Speculation has been rampant on both the left and right recently about whether conservatives have a sense of humor.
If this isn’t it, then what does a sense of humor look like? Did conservatives have “it” at one time and have since lost it? If so, where should they be looking for it? Can it be purchased online someplace, or does one have to brave the scary Wal-Mart parking lots? How much does it cost?
Interestingly enough, the liberals also seem to be in on the hunt for that rare, elusive sense, but I’m suspicious of their motives. If they could find it, I worry that they’d hold it hostage until early 2009, and frankly, none of us can risk that. [Edit, July 15 2008 — there were two links to liberal sites in this paragraph, but both of those linked articles (!!) are gone. That means something, I’m sure…]
Sadly, Polimom understands all this angst; I’ve had trouble holding onto my own sense of humor lately. It seems to wander away and get lost more and more easily, and I’ve resorted to duct tape to keep it handy. (Question: it doesn’t seem happy about this. Is that a problem, do you think?)
In light of all this troubling seriousness, I was therefore greatly relieved yesterday to find proof positive that some conservatives are still in full possession of their humor senses, and (most importantly) are not afraid to expose themselves!
Enter Conservapedia:
Conservapedia is an online resource and meeting place where we favor Christianity and America. Conservapedia has easy-to-use indexes to facilitate review of topics. You will much prefer using Conservapedia compared to Wikipedia if you want concise answers free of “political correctness”.
This satirical site is absolutely brilliant, as I’m sure you’d agree if you could easily access the site’s pages.
Sadly, word has apparently gotten out, and as the grim hordes race to slake their thirst (and perhaps even hack the site in their desperation to steal “it”), Conservapedia’s servers seem to be slogging.
Hopefully, the techno-gurus behind the scenes will have their site running smoothly again soon, but until they do, Jon Swift’s introductory post (also available here) has some excellent excerpts. For instance:
The Da Vinci Code: “Dan Brown is responsible for feeding millions of readers a pack of lies cleverly wrapped up as a historically accurate novel.”
and
Isaac Newton — “Sir Isaac Newton was one of the inventors of calculus and the propsed [sic-whoops!] the theory of gravity (It should be noted that gravity, like evolution, is just a theory and has never been proven to be true). He was a Devout Christian whose discoveries were inspired by God.”
Unfortunately, Jon Swift seems to have taken the site seriously… but since he’s widely known as the most humorless conservative in the blogosphere, it’s sad, but hardly surprising.
Take heart, grim readers. All is not yet lost.
Comedy is simple, it is comedy. It has no political agenda. Political satire is not satire with a political agenda; it is satire aimed at politics and politicians. All good humor exposes the hidden truth.
For instance, I am really sorry to see that Iowa’s ex-governor Tom Vilsack has dropped out of the presidential race. But he did have name recognition issues; to such and extent that I understand his campaign was negotiating the use of CSI’s theme song.
I read some of the exerpts from Conservapedia and was surprised to find that most Americans do not believe in evolution. Then again, most Americans don’t know the capital of Idaho. And until recently thought Iran was past tense for Irun.