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Conservatives Should Hold Tight to Their Sense of Humor During the Culture War

(Fox via AP)

The moment your opponent makes you angry, he’s won.

Anger has its uses. It’s an excellent motivator and will keep you in the fight long past the point where everyone else has tapped out. The emotion of anger can also be like every other narcotic in that it can be addictive and debilitating. Anger can stop you from seeing straight and making wise decisions. It can make differentiating between friend and foe difficult, and even situations that aren’t an issue can look like a problem that needs solving.

Conservatives, unlike their leftist counterparts, are tasked with being “happy warriors.” We’re supposed to be anxious for the fray and ready to bring down the hammer on wickedness and corruption. To be sure, conservatives seem to be a much more pleasant group to be around. They don’t bother themselves with silly social rules created by people who can never be pleased or happy.

Conservatives are ultimately better humorists. Their wit is commonly far greater than that of leftists, and it’s the fact that conservatives appreciate and practice comedy more often that allows them to do it. They’re capable of laughing at themselves as much as they are at everyone else. They don’t take things as seriously as the left does, but that’s because the left is kind of forced to take everything seriously. At the end of the day, conservatives get a lot more practice at being comedically oriented.

Thing is, there are times when conservatives also get swept up in the severity of the world and we forget to differentiate between jokes and actual things that threaten society. We bring down the hammer so much that everything starts looking like a nail and we forget to laugh.

Take, for instance, the recent issue with “The Santa Clauses.” During the course of the third episode, elves are seen bringing out placards with letters on them. When the elves line up, the placards spell out “WE LOVE YOU SATAN.”

Someone took a still of that image and sent it around the internet. Conservatives bit on it and before you knew it, there was a full-fledged viral outrage. To be fair, conservatives had just begun tackling the Balenciaga controversy that showed some pretty grotesque things surrounding children. Moreover, “The Santa Clauses” is a Disney creation, and Disney is one of the companies so on the bad side of conservatives that they can do no right even when they do right.

However, here’s the full context of the scene in the video below. As you can see, the elves holding the placards accidentally spell “Satan” when they meant to spell Santa. As Santa, played by the great Tim Allen, sees that they got his name wrong, he alerts them about the spelling. Once the elves see their mistake, they panic, scream, and quickly adjust so that it’s spelled correctly.

Two things spring to mind. For one, as a guy who grew up watching Tim Allen and understanding his humor, this is actually something I’d expect from him. Allen’s comedy somehow always walked the line between dark and warm, dating all the way back to “Home Improvement.” Even in the original “Santa Clause” movie, Scott Calvin, Allen’s character, inherits the Santa title after accidentally killing Santa Claus.

The “Satan” scene in his new Disney show isn’t out of character for him and when you get past a lot of what conservatives are up against, it is a chuckle-worthy scene.

The other point here is the intent behind the joke. Allen is a Godly man with a solid Christian faith. When Disney originally pitched the show to him, he said they had a bunch of fantasy creatures in it, but Allen wasn’t going to let that fly because the holiday is all about Christ.

“It originally had a lot of otherworldly characters, and ghosts, and goblins. I said no, this is Christ-mas. Its Christ-mas. It literally is a religious holiday,” Allen said according to “The Wrap.”

“We don’t have to blow trumpets, but I do want you to acknowledge it. That’s what this is about. If you want to get into Santa Claus, you’re gonna have to go back to history, and it’s all about religion,” said Allen.

So you can now see the intent behind the “Satan” joke wasn’t to actually convey any love for Satan. It was just a bit of dark humor from a guy who would roast Satan’s chestnuts on an open fire if he could.

Conservatives really didn’t have anything to worry about from the get-go and we didn’t need to get angry about it. As much as we want to take every opportunity to swing at Disney when we see an opening, that just wasn’t one of them. More importantly, conservatives shouldn’t waste time or energy swinging when we don’t need to.

We don’t want to get into the habit of jumping to offense at everything and anything we see. We know where that path leads because our leftist opposites show us all the time. They’re miserable creatures who obsess over every little displeasure, and if they can’t find something offensive then they’ll make something up. They’re addicted to it.

We don’t need to be like them. Remember to laugh.

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