(CNN) — Comedy scares people in power.

We saw a disturbing example this week when Egyptian TV host and comedian Bassem Youssef, frequently described as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, was charged with the crimes of mocking Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy and insulting Islam. If convicted, Youssef could be fined and sentenced to prison.

Now, before you quickly categorize this incident under the catch all, “They hate us for our freedoms” crap, let’s not forget our own history.

Comedy legend Lenny Bruce was arrested not once but eight times, in the early 1960s for telling jokes that were considered obscene. However, Bruce’s lawyer argued that the comedian was not being prosecuted for his profanity but rather for mocking political leaders and religion.

In 1964, Bruce was convicted of violating New York’s obscenity laws and sentenced to four months of hard labor. Being sentenced to hard labor is doubly painful since comedians go into comedy to avoid hard labor. Bruce tragically died of a morphine overdose in 1966 while the appeal to his criminal conviction was pending.

Today, a comedian in the United States is unlikely to be criminally prosecuted for profanity, mocking elected officials or ridiculing religion. (If they could, Bill Maher and countless others would probably be on death row.)

While some of our elected officials may hate being the target of comedians’ barbs, none would argue that jokes are a threat to our nation.

In the Arab world, however, stand-up comedy and satirical political comedy shows like the one Bassem Youssef hosts are a very new development. There’s a great fear in the region that this form of entertainment will undermine political leaders.

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