A new study out this week concludes the painfully obvious: conservatives are a much happier group than liberals.
Why are they always so sour, moaning and groaning and wailing and gnashing teeth, even during good times?
For the answer, and some brilliant insights into the “woe is me” world of liberalism, we turn to Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD. Rossiter, Jr. is the author of The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago and served for two years as a psychiatrist in the United States Army. He is currently in private practice in the Chicago area.
In December 2006, Rossiter Jr. wrote a column bearing the same name as his book. Here’s an excerpt:
What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice.
Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.”
They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems.
None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character.
None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience.
Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism.
Here is the entire column with more good stuff.
Then last week, Rossiter Jr. unleashed another insightful, dead-on piece about how modern day liberalism pitches itself:
Modern liberalism is still selling what it has always sold: utopian promises for whiny adult children.
You want health care? No problem. Just label it a need, and you will get it, because you must have what you need, and the government must therefore give it to you. It doesn’t matter if you can’t afford your own health care. Modern liberals gladly promise it to you anyway — at someone else’s expense.
You want a college education but your grades aren’t good enough? No problem. With affirmative action, liberals first label your desire a need, then see to it that you get unearned access to a college while someone more qualified than you gets bumped.
You want a job, but you have fewer skills than your competitors? No problem. With affirmative action, liberals declare your desire a need. The liberal agenda then gets you a job at the expense of someone with more skills than you have.
Worried about the energy crunch? No problem. Liberal bureaucrats will legislate what kind of light bulbs we use and regulate our home thermostats from their offices so we don’t use too much energy. We need liberals to manage our lives.
Remember, it is the government’s job to take the stress out of your life because life is already too tough. Who can reasonably ask you to be responsible for yourself, to assume life’s risks, to take the consequences of your actions, to hold yourself accountable? What do they think you are, anyway — a mature adult? Let’s get fair. You didn’t sign on to the burdens of real freedom. You signed on to Liberal Land’s promises of ease and safety. You applied for the Big Dole, cradle to grave.
Here’s that column.
I’d like to top Rossiter Jr., but I can’t.
