Time to move on

The Kaiser Family Foundation has been polling the public regarding reaction to last week's Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of  the Affordable Care Act. Guess what they found? It seems that most people (56%) are ready to move on.  They believe that opponents of the law should stop trying to overturn it and start addressing other burning issues facing the country.

(Click on image to enlarge it.)

So now I guess we can expect the Republican Tea Party to stop throwing its hissy fit and move on to things like shoring up our decaying infrastructure; creating jobs to help pull the economy out of its depression; finally acknowledging and taking steps to slow the heating up of the planet; creating more effective oversight of Wall Street and financial institutions; working to make sure that the food and drugs consumed by Americans are safe; providing more and better support for the public school system in this country; working to protect the rights of voters and to ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote is encouraged to do so; and any of the other myriad of problems that face the nation. We can expect that, right? Right?

The people speak

An interesting thing has been happening around the country this week and, as often occurs with interesting things, it doesn't seem that it is being reported by the mainstream media as much as it would appear to deserve. I'm talking about poll after poll that has been taken within the last couple of weeks by just about every polling organization in the country, and for once they are all unanimous and unambiguous in their results. The people have spoken and they have said that they don't want collective bargaining rights taken away from public sector employees. Furthermore, when they are asked how they prefer to have the budget gap closed, they overwhelmingly prefer the "soak the rich" method. By a large margin, they believe that the rich should pay higher taxes.

The results from a New York Times/CBS poll released earlier this week are fairly typical. But even a poll by Rasmussen, the notoriously pro-Republican/conservative polling organization, found similar results.

The bottom line is that Americans do not hate unions. They understand that to take away a person's right to organize with like-minded people to protect themselves, their rights, and their jobs is to leave the average worker defenseless against the "Big Bosses" and they don't approve of that.

Also, when given the choice of balancing the budget on the backs of the poor and the middle class by tearing holes in the social safety net or by requiring the very, very rich to sacrifice more for the good of all, it is no contest. The people surveyed strongly believe that the rich are NOT paying their fair share and that they should do so.

I think the findings of these polls probably came as a shock to some Republican governors and also to some inside-the-beltway Washington political pundits who are suckers for whatever line the Republicans happen to be peddling this week. Let us hope that the Democrats in positions to take advantage of these findings are reading the polls and that they are smart enough to interpret and use them in their public discourse and in their campaigns in coming months.

The people are speaking and smart politicians should listen.

The most happy country

If you had to guess which is the happiest country in the world, what would you say? Do you think it would be the United States? Actually, considering all the bitching and griping that Americans do, I would have thought that this country would rank somewhere close to the bottom, but, in fact, according to a recent report from the Gallup polling organization, we do rank as one of the fifteen happiest countries in the world. We are near the bottom of the fifteen, though, ranking number 12.

So what are the happiest countries in the world and what makes them so happy?

If you look at what they have in common, for one thing they each have a strong social safety net. They have stable governments that generally work to make the lives of their citizens better. They are all democracies of one stripe or another. They have cohesive societies where citizens take their responsibilities rather seriously. There are other factors, individual to each country, of course, but these are some of the things that bind this group together.

Here, then, at least according to Gallup's findings, are the fifteen happiest countries in the world, from happiest to least happy.

1. Denmark - No real surprise here.
2. Finland - Ditto.
3. Norway - Ditto. There seems to be a pattern developing here.
4. The Netherlands - They may have gone to the top of the list since their World Cup semi-finals victory today!
5. Costa Rica - Certainly one of the most progressive countries in the New World, with no standing army.
6. Canada - Also a progressive country.
7. Switzerland - A long history of pacifism and building on history rather than tearing down.
8. New Zealand - Physical beauty of the landscape alone would seem to be sufficient reason for them to be happy.
9. Sweden - Yet another of the Nordic countries makes the list.
10. Austria - A bit of a surprise - to me at least. I think of Austrians as being rather dour, but that's just my prejudice at work.
11. Australia - Australians certainly SEEM like happy people.
12. U.S.A. - Why do you think we made the list? We just seem incredibly cranky and not very happy at all to me.
13. Belgium - Well, why not? After all, Hercule Poirot was always pretty happy!
14. Brazil - The poll was taken before they lost in World Cup competition. They may have fallen off the list now.
15. Panama - Another surprise entry.

The message here for the U.S. and other countries, I think, is to look at those countries whose citizens rated them highest and consider what it is that makes them happy. Then try to emulate them. One of our biggest problems as a country is the fact that we always tend to think that we know best. In truth, there are many countries in the world that we could learn from and several of them are ahead of us on this list. One of them is right next door.

Stupid Texans!

Don't you just love polls? They tell us such interesting things about ourselves. Of course, everything hinges on the way the poll question is worded, and, for that reason, one has to look at who conducted the poll and consider what axe they have to grind before deciding whether to take the results well-salted. But I really doubt that the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune newspaper have any desire to make Texans look particularly bad, so I tend to believe that their poll is on the level.

Here are just a few of the "facts" that the pollsters found that Texans believe:

- 38 percent agreed with the statement "God created human beings pretty much in their present form about 10,000 years ago."
- 22 percent said life has existed in its present form since the beginning of time.
- 51 percent disagreed with the statement, "human beings as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals."
- 41 percent were aware that humans did not live at the same time as the dinosaurs.

The poll also found that Republicans were more likely to believe the above-stated "facts" than Democrats and that supporters of Kay Bailey Hutchison for Republican nominee for governer were even MORE likely to believe them.

When I casually mentioned the findings of the poll to my husband, the born and bred Texan who refuses to live anywhere else, his response was, "Not surprising - there are an awful lot of stupid people in Texas!"

In that case, we've certainly got the right governor. Rick Perry is now suing the EPA - on our dime, by the way - over its intent to regulate greenhouse gases as a pollutant. Never mind that the Supreme Court, which Perry probably loves, has said that the EPA has that right and responsibility. No, ol' Ricky, you see, doesn't believe in all that global warming, human-produced greenhouse gases crap, and he's going to prove to the world that we don't need no stinkin' EPA telling our oil refineries what they can and cannot emit!

Of course, I'm sure that the fact that Perry, who apparently wants Texas to secede from the United States of America, is trying to fend off Kay Bailey Hutchison and tea party darling Debra Medina in the Republican primary in a couple of weeks has nothing to do with this. He would not be so cynical as to spend perfectly good state money on a quixotic quest meant to appeal to those tea partiers and far-righters. Oh, by the way, let me introduce you to my pet dinosaur.

I wonder if the UT/Texas Tribune pollsters polled our esteemed governor. Even if they didn't, I'm sure he would strongly endorse the poll's results - especially if it would win him a few votes.

Poor Texas.