I think I'm largely in agreement with you -- yes, I absolutely want people to respect each other, and start from that perspective. Mostly because there are a lot of super lazy jokes about groups of people that aren't funny because they're not clever, they're just bigoted.

But when people say, "too much political correctness", that tends to be what they're talking about. E.g., some jerk makes a joke about their pronouns being attack/helicopter or something, showing that they don't understand pronouns and that they don't understand that humor should involve something unexpected, not something super expected, if one assumes the person has bigoted ideas.

But plenty of people make good humor with various groups because they don't fall into those standard tropes.

And if someone is punching up, absolutely respect should be kept to the bare minimum.

Or, in other words, basic respect is about learning about a topic. "Too much respect" would be never pointing out various oddities in a group that you otherwise have basic respect for.

Because, yeah, people act in funny ways. Especially when acting as a group.