Here we are wrapping up Thanksgiving 2021 and I felt the need to do some reflecting on this day we Americans celebrate the fourth Thursday in November every year. Of course, reflecting on this day is nothing unusual after you have stuffed your gullet with turkey that is much more expensive than last year (Thanks, Joe Biden!) but I have a bit of a different perspective, I suppose.

What am I thankful for? A ton of things, but let me focus on something that has been plaguing this country I love for a moment.

Once again, I see signs that this nation of ours is slowly but surely reasserting its God-given common sense — via comedy. The woke comedy shrews seem to have pushed their whining and bellyaching a bit too far.

I have been sitting for most of the day at home and watching a network called Decades. They are running a series of “Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts” which were primarily filmed in the ’70s and early ’80s. These are a precursor to the Comedy Central Roasts you see today with the stars of that era, and Dean Martin was the host for these shows. The material is dated and would not be funny to some people not familiar with the references and jokes. So, for the network to protect themselves from the weak-kneed woke crowd that have no humor, they run a warning before each show to alert them that the topics and jokes are from the era this was filmed and might hurt your feelings.

I kid you not.

My colleagues and I here at Red State have been writing and talking about pushback on the woke crowd from comics like Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr for months now and it is has been encouraging to see. I have an example from my colleague Brandon Morse who wrote this, yesterday: Comedy Is Subjective…but Woke Comedy Is Objectively Not Funny

I realize there are brands of comedy out there that people don’t find funny for one reason or another. Being someone who saw and experienced dark things as a kid, I have a dark sense of humor, and it’s a sense of humor that some of my friends and family don’t get and other members of my friends and family absolutely do.

What one man considers grotesque or inappropriate, others consider humorous. The jokes doctors, nurses, military members, and police officers tell each other would make others believe they’re heartless. They’re anything but that, but humor allows them to deconstruct and deal with the massively unpleasant things they go through. It’s necessary to whistle in the dark when you’re in the dark quite a bit.

It’s all about perspective. Everyone has a taste for certain jokes, in the same way they prefer one type of ice cream over another.

Another colleague of mine, Scott Hounsell, just did a podcast on Dave Chappelle pushing back after his latest Netflix special which you can listen to right here: Cancel This! Podcast: They Think They Can Cancel Dave Chappelle.

The feelings over everything else crowd has so infiltrated our society that a popular show from almost fifty years ago now has to come with a trigger warning, and that is idiotic. As Brandon mentions in the clip I quoted above, we do not need to agree that everything popular is funny. Comedy is subjective and different people will find a variety of things both funny and insulting. Yet in a country that was founded in part with the notion that ideas could be discussed without approval from the government, this is how it should be.

America has for too long now allowed the squeaky wheel to not only get the grease but to direct where we are going and what can be talked about on the trip.

Thankfully, on this Thanksgiving 2021, I see signs that America is slowly regaining her common sense, and once again the comics are leading the way.

For that, I’m immensely grateful.