In the July 2008 Reader’s Digest, there was a very interesting article that addressed the idea of Happiness; and the author, Arthur C. Brooks, pointed out that in The Declaration of Independence, the pursuit of happiness was held to be as important as was life and liberty, happiness being the connection between the the Creator and our nation’s destiny.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It was interesting to note that in the studies on this subject, it was not economic well being, the availablity of national health care or the amount-quality of play time that caused the people questioned to feel they were happy, rather it was . . .

First, there was FAITH, people that attended church on a regular basis were generally much happier than believers that did not or non-believers. Just like in the beginning of our nation, faith still plays a critical role in whether or not we feel happy. To be sure a good job, not big paying, but one where people enjoyed going to work also played a role, as did a strong sense of family. They also spoke of charitable giving and liberty (freedom) as also being measurements of happiness.

Under freedom (liberty) there was an interesting revelation: “Not all types of freedom are [considered] the same in terms of happiness.” Moral freedom (license) in terms of a lack of moral constraints on personal behavior, did not seem to these respondents to result in personal happiness.  Those people enagaging in sexual liberation and drug use were not very happy at all.  So, licentiousness was not considered as making any contribution to our happiness. Take this along with the happiness of people of faith and it appears that we are still at heart a Judeo-Christian nation, with a strong sense of moral (family) values.

In 2004 as in almost every election cycle for many decades, despite the pundits and the skewing of data about what is or what is not a very important issue, the voters continued to choose “moral values” as the most critical issue of all.

How does this impact our voting? The people can still be fooled by the “I can feel your pain” folk on the Left and by this we see Democrat victories; but if the Right did not, out of craven fear of the liberals, atheists and those wanting to engage in licentious behavior in the Republican Party keep strong moral values, family values out of the center (heart) of their campaigns we could continue to win at the polls; but the fear of loss of power and money has made cowards of most of the Republican Party, allowing the Left to so confuse the issue that Americans are being cheated out of the very thing they desire most and our Founders desired for them - personal happiness.