“Do you think *horrible topic* is funny?!?”

Normal Person: (Tells joke about horrible topic X.)

Obnoxious Scold: Wait! Do you think X is funny?!?

Normal Person: What?! No, of course not. X isn’t funny. X is deadly serious...

Obnoxious Scold: Okay. I guess that’s good.

Normal Person: …which is why jokes about X are hilarious!

Obnoxious Scold: Alright, now. I see what you did. Not cool.

Normal Person: It's not like everyone thinks X is a wonderful and happy subject. That's not why jokes about X are funny. The ensuing laughter doesn’t stem from our enjoyment of X actually happening. Jokes about X work because we all share a mutual understanding that X is deadly serious. The joke violates sacred norms. It reminds us of temptations that we resist or thoughts that we banish from our minds as taboo. So we laugh when Emo Philips pushes a man off a bridge over a minor disagreement over religious doctrine. Or when a parent jokes about eating their child for dinner or flushing him down the toilet. Or when a song from a saucy puppet show reminds us that "Everyone's a little bit racist." The joke is a surprising reminder that the veneer of civilization is thin, that something horrible and taboo is lurking just under the surface, that we’re not totally innocent. The different reactions to jokes about X and X itself are like the difference between being prodded in our sensitive parts by a professional torturer and being tickled in the ribs by a trusted love one. It's the difference between being razzed by your best friend and being insulted in public by a rival about your very real shortcomings. It would be awful if I actually committed infanticide and then cannibalism, or if I actually cuckolded or sexually dominated my best friend. Far worse than if my joke about X had been a serious suggestion. Tickling and teasing are harmless for exactly the same reason that crude jokes are harmless. There is enough trust between the tickler and the tickled, the teaser and the teased, the joke teller and the listener, to know that it's not serious. Actually, you fucking well know all this already, so why am I bothering? I have heard you make "lighthearted" comments about wanting to murder someone. You can drop the whole "outrage as a performance piece" act, because I literally saw you joking about physically assaulting or murdering your political opponents. 

Obnoxious Scold: That really was just a joke. Everyone understands that people are joking about wanting to murder or assault annoying people. On the thing you were joking about, some people actually think that's okay.
Normal Person: Okay, but then I saw you cheer and celebrate on social media when someone actually died. On multiple occasions. Some people are actively making the argument that it's okay to use violence against their political opponents, and others are actively engaging in such violence. But, yeah, let's pretend my thing was "dangerous". Let's say I'm the "offensive" one here.
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Sorry if I'm literally straw-manning the Obnoxious Scold here. Obviously I'm giving Normal Person a lot more space to state his ideas. I couldn't think of a better way to structure this post. I am getting increasingly annoyed with people who understand how humor works but pretend not to. It is positively perverse that the scolds are going after professional comedians and their stand-up material. Comedians are supposed to point out uncomfortable truths (or "truths", because comedians say a lot of shit that's funny but not really true). Their job is to prod at our sacred taboos. We laugh because we are acknowledging that the thought is taboo and that the joke is inappropriate in polite society. Someone who says "There's nothing funny about X!" is failing to understand how humor works. Most humor isn't about something pleasant and wonderful happening.