Several readers continue the discussion:

Humor and satire skewer people and social groups. Liberals naturally skewer and mock the powerful, and are comfortable doing so (and more power to them!). Conservatives, who at least in their current incarnation serve exclusively to protect and defend the ultra-privileged, have no natural interest in mocking or satirizing them. To attempt to do so would come off as flat and insincere. Their interest is in skewering the powerless and weak. While this can be devastatingly funny, is also cruel and harmful and corrosive to democratic values and is socially unacceptable if done openly.

I think we saw a bit of conservative humor at the Tampa convention, incidentally. Funny little private joke, that - throwing peanuts at an African American. But as we can see from the public reaction, socially unacceptable. I’m sure they’d have rather kept the joke private, just like the countless examples of Obama watermelon email jokes shared among some conservatives.

Another writes:

Your comments and the Oakeshott quote had impressed upon me a thought which I'm amazed never occurred to me: that atheism is a conservative position.