{"id":5936,"date":"2008-10-25T00:38:50","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T00:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/10\/theres-a-happiness-gap-between.html"},"modified":"2008-10-25T00:38:50","modified_gmt":"2008-10-25T00:38:50","slug":"theres-a-happiness-gap-between","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2008\/10\/theres-a-happiness-gap-between.html","title":{"rendered":"There’s a happiness gap between the left and the right"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not surprised by this at all<\/a>, are you? 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:<\/p>\n

Now the good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats. You always have been, and you probably always will be.
\nNever mind that your presidential candidate is sinking in the polls while your president plumbs historic depths of popular scorn and your free market squeals for intervention while your investments evaporate on Wall Street. You are not just happier than the other guys, but more of you are very happy indeed, according to new survey results published yesterday by the Pew Research Center.
\nThe pollsters were in the field asking about happiness this month, a period when economic news was gloomy for everybody and presidential campaign news seemed especially baleful for Republicans. Yet they found 37 percent of Republicans are “very happy,” compared with 25 percent of Democrats; 51 percent of Republicans and 52 percent of Democrats are “pretty happy”; and 9 percent of Republicans are “not too happy,” compared with 20 percent of Democrats.
\nThe partisan happiness gap — unbroken for nearly four decades — is impervious to electoral ups and downs. It has something to do with worldview<\/strong>.
\n[…]
\nThe study does identify a series of characteristics found in many people who call themselves happy. Good health is a key factor. Marriage and religion are big, too, and so is wealth. (If money doesn’t buy happiness, it appears to help with the down payment.)
\nWhen you control for all the other variables, Taylor says, a Republican is 13 percent or 7 percent more likely to be very happy than a Democrat, depending on which regression analysis model you use. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Something to do with worldview?” It has everything to do with worldview. My happiness has nothing to do with what happens in Washington because my life isn’t in their control. They may want to control it but they don’t have access to that which brings me joy and happiness: my family, faith and friends. The government my want to control my money but they can’t take away my faith. So, whatever happens to the economy, however much they tax us, whatever stupid laws they pass, nothing will ever separate me from the love of God. Here is the reason for my happiness:<\/p>\n

Romans 8:31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died–more than that, who was raised–who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in that love I have the ability to face whatever God sends my way, even an Obama presidency.
\n(via<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not surprised by this at all, are you? 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: Now the good news for Republicans: You are happier than Democrats. 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