# Conservatives: Where's the funny? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 6, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526 "2011-06-06T18:43:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/281 "2011-06-20T21:14:18Z")
> [@Dostoyevsky](#): > > I haven’t read the entire thread, so here goes. Rob Long at National Review is supposed to be funny… and sometimes is. [Link.](http://nrd.nationalreview.com/article/?q=MzQwZGZkZTEyMGE5MzgxN2Y2ZGM4OGRjZGIzMGM5OTQ=) Interesting parody of a Newsweek interview of the Obamas, although I don’t read Newsweek and don’t know if it actually supports Obama as much as is parodied. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/282 "2011-06-20T21:19:21Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Anyone with a shred of objectivity or journalistic integrity could easily see it. And therefore very nearly invisible on the SDMB. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/283 "2011-06-20T21:40:35Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > And I’d say it is a sure bet that Rush is one savvy talkateer that knows who is primary audience is, and(even though I know he is certainly smart enough) wouldn’t talk above their heads like you are suggesting. It’s convenient that you can scrape together another explanation for why he used the term, but I’m sure he knew what his core audience would assume, and why. Heavens yes. Since Rush’s audience tends to be [so much better informed](http://pewresearch.org/pubs/993/who-knows-news-what-you-read-or-view-matters-but-not-your-politics) than the people who watch most other media outlets (like CNN or network news), there is that much less need to dumb it down or explain it the way it might be necessary in other cases. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/284 "2011-06-20T21:46:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > As for my many posted examples of “what I think of blacks”…_CITE_? I absolutely defy you to come up with one post out of my posting history of over 10,000 posts, where I exhibit the slightest trace of anything that might objectively be defined as racism. I would bother wasting my time doing this to show you the many posts of yours I have read where you don’t hide your disdain for blacks, but if you don’t think Rush Limbaugh is a blatant racist then I won’t go to the effort. > [@](#): > > I leaned long ago that when a liberal calls you a racist, what he really means is that you disagree with his politically-correct way of thinking I don’t think politically correct means what you think it means. > [@](#): > > Hell, I’ve seen Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain called racists simply for stating such obvious and simple truths such as ebonics being harmful to one’s future employment and income prospects I haven’t heard these comments or anyone calling them racist for that. I would say though that the racism would be from the person who wouldn’t hire someone for using black American english, and the people who can’t handle dealing with someone who speaks with a different accent than theirs, just as it would be racist to not hire someone with an intelligible Irish accent. In America speaking with a black accent makes you sound “ignorant” but with a white accent quaint… except for southern accents which both blacks and whites can sound like that is considered by some to sound ignorant. That’s wrong too. (uh-oh, I’m promoting tolerance, EEEEVIL liberal PC alert!) > [@](#): > > the importance of education Do you have a cite for a liberal calling ANYONE a racist simply for promoting the importance of education? I don’t believe you. > [@](#): > > It’s only in the world of liberalism that one gets called vile names for championing education over thug life Are you nuts? :dubious: So you’re saying I go up to my liberal buddies (most of them are) and I say “Youth should look to education instead of thug life”, and they are going to call me vile names? Are you serious, do you actually believe that? > [@](#): > > (Or perhaps you have another explanation for the fact that Limbaugh was married by a black Supreme Court Justice and has black guest-hosts on his program…Oh, wait! Of course! _They’re_ racists too! :rolleyes:) Do you really think that to be a racist one must hate every SINGLE member of the group you think lowly of? Racism is not as black and white as you think it is, nor does it have to be taken to racial supremacist extreme levels to be racist. Muhammed Ali wasn’t allowed to try on a shirt before buying it at one white store in the south…no violence, wasn’t even rude to him, but it is still racist to not let him try on a shirt that he would let white customers try on. Personal example, my father is a racist, but he almost exclusively dates black women. > [@](#): > > The idea that Limbaugh is presenting non-racist humor that is intentionally above his audience’s head while simultaneously feeding their alleged racism is not only ridiculous but a perfect example of how much of right-wing racism exists only as a construct of the liberal mind. “If it isn’t obvious racism, why, it must be subliminal racism! After all, it came from a _conservative_, so it _has_ to be racist!” It’s simple. While Rush is a blatant racist, he is also not unintelligent. So he gets to have his cake and eat it too, using a word that is considered offensive in a parody song to refer to our president, while being able to hide behind the “Magic Negro” trope as a shield from pointing out how racist it is…all while his aging, racist white viewership laugh it up because they know what it REALLY means. > [@](#): > > I sometimes think that if liberals couldn’t call people names and impugn their motives they never get anywhere. Do you oppose government health care? Then you’re a “selfish, evil bastard who wants to see people dying in the streets!” Do you oppose higher taxes? You’re a “selfish, evil bastard who doesn’t care about other people because you already got your own!” Oppose abortion? Why, you’re a “sexist, evil pig who thinks he can dictate to women what they can do with their own bodies!” I hope you will give me some credit when I say I agree with you, but those accusations are true for a not insignificant amount of the people against universal healthcare and taxes…or are you denying that they exist at all? **Starving** I have a question for you. Since you have pointed out more than once your disgust at how many black people voted for BO due to his race, shouldn’t you be posting much more often your disgust at whites who only vote for white candidates due to their race? Considering the fact is that only 1 out of 44 presidents has even been half black, and also that blacks in the U.S. comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population (and tend to vote less than whites), and thus CANNOT get a president elected? It seems to me that with so many white presidents and such a large white majority, stating that whites vote on the issues but blacks must all vote on race, seems racist in and of itself. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/285 "2011-06-20T21:52:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Heavens yes. Since Rush’s audience tends to be [so much better informed](http://pewresearch.org/pubs/993/who-knows-news-what-you-read-or-view-matters-but-not-your-politics) than the people who watch most other media outlets (like CNN or network news), there is that much less need to dumb it down or explain it the way it might be necessary in other cases. > > Regards, > Shodan Is knowing the names of politicians more important than being more educated? Is dumbing things down more likely (and more necessary) if your audience didn’t go to college? Or finish highschool? ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/286 "2011-06-20T23:39:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So conservatives can’t give me a list of their favorite conservative comedians because they don’t view comedy in that manner? In a way, there really aren’t any “conservative” comedians? You ask this like it would be easy to list a few dozen well-known “liberal comedians.” Is it? Because I can’t think of many who focus on political humor, rather than are simply democrats who are also comedians just as some of the ones listed in this thread aren’t really conservative comedians so much as comedians who vote republican. Sure, I can think of more liberal comedians, but it’s not as though they’re a dime a dozen either. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/287 "2011-06-21T02:19:50Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > You ask this like it would be easy to list a few dozen well-known “liberal comedians.” Is it? Because I can’t think of many who focus on political humor, rather than are simply democrats who are also comedians just as some of the ones listed in this thread aren’t really conservative comedians so much as comedians who vote republican. Sure, I can think of more liberal comedians, but it’s not as though they’re a dime a dozen either. No one is asking for a plethora here, no one is even asking for a stand-up comedian. How about a cartoon, comic, tv show, radio humorist? I asked in the OP for conservative humor, I’ll take anything you can come up with as long as it tickled your conservative sympathies. It doesn’t have to be a conservative version of [THIS](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q3UidWM) but it’d be awesome if you could find one. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/288 "2011-06-21T03:05:22Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > … he was making fun of the hippie culture that gave …rise to songs like “_Puff, the Magic Dragon_” and of the political correctness of the time, in which “Negro” was deemed the politically correct term to use in referring to blacks. > > I realize that many members of this board are too young to make these connections, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Well, then he is an idiot, on top of his many other failings. “Puff” was written in 1961 and recorded in 1963, a good couple of years at least before the first “far out!”. Maybe there are some tings we can be fairly blamed for, but not “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. > **[Puff, the Magic Dragon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff,_the_Magic_Dragon)** > > "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (or just "Puff") is an American folk song written by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary from a poem by Leonard Lipton. It was made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary in a 1962 recording released in January 1963. > Lipton wrote a poem about a dragon in 1959, and, when Yarrow found it, he wrote the lyrics to "Puff" based on the poem. After the song was released, Yarrow searched for Lipton to give him credit for the song. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/289 "2011-06-21T03:35:14Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, then he is an idiot, on top of his many other failings. “Puff” was written in 1961 and recorded in 1963, a good couple of years at least before the first “far out!”. Maybe there are some tings we can be fairly blamed for, but not “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. > > [Puff, the Magic Dragon - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff,_the_Magic_Dragon) I once saw Peter Paul and Mary in concert on TV and one of them prefaced “Puff” with a long-sustained-note insistence that the-song-is-about-the-lost-innocence-of-childhood-so-tell-everybody-the-Dragon’s-father-himself-told-you-there-was-never-any-interpretation-but-the-obvious-oooooooonnnnnneee. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/290 "2011-06-21T03:37:08Z")
“Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,” OTOH – I don’t **care** if Lennon went on record in _Imagine,_ please don’t take this away from me! ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/291 "2011-06-21T04:45:43Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Very interesting. Can you perhaps think of a quality show that you think suffered from the non-ability of left-wingers to tolerate right-wing humor? Define “quality”, I guess. I had a couple of liberal friends say they would never, ever watch _King of the Hill_ because it potrayed liberals as clueless, airheaded, pie-in-the-sky slackers and hippies. They couldn’t get past that, and notice that the show blatantly made fun of the stick-in-the-mud conservatives of Arlen as well, such as making fun of gun nuts via its portrayal of Dale as a loon. One liberal co-worker exploded at me ranting about the “green energy” episode, where Hank’s boss started selling carbon offsets which were imaginary. I thought she was going to have a stroke, and said “that show is BANNED in my house! It’s teaching my kids that the environment isn’t important!” No, actually, it’s not… I thought it was a pretty balanced bit of humour myself. But I guess all you have to do is say “that’s not quality” and you win. Did it “suffer” from it? How on earth would one prove that? I don’t even know where one could get the data. I do know that the few liberal friends I have were unanimously turned off by the show because it “made fun of liberals”, putting on blinders that it made fun of conservatives just as much. Jesus F. Christ, nearly every recurring character in the program was a walking, talking satire of a conservative, and they couldn’t get that? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/292 "2011-06-21T05:00:27Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, then he is an idiot, on top of his many other failings. “Puff” was written in 1961 and recorded in 1963, a good couple of years at least before the first “far out!”. Maybe there are some tings we can be fairly blamed for, but not “Puff, the Magic Dragon”. > > [Puff, the Magic Dragon - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff,_the_Magic_Dragon) Perhaps you’ll recall that “Puff” enjoyed a resurgence around 1968/1969 when the hippie/lib set decided it was about drugs, and therefore, oh, so cool. PP&M were enjoying a resurgence around that time anyway thanks to “_I Dig Rock And Roll Music_” from a year or two earlier. And Rush, being around our age and a disc jockey not too long after that time would surely have known of the revived song’s connotation. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/293 "2011-06-21T05:28:39Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > I thought it was a pretty balanced bit of humour myself. But I guess all you have to do is say “that’s not quality” and you win. Did it “suffer” from it? How on earth would one prove that? I don’t even know where one could get the data. I do know that the few liberal friends I have were unanimously turned off by the show because it “made fun of liberals”, putting on blinders that it made fun of conservatives just as much. Jesus F. Christ, nearly every recurring character in the program was a walking, talking satire of a conservative, and they couldn’t get that? 😕 I don’t think it’s balanced, the characters in the show are conservative, the plot and the themes side with them. Sure it pokes fun at Dale, but he’s a liberal caricature of a conservative, so making fun of him is still conservative humor. In the end the audience is meant to see his humanity anyway and hes a sympathetic character. Who the hell doesn’t pity a guy who’s wife is cheating on him? I’m a moderately leaning liberal and I love the show. It’s perspective is fresh to me, or at least unique, which is why it’s the first sentence in this thread. Your liberal acquaintances are being ridiculous, but they aren’t the reason there isn’t more conservative humor. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/294 "2011-06-21T05:58:09Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Perhaps you’ll recall that “Puff” enjoyed a resurgence around 1968/1969 when the hippie/lib set decided it was about drugs, and therefore, oh, so cool. … You haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. It was the tighty righties with the stainless steel assholes who decided that “Puff” was about drugs. From the cite above, which seems to have eluded your notice… > [@](#): > > …The authors of the song have repeatedly rejected this urban legend and have strongly and consistently denied that they intended any references to drug use. Peter Yarrow has frequently explained that “Puff” is about the hardships of growing older and has no relationship to drug-taking. He has also said of the song that it “never had any meaning other than the obvious one” and is about the “loss of innocence”… PP&M were seen as purveyors of beatnik communist folk music by the same people who couldn’t understand why their daughters wanted to tear the clothes off of some foppish English metrosexuals. Even as bland and commercial as PP&M were, PP&M were seen as a threat, until they got a good look at the Rolling Stones, and totally shit themselves. (There’s a story about Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggarts, who were cousins back in Bumfuck, Louisiana. Jerry nearly followed his cousin into the, ah, ministry but strayed from the path because “the Devil has all the good music.” True story. Maybe not factual, but true.) ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/295 "2011-06-21T06:27:31Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about. It was the tighty righties with the stainless steel assholes who decided that “Puff” was about drugs. From the cite above, which seems to have eluded your notice… You seem to forget that virtually everyone I knew and/or went to school with during that time glommed onto the hippie/dippy lifestyle, growing their hair and doing drugs like a motherfuck. (No, really. They were. You’d have been so proud.) Anyway, they were the ones who told me about the so-called hidden meaning behind “Puff”, and with the same gleeful insider amusement as kids four or five years previous were snickering over the “real words” to _Louie Louie_. I’ll admit that I didn’t click your link as I thought its purpose was merely to cite when “Puff” was recorded and released, but that doesn’t mean you can tell me what my own experiences were. If “tighty-righties” thought “Puff” was about drugs (and after all, what could be more revealing of priggishness on the part of conservatives than their disdain for drugs), it’s because that’s what your crowd was celebrating it as. Oh, btw, the 20-year-old son of a couple of good friends of mine died on April 12 of a drug overdose after about a five-year downward spiral. You wanna tell me again why it is that drugs are so cool and why righties are such assholes for their disdain of them? ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/296 "2011-06-21T06:48:23Z")
The Pit is that way, you two. Let the door hit your ass on the way out. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/297 "2011-06-21T11:37:26Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Define “quality”, I guess. I had a couple of liberal friends say they would never, ever watch _King of the Hill_ because it potrayed liberals as clueless, airheaded, pie-in-the-sky slackers and hippies. They couldn’t get past that, and notice that the show blatantly made fun of the stick-in-the-mud conservatives of Arlen as well, such as making fun of gun nuts via its portrayal of Dale as a loon. One liberal co-worker exploded at me ranting about the “green energy” episode, where Hank’s boss started selling carbon offsets which were imaginary. I thought she was going to have a stroke, and said “that show is BANNED in my house! It’s teaching my kids that the environment isn’t important!” No, actually, it’s not… > > I thought it was a pretty balanced bit of humour myself. But I guess all you have to do is say “that’s not quality” and you win. Did it “suffer” from it? How on earth would one prove that? I don’t even know where one could get the data. I do know that the few liberal friends I have were unanimously turned off by the show because it “made fun of liberals”, putting on blinders that it made fun of conservatives just as much. Jesus F. Christ, nearly every recurring character in the program was a walking, talking satire of a conservative, and they couldn’t get that? 😕 1. You can define quality any way you wish, since it is your opinion I am seeking. 2. Even so, _King Of The Hill_ is a _very_ bad example if you wish to put forth a show that suffered and was driven off the air for being conservative-it ran for 13 years. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/298 "2011-06-21T14:55:33Z")
Starving did you just miss my post, or decide not to reply to it? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/299 "2011-06-21T15:14:55Z")
This was a considerable amount of wrong in it and I just didn’t feel like tackling all of it at the time. Still don’t. Maybe later. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526/300 "2011-06-21T17:36:59Z")
OK, now _that’s_ funny! Maybe not Dennis Miller funny, but definitely \*Mallard Fillmore \*funny! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conservatives-wheres-the-funny/584526.md?page=16)