Posted on 06/02/2022 9:51:38 AM PDT by Heartlander
The Babylon Bee isn’t one of my regularly visited websites, but I landed on its front page the other morning and started scrolling through headlines. Pretty soon a snicker escaped my lips, then a giggle, and then several bursts of downright hearty laughter, which a co-worker was soon sharing after I read him a choice headline.
I went back to my work feeling refreshed and content. It felt good to laugh, to look at the troubles our world faces through the funny side of the lens for once.
That I would find such laughter from a conservative satire site like The Babylon Bee would likely come as a surprise to many of our ruling elites. For the last couple of decades, popular opinion has placed good political humor solely in the hands of those on the left side of the political spectrum, professors Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx told Politico in a recent interview. Resting on their laurels, however, isn’t doing liberal humorists any good; in fact, conservatives now appear to have the humor market cornered, partly due to the fact that their liberal counterparts are no longer funny.
This lack of humor from the left seems to stem from cancel culture and a fear of being offensive in even the most minute ways. Instead of laughing at something funny, liberals engage in virtue signaling, telling people “that there is a moral problem or maybe a political problem with finding [something] funny,” Sienkiewicz says.
When liberals do this, however, they “are ceding ideological territory in the culture wars to the rights,” Marx says, noting that comedy is “a binding agent” that unifies people. Furthermore, humor has a power to attract younger audiences, for, as Sienkiewicz explains, “If it is perceived that you are going to have more fun and be less subject to [scrutiny about] laughing at the correct things on the right than on the left, well, which party do you want to attend if you’re not deeply ideological?”
Marx and Sienkiewicz are themselves liberals who spent the last three years studying the issue of conservative humor. But they could have spared themselves some trouble pondering its rise, for British satirist Malcolm Muggeridge explored the same issue in his book Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim. Muggeridge points out that Christians—just like today’s traditionalist conservatives studied by Marx and Sienkiewicz—are often believed to be humorless, the assumption being that “a sense of humour and a Christian faith are incompatible.” But such an assumption is totally mistaken, Muggeridge wrote. Instead,
It is the millionaires and pornographers and megalomaniacs, and doctrinaire politicians and sociologists and abortionists, people of that stamp, who wrap themselves in solemnity, and wince at the sound of laughter. “That idiot laughter, a passion hateful to our purpose”, Shakespeare’s King John says, speaking on behalf of all tyrants everywhere and at all times, anointed and ideological.
Why is laughter the bane of tyrants? Because tyrants seek to enslave people, but laughter helps an individual break free from such enslavement.
Laughter frees us physically by stimulating body organs, relieving stress, and aiding relaxation, the Mayo Clinic says. It also boosts our immune systems and acts as a painkiller. It frees us emotionally by lightening our moods and enabling us to form connections with others, and it is through such community that we gain further freedom by the realization that we are not alone in our ideas and practices. And in a sense, it also frees us mentally, for it allows us to get into the minds of the ruling elites, for as Muggeridge wrote in a different essay, “When the governed laugh, the governors cannot but have an uneasy feeling that they may well be laughing at them.”
So do you believe in freedom and want to spread it around? Then laugh. Look for the funny side of even the most mundane things in life.
And don’t just keep the humor to yourself, either. Share the funny parts of your day with your family. Pass along a relevant and amusing meme on social media. Laugh at a co-worker’s joke. Who knows? The joy you spread may be just the thing to cut through the gloom that tyrants use to keep us enslaved.
Laughter is fine, but they just don’t care one whit about us and don’t care if they are laughed at. Nothing will deter them from their mission to destroy Western Civilization. Of they get the guns, it’s over.
you can tell the LEFT is tyrannical because they do not have a sense of humor
you had to...you...had...to! Good Lord that woman. She’s a perpetual eyeroll
I remember back in 2008 or so when people noticed that Saturday Night Live and other shows were not making much fun of Obama. I believe SNL shrugged it off and said something pretty close to: “He’s just awesome in every way. What can you joke about? There’s nothing funny about just being damn good at your job.”
And I just saw that as a simple admission that laughter is a huge threat to these people.
Bees are fish. (yes, see CA for this gem)
57 genders.
Men can have babies.
Epstein killed himself.
Biden is competent.
Believe all women - unless you shouldn't because she's going against our agenda.
Everything is racist.
Statues of long-dead people can hurt you. (ok, maybe if one fell on you...)
Vaccines developed in record time, cutting corners and short-cutting long-standing safety procedures & protocols, using brand new technology, are "safe and effective" right out of the gate. No, really, they're effective, just get 2, 3, 4...some number of boosters, we'll get back to you on that...
The economy is doing fine.
If you can't afford gas you can afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new electric car. (ie. let them eat cake II)
The only thing the left is really good for is providing an endless stream of comedic entertainment.
To understand Leftist Humor, look at the likes of Saturday Night Live, Steven Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, David Letterman, and Kathy Griffin.
They are mean-sprited, dour, and unfunny. Orange Man Bad, and the equivalent.
To understand Conservative Humor, the Babylon Bee is a shining example and there is nothing like it on the Left. It is relevant, intelligent, witty and funny. And conservatives, past and present such as Bob Hope, Tim Allen, Steven Crowder, Dennis Miller, Norm MacDonald, and Rodney Dangerfield, while lesser in volume than the Leftists due to the nature of the entertainment industry, are far more solid.
Conservative humor pokes fun at those who least tolerate being the butt of jokes, while Leftist humor vilifies (usually with little humor) those who are their ideological enemies.
There is a difference.
Bottom line.
I think laughter and ridicule are some of our most potent weapons. You want to really get a lefty’s panties in a wad, just horse-laugh their stupidity. They will go from zero to seething angry in a nanosecond. Laugh at their idiocy every chance you get and get others in on the fun. Flush them out of their self-assured, but false, superiority and they will reward you with more opportunities for comedic relief.
In the Good Book it is written that Mary Magdalene mistook Jesus for the gardener.
Diacritics. Can’t live with em; can’t live without em.
Wiki: “An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.”
All true, but it doesn’t matter. They are actively destroying the nation and western civilization.
You can get some liberal kook on the street, in your neighborhood, or at the school board meetings riles up if you laugh at them. But they merrily continue destroying the nation and our traditions.
You should have read the article.
I read the whole thing. It’s cute. Leftists don’t like ridicule. But it doesn’t do anything to stop them.
The only bane of tyrants is bullets and 2A. That is precisely why the Founders added a 2A.
Laughter is useless. You can laugh all the way to the firing squad or the gas chamber, but laughter won’t stop them from shooting or gassing you.
“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear.
They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them.
A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”
WINSTON CHURCHILL
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