In our hypersensitive, self-righteous, constantly offended society, an 80-year-old woman with cojones shall lead us.

Joan Rivers isn’t backing down from her latest controversial comments…

[S]he will not apologize over an appearance on the “Today” show Tuesday in which she compared living arrangements with her daughter to the ordeal of three women held captive for a decade by Ariel Castro.

While promoting their WEtv reality series “Joan and Melissa: Joan Knows Best,” the mother and daughter duo were asked what it was like living together. The elder Rivers has been residing at Melissa’s home in Malibu, Calif., during the taping of the series.

“Those women in the basement in Cleveland had more space,” Rivers said.

Obviously, she does not think her living conditions were comparable to those of the women held captive in Ohio. It wouldn’t be a joke if she did. And, if you hate the joke, fine. Hate the joke and move on.

“I’m a comedienne,’’ she said. “I know what those girls went through. It was a little, stupid joke. There is nothing to apologize for. I made a joke. That’s what I do. Calm down. Calm f—— down. I’m a comedienne. They’re free, so let’s move on.’’

Regardless of what you think of Rivers or the joke, in standing up and telling everyone to “calm f****** down,” she took power from the Perpetually Outraged. Patton Oswalt does the same when he refuses to back down from tweeting a Mark Steyn column. I’m as annoyed as the rest of you when Jon Stewart uses his clown-nose-on/clown-nose-off trick to avoid ever being held accountable for his views or his comments, but that’s not what this is. We know what Rivers’ schtick is. She just tells jokes. They’re usually mean. As a society, we should be able to deal with that.

Make fun of everything. Forcing comedians to genuflect to whatever group doesn’t like their jokes is stupid. If comedians allow it to happen, it bodes poorly for the rest of us and our ability to say a damn thing without being hounded out of our livelihoods. Go on with your bad selves (and your sometimes bad jokes), dissidents.