Why Conservatives Aren't (Intentionally) Funny

Why aren’t “conservatives” funny? http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=it%E2%80%99s_time_for_conservatives_to_take_comedy_seriously&ns=DougGiles&dt=02/04/2007&page=full&comments=true

The answer seems obvious to me. It’s not, as Doug Giles suggests, that they are too nice. On the contrary, they’re mean, and mean is rarely funny. They like to bully, and bullying is rarely funny. The butts of their jokes are often the poor and the oppressed, and that’s just not funny most of the time.

“Conservatives” are funniest when they are just being themselves, when they don’t intend to be funny. What could be more comical than Ted Stevens’ explaining how the internets work, for example? The linked to column by Doug Giles is also a hoot. Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly are veritable self-parodies. Nobody is more uncomfortably hilarious than William Donohue, self appointed defender of Catholicism. "Conservatives" can't tell a joke, but they can be a joke.

I put “Conservative” in scare quotes because I don’t think the label means what it might once have meant. In fact, one of the funniest things about the “Conservative” movement is how radical it is. How is it that big government, interventionism, authoritarianism and such like came to be an integral part of the “Conservative” agenda in just a few decades? Hypocrisy is fodder for comedians, and “Conservatives” have taken hypocrisy to a whole new level. Using the label “Conservative” as it is used nowadays is analogous to calling oneself a vegetarian even though one eats meat or calling oneself a libertarian even though one supports a massive federal national security and surveillance apparatus.

All my life, “Conservatives” have seemed a mirthless lot, tolerable only because of their unintentional ridiculousness. They were the crotchety old fart who would shoot at us schoolchildren if we wandered onto his land and who railed against the Jews at every opportunity. They were the geeky dateless guys in YAF in college that didn’t have the social skills to get into a D&D game and hung out together and rooted for their favorite Central American death squad. They were my Idiot Brother In Law ™ who destroyed almost as many brain cells listening to Rush Limbaugh as he did by drinking and who, while employed by the County, railed against those “tax eating parasites” in government. They were fat little fundamentalist preachers who, with a straight face, proclaimed from their pulpits (or cushy couch on a TV set) that Jesus had sent some catastrophe somewhere to kill a bunch of sinners, because that’s what the Prince of Peace is all about, killing people.

Maybe some real funny comedians have “Conservative” political leanings, but they aren’t making a living by being political in their acts. Dennis Miller became a lot less funny when he became a warmongering stooge. His rants are just mean spirited now.

“Liberals” are generally better at humor. Of course, there are joyless nannies on the “Liberal” side that are as authoritarian as any “Conservative”, just about different things. Nannies have no sense of humor, but they can be made sport of just like “Conservatives”.