6-24-25

I read a story not long ago that I had never heard before…..arguably the greatest

athlete of the first half of the 20 th Century was a man named Jim Thorpe…..there

seemed to be nothing that he couldn’t do…..In the early 1900’s Jim Thorpe

became a legend…..he was a two-time All-American college football player and

went on to play in the early days of the NFL….he played for a short time as

professional basketball player but he also spent seven seasons in Major League

Baseball with the NY Giants….He set records at everything he tried….He was on

three National Championship football teams and was inducted into the pro-

football hall of fame…..he is the first man to ever rush for 2000 yards in a

season……it is said that he also excelled at hockey, lacrosse, tennis, boxing, and

even ballroom dancing……but it was his appearance at the 1912 Olympic Games

that launched him into the hearts and minds of Americans……

Jim Thorpe was orphaned as a young boy…..both of his parents and his twin

brother all passed away and Thorpe became a ward of the state…..he wound up

at Carlisle School in Oklahoma where he saw some older boys practicing a high

jump…..so Jim, with no training at all and wearing a pair of old overalls, cleared

the bar…..the next day the Carlisle coach, a man named Pop Warner, found him

and asked to talk with him…..Thorpe is said to have asked, “did I do something

wrong?”….to which Coach Warner said, “No son, you just broke the School high

jump record”……so Jim became an athlete, and what an athlete!.....No man set

more records, won more championships, inspired more fans, he was epic……and

then came the opportunity to compete for the US team at the 1912 Olympics in

Stockholm, Sweden….A picture was taken of Thorpe while he was there and if you

look closely you’ll notice that he’s wearing mismatched shoes and on one foot

he’s wearing multiple socks….was this a style? Was he a trendsetter? Was there

something special about the shoes?.....none of the above….Just before some of

the events that Thorpe was slated to compete in, someone stole his shoes……it

turned into a mad scramble with he and his coach trying to figure out what to

do…..the result was two mismatched shoes that someone had thrown in the

trash…..one of them was too small but he squeezed his foot into it, but the other

was too big so he had to wear multiple socks on that foot to make it work…..who

does that? Who works so hard to gain an edge that sabotaging their opposition

seems like the right way to get the win?......

Well, it didn’t work for the bad guys…….Smithsonian Magazine describes it like

this: “Thorpe began the Olympics by crushing the field in the pentathlon which

consisted of five events in a single day. He placed first in four of them, dusting his

competition in the 1500 meter run by almost five seconds. A week later the three-

day decathalon competition began in a pouring rain. Thorpe opened the event by

splashing down the track in the 100-meter dash in 11.2 seconds – a time not

equaled again until the 1948 Olympics. On the second day, Thorpes shoes were

missing. [He and his coach] put together a mismatched pair in time for the high

jump which Thorpe won. Later that afternoon came one of his favorite events, the

110-meter hurdles. Thorpe blasted the track in 15.6 seconds, [again a record]. On

the final day of competition Thorpe placed third and fourth in the events that he

was most inexperienced in, the pole vault and the javelin. Then came the very last

event, the 1500-meter run. The metric mile was a leg-burning monster that came

after nine other events over two days. And he was still in mismatched shoes.”

Here’s the thing…..Jim Thorpe was a juggernaut, he was virtually unstoppable in

whatever sport he participated in……someone, some sorry individual, decided

that if you cant beat ‘em then cheat ‘em…..it was someone’s really really good

idea to try and keep the leader of the pack from having the chance to compete at

all……but it backfired in a big big way…..if anything, what it did was cement in the

minds of the world that Jim Thorpe really was the greatest athlete in the world…..

Let me take that story and flip it into the current state of our politics….liberals

have done everything they can think of to sabotage the presidency of Donald

Trump…..everything from lawfare, to nationwide injunctions…..they tried to

arrest him, convict him, bankrupt him, and even shoot him…..it was the political

version of stealing the athletes shoes and yet the athlete continued to win…..and

he still is…..if anything it proves that liberals are miserable people…..there is

nothing about liberal progressivism that seems to bear out in

happiness….everyone is a victim, everything is not enough, everyday is a day of

contention…….no satisfaction, no joy…..and certainly no celebration when things

go right…..because liberals are generally speaking, unhappy people….. liberals find

reasons not to be happy….it’s like unhappiness is their goal….their

aspiration…..there is actually a name for it….it’s called the happiness gap….that’s

a thing ya’ll….the happiness gap….. and it’s not just me saying that…..a recent

survey of over 60,000 Americans found that conservatives report higher levels of

happiness than liberals by far…..people who identify in the study as politically

liberal have twice the incidence of mental health issues than those who self-

identify as conservatives……that’s consistent across all demographics for gender,

age, race, all of it….

 Conservative women report considerably higher levels of happiness than

liberal men.

 Gay and lesbian conservatives report being happier more often than

heterosexual liberals. 

 Low-income conservatives, with annual household incomes of $30,000 or

less, are happier than liberals at the same income level. Those low-income

conservatives even report the same mental health levels as liberals making

six figures. 

Wow….So it’s not money….it’s not power….it’s not based on race, creed or sexual

orientation…..pray tell, what could be the solution?!......why do conservatives

rank higher for happiness than liberals?.....

Social psychologist Jaime Napier has an answer for that….. she said: "One of the

biggest correlates with happiness in our surveys was the belief of a meritocracy,

which is the belief that anybody who works hard can make it. That was the biggest

predictor of happiness. That was also one of the biggest predictors of political

ideology. So, the conservatives were much higher on these meritocratic beliefs

than liberals were."

A strong belief in meritocracy you say? (you know, rewarding someone for actual

merit, achievement, success) – so the study of a large number of folks indicates

those that believe in meritocracy are generally happier…..sort of like Jim Thorpe

being the best athlete so you steal his shoes to slow him down……

Now, let me pause here and tell you flat out that I believe the study is missing a

key ingredient, that being faith….I believe that faith in God is the key to

meaningful happiness, the source of “peace that surpasses all

understanding”…..but for now, let’s just take the study at face

value…..meritocracy, the belief that success should be celebrated, is a key to the

Happiness Gap between liberals and conservatives…..that might explain why

liberals freak out over DEI being abolished….why liberals scream when illegal

aliens are deported…..why liberals bluster when they can’t get transgender

surgeries on kids…..for a liberal, nothing is right, everyone is a victim, all things

are broken, everything needs to be fixed…..everything…..bomb Iran’s nuclear

plants – call for impeachment; border numbers at epic all-time lows – impede

deportations; kids rescued from traffickers – turn a blind eye; oil prices coming

down – yet angry that wind farms are not being subsidized……the happiness gap,

the belief that nothing is right, the lack of enjoyment in achievement……liberals

try at every turn to rain on the parade, to steal the win…..when libs don’t get

what they think they are owed it makes them angry…..and they will steal the win

if they can….they will find the downside….the glass will always be half

empty….but stealing the win, that ain’t winning…..if you have to lie, cheat, steal,

or bribe someone, to get your way then you really haven’t won anything….all you

did was show yourself to be a liar, a cheater, a thief, or a briber……simple as

that…..

You can steal a great athletes shoes……but it may not slow him down at all…..

Stealin’ the win ain’t winning at all…….and maybe, just maybe, liberals might want

to look in the mirror to see the source of their unhappiness….

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way