We live in a country that has lost its sense of humor.

All those ditzy YouTube videos to the contrary, and despite high attendance figures for such cinematic gems as Wild Hogs and the glee caused watching "average" folk make asses of themselves on reality TV, we are in a laughter drought.

Why? Because we have become so proper that it is hard to make fun of someone or something without stirring protests that a group - name a group, any group - is being attacked.

Now I'm not talking serious examples of foot-in-mouth syndrome, such as the recent uber-ignorant comments by Gen. Peter Pace of the Joint Chiefs on his personal views on the morality of homosexuality. That's serious business. That's wrong. Send him to KP duty right now.

But what are we to make of fast-food workers complaining when there was general hooting over the fact that Kevin Federline was making fun of burger-flippers in a video? I understand the concept of the dignity of all work, but there are much more tangible reasons to find fault with K-Fed than that.

And what possessed people to complain about a commercial that showed two, um, under-groomed men wound up kissing while nibbling on a candy bar? And that people laughed? Did people really read that as a put-down of homosexuality? Or anything having to do with homosexuality to begin with? Can't a commercial be silly?

Most baffling of all was the response to a General Motors commercial in which a robot was put out of work - anyone who's ever lived in a GM town will find that funny in itself. We saw the most-unhappy robot hovering on the edge of a bridge contemplating the big dive. There were protests that this was an endorsement of suicide even though it's a ROBOT, for crying out loud! You want problematic? How about owning stock in a U.S. car company?

On Wednesday, The New York Times business section carried a story about the fact that the GM robot commercial has been edited to remove any mention of the machine's consideration of that desperate act. (No word on whether it will be lying on a shrink's couch.)

The story also said that Washington Mutual had pulled a commercial that showed "actors playing bankers poised atop a building as if about to jump." Greedy, overfed bankers have been a constant theme through the WaMu spots, and it hits home, especially when they are all being fed giant shrimp and a big bottle of champagne. (It's like that where I work; how about you?)

After all, if you can't laugh at bankers, who can you laugh at? If you can't find a chuckle in a video of a, well, musically challenged singer acknowledging the transient nature of his luck by pretending to work the fry machine, who can you laugh at?

And as for the robot: Suicide is certainly not funny, and it claims way too many people each year who cannot find their way out of depression. But it is a theme that runs through life and literature.

And, yes, it's a ROBOT!

So here's my suggestion: Let's outlaw jokes, videos, sitcoms or reality programming that have anything to do with anything funny about any ethnic group, gender, occupation, class issue, or relationship to any sort of machinery. That includes reruns of hundreds of TV shows from the 1950s through the 1990s. Oh, and hair color: Personally, I've had it with blonde jokes.

What that leaves, really, is Hitler and, yes, the WASPs. My people. Not WASP bankers, apparently, but the rest of the group that brought you colonialism, racism and other important facets of life that keep the global fires burning.

And considering the usual lineup of programming on the Discovery Channel - in my house called the Hitler Channel - there certainly is enough material on that clown and his minions (and many descendants) to inspire a thousand routines that poke fun at a monster.

We all know monsters don't like to be made fun of, but it's so much fun to bully a bully.

chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677