatives were a lot more centrist.
Guess what. I’m a union member. Guess what. I donate to conservation causes. Guess what. When most of these programs were put into place, many “liberals” were more conservative than today’s “conservatives”.
There are very few people today who would argue against totally wiping out the things you describe. To take a line from the debate, if you want to campaign for the things you listed, you might want to find a time-machine and go back and do that.

I read the linked article and it would be more interesting to have a finer grained look into the demographics of happiness and unhappiness. While they pointed out characteristics they didn’t correlate those to specific population groups.
MzEllen, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Gillian’s point. People in India and China don’t have those things and while no one is openly fighting to get rid of them, they can be lost in the name of economic competitiveness.

if you want to campaign for the things you listed, you might want to find a time-machine and go back and do that.
Didn’t need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight.
Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
Freaks was in a circus tent. Those were the days.

When you only worry about yourself and are blind to the concerns of others, I can see why you’d be happier.

Go back to which days? More Centrist? By what standards?
Liberals were more populist in those days, actually. And are more centrist now. Unless you are gauging solely by social issues, not all that much has changed at all.
And there have been rollbacks, and it is still a constant fight to maintain everything on that list. Guess who fights to lower the standards, and guess who fights to keep them?
Please give an example of how they were more ‘centrist’ back in, say, the turn of the century all the way up to the 70′s, because that’s how long it took for the things on that list to come into existence. Well , after, of course, defining what YOU mean by ‘centrist’.

Centrist…today, there are many conservatives who fight for conservation measures. Today, we all see the need for clean air standards (although the extent is debatable)
When you only worry about yourself and are blind to the concerns of others, I can see why you’d be happier.
Oh…THAT must be why CRWRC operates in so many countries, for so many reasons and THAT must be why Habitat for Humanity helps so many poor people. Because we only care about ourselves. (NOT)

“Or still believe that Bush wants to balance the budget and reduce the size of government”
Who believes that? Where did that come from? The right is justifiably angry with Bush for his growth of government. That is beyond dispute.

Sorry, James H. I’m not letting you spam my site.

RG, as to smugness:
ESV 2 Corinthians 10:17 “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Ya’ suppose all the Democrats were out being so happy nobody was home to pick up the phone when the pollsters called?

I’ll give you the premise.
Then again, if your worldview was informed by the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK, and not by the “Southern strategy” and corruption of Richard Nixon, the reverse Robin Hood policies of Ronald Reagan, and the “selected, not elected” Bush dynasty, you might be a little cynical, too.
The numbers might change now that America’s 40-year reign of error may be nearing an end, though …

Umm.. you didn’t define centrist, just noted that at least a few Conservatives were actually ok with clean air standards.
And you didn’t say how Liberals were more centrist in the past, as compared to now.

Ya’ suppose all the Democrats were out being so happy nobody was home to pick up the phone when the pollsters called?
would that mean that conservatives have happier homes? (that’s a joke!)

And you didn’t say how Liberals were more centrist in the past, as compared to now.
You are running a candidate who wishes to allow for ANY abortion at ANY time for ANY reason with ZERO limits (read FOCA).
When was the last time that happened?
You are running a candidate who wants to “spread the wealth”, not raise taxes to run the government. Fifty years ago, the goal of taxation was to pay for government, now it’s social reconstruction.
We now have lawsuits against Christians by homosexuals suing them for declining (as Christians) to take part in a “gay wedding” as a photographer. This is new.
There are more, but I have commitments to keep today.

I’ve read reports like this and I believe that it’s not necessarily unhappiness but more along the lines of discontentment.
Conservatives, by definition, are resistant to major changes. They are happy with the status quo. Progressives, by definition, are the opposite – they always believe things can get better than what they currently are. When the status quo is kept for a long period of time, you get a trend towards higher happiness.
Here’s a test to show my belief – ask a conservative how they feel about same sex marriage. I bet you will find a higher trend towards happiness and contentment towards the progressive side than the conservative side because progressives view it as making the world a better place for all people whereas conservatives view it as a major unneeded change to marriage. Then ask a progressive about global warming. I bet you will find a high rate of happiness and contentment among conservatives because they think we are doing enough to combat it without damaging human activity whereas among progressives there isn’t enough change going on.
Again, I believe the more appropriate question should be, which side is more content, not which side is happier.

First, I did say ‘other than social issues’. The list was such things as unions, wages, etc.
I figured you were talking about sex and reproduction, though.
Secondly… did you HEAR what was actually used as an example of ‘spreading the wealth’?
Hint.. it wasn’t ‘take your taxes and give them to someone else’.
It was…
Joe the Plumber (whom I will note is so upset by his press, but doesn’t seem to mind being the name of McCain’s end of the election tour..) has a business.
Guess what.. If Jane the retail cashier, and Jack, the factory worker, and Sally the daycare provider, and Lou, the fry cook at the local restaurant and all the other middle to lower middle class workers have more of THEIR money back, the under 250k people, then they have more money to hire him!
THAT was what was meant by ‘spreading the wealth’. And guess what, you find the idea of fair wage, and of tax equity all the way back in Liberal history.

And in that love I have the ability to face whatever God sends my way, even an Obama presidency.
And being the good Reformed Christian you are, the name “McCain” can be equally fitted into your hope!