Want to hear a great summation of the big vote happening this week? How about: Should healthy people have to pay for chronic illnesses? Or as some others have put it, should men pay for women's pre-natal care, or maternity leave? Should those without kids pay for others' schooling? Do non-driving folks pay for roads, or drivers pay for trains and subways, buses and other forms of mass transit.

It seems we've been pushed even further into places where the idea of a communal life are being questioned many of us never thought possible. And the result, we've noticed, is a growing competitiveness, and underlying meanness, spreading everywhere. Do those with more money, or capital, really get to call all the shots for those they pay? Is there any compact that shares responsibilities for production?

As we were going to press this week the governor's office was putting out a series of press releases listing the possible cuts to regional hospitals should the proposed House health plan go forward. In our area, Ellenville Regional stood to lose $336,950, Kingston's Health Alliance $1,367,237. We wish we could give you more but in the partisan manner of the day, the releases were tied only to those districts where congressman seemed poised to vote for the House measure.

Meanwhile, it seems the once-human quality of being ready to apologize for mistakes, or even perceived errors and slights — a standard in what we do here as journalists — is again being dismissed as un-manly, maybe even un-American. Remember how this arose as the mistakes made in Iraq came to light? We thought we'd moved beyond such childishness.

As parents, isn't it clear that one of the key lessons we teach our kids is that everyone makes mistakes. We own up to them, learn from them, then move on. Nobody is perfect. We work to do better.

Now the question is whether our growing penchant for ideological purity, and growing animosity towards those among us we disagree with, has gotten the better of such lessons. It's as though we've forgotten the once-golden qualities of self-reflection, analysis, humility. Or — to make a political point — what we feel we want in our leaders.

Why should any of this matter? Life goes on, no matter how we approach it, or treat others. There are winner-take-all aspects to life. Live with it.

For a deep answer, I feel none of us need look any further than the recent release of the latest United Nations survey of who's happiest in today's world. Yes, Scandinavia won again. Developing nations, as well as those currently war-racked, are at the bottom of the list. Canada's doing quite well, mood-wise. And we as Americans dropped a place, to fourteenth, even while our incomes and other attributes rose.

"It's the human things that matter. If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?" noted John Helliwell, the lead author of the report and an economist at the University of British Columbia in Canada. "The material can stand in the way of the human."

It turns out that shared sense of community, goals, and appreciation for leisure matters. As do shared ideals and a common sense of what is good and bad.

The rankings are based on gross domestic product per person, healthy life expectancy and scores from 1 to 10 on how much social support people in a society feel they have if something goes wrong, their freedom to make their own life choices, their sense of how corrupt their society is, and how generous they feel, and are.

The survey found that while most countries were either getting happier or at least treading water, America's happiness score dropped 5 percent over the past decade and study co-author and economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University said that it was largely due to our sense of community's deterioration.

"We're becoming more and more mean spirited. And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising," he said, citing research and analysis he had conducted. "It's a long-term trend and conditions are getting worse."

Should we even believe such reports, or the need for happiness?

Here's my answer: If you want to be happy, yes. If not... whatever.