Washington Post, with a Straight Face: Too Much Happiness Can Make You UnhappyApril 03, 2012
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RUSH: I got it right here, folks. It's right here in the Washington Post. And it fits, given what's ahead of us. Here's the headline of the story in the Washington Post: "Too Much Happiness Can Make You Unhappy," according to studies. That's right. "Too Much Happiness Can Make You Unhappy." Therefore, we're gonna control happiness so that you don't get unhappy. And how we gonna control happiness? We're gonna keep the economy miserable so that you stay miserable. This is a great indication of what the Washington Post thinks is in store for all of us.
It's like during the nineties when Clinton was lying every time he opened his mouth and there were stories like, "Hey, lying is good for you. Lying protects people's feelings. Lying prevents people from being hurt. These little white lies are very good, and the better you are at it, the better our country is."
Greetings, folks, great to have you here. We are loaded.
Speaking of happiness, how about those people in the General Services Administration who apparently did not get the memo that we're not supposed to get on our jets and go to Las Vegas. They had a blast out there. I guess they were at the Bellagio. Well, I think it was the Bellagio because when I saw a TV story about it they had a picture of the Bellagio there, which is a great place. I either stay there or at one of Steve Wynn's places when I go out there. But I tell you, too much happiness can make you unhappy. Too much happiness is not a problem here at the EIB Network, folks. We strive for it. It's right in our founding documents, the pursuit of happiness. We pursue it. We find it. We share it.
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RUSH: The Washington Post: "The happier you are, the better, right? Not necessarily. Studies show that there is a darker side to feeling good --" Did you know that? "-- and that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes make you . . . well, less happy. Too much cheerfulness can make you gullible, selfish, less successful -- and that’s only the tip of the iceberg." I kid you not. Ladies and gentlemen, we live in the most beautiful country on earth. We live in the greatest country on earth. We luxuriate in freedoms that many people die to have. We have conveniences beyond conveniences, brought to us by a free market. We have the concept of the pursuit of happiness, which is simply another way of expressing freedom and liberty and the essence of the human spirit.
Enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness simply is a way of saying what free people do. The standard of living, the overwhelming economic advances, technological advances, the overwhelming degree of individual success that has been realized in this country has made some of us unhappy. And now President Obama and his gang are working to take away our freedoms and our happiness to give us the sad, desperate existence of totalitarian type command-and-control central economies. Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, communist China, Detroit, the endless list of failed governments. And this is a study that the Washington Post has published four pages on and it's an entire guilt trip. It's designed to make us think that we are selfish in our natural pursuit of happiness.
This story is designed to strip away from the reader the desire to strive to be happy, just to be content with what the government gives us. Be content with what the government deems that we need. How absolutely frightening, offensive, and scary is this opening paragraph? "The happier you are, the better, right? Not necessarily. Studies show that there is a darker side to feeling good and that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes make you . . . well, less happy. Too much cheerfulness can make you gullible, selfish, less successful -- and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Happiness does have benefits (beyond feeling good, of course). It can protect us from stroke and from the common cold, makes us more resistant to pain and even prolongs our lives. Yet, June Gruber, a professor of psychology at Yale University who has studied happiness, warns that it’s important to experience positive moods in moderation. She compares happiness to food."
Now, isn't it odd that that's the exact same thing Michelle Obama's trying to ruin for us all? "She compares happiness to food: Although necessary and beneficial, too much food can cause problems; likewise, happiness can lead to bad outcomes. 'Research indicates that very high levels of positive feelings predict risk-taking behaviors, excess alcohol and drug consumption, binge eating, and may lead us to neglect threats,' she says." Don't strive to be happy, folks. It'll make you miserable.
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RUSH: No, I don't think this is coincidental at all. We get a long story in the Washington Post about happiness causing misery and all the problems associated with happiness right in the middle of the misery index being at Jimmy Carter levels here under the Obama regime. In the midst of a country that is unsettled, uneasy, nervous, scared to death about the future because of the indebtedness, the spending, the impending loss of freedom. And all of a sudden here comes a story saying, "Hey, that's the way you're supposed to feel! That's the way everybody else in the world feels. Who do you think you are, expecting to be happy?"
So here comes this big, long story. I'll just give you some pull-quotes here. "Happy people are more prone to stereotypical thinking." "Anybody who has committed a crime should hope that the jury that tries him is happy." "Feeling good makes people more selfish." "The happiest of us are also less creative than those who describe themselves as just happy enough." "Even striving to feel cheerful might make us less happy." "Even just striving to feel cheerful might make us less happy. Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his colleagues asked a group of 120 people to listen to Stravinsky’s 'Rites of Spring,' a complex composition that is not that easy on the ear.
"He discovered that those who listened to the music with a specific intent to make themselves happy or constantly monitored how much they were enjoying themselves ended up enjoying themselves less than those who just focused on the experience. ... According to psychologist Iris Mauss, the more someone pursues happiness, the more he or she will probably end up feeling disappointed." Man, if this isn't liberalism on parade, I don't know what is. They are not happy, don't want anybody else to be, and now they've codified it in scientific research. Every day, folks, the assault on the natural existence of the human spirit continues, which is what liberalism is. It's an assault on the natural yearning of the human spirit. Strive for excellence, strive for happiness, strive to accomplish something?
No. No. No! That will only lead to disappointment because you won't end up being happy, and you'll just be worse off than before. No. You're not gonna get that big job. You're not gonna be successful. Just gonna make you more unhappy when you realize that you're not good enough to do that. That's the thinking. It's the same kind of thinking that says, "When you're depressed, sit in it. When you're depressed, soak it up. Don't try to artificially get out of depression because you won't, and you'll be even worse when you realize that you're really depressed. So just sit in it. Let it leave naturally. Don't artificially try to tell yourself that you've got reasons to be happy or feel good when you're miserable. Stay in the misery."
This is the theory.
"Stay in the misery and let it dissipate on its own. If you artificially do this, you're gonna be worse off than you were." Who in the world wants to sign on to something like that?
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