“Woke” Republicans

What does “woke” really mean? In this article I intend to define what exactly it means, and how this has spread to conservative Republicans.

“Wokeism”? We have examples. The quintessential example was Evergreen State College near Olympia, WA, where every year they had a student gathering called the “Day of Absence” students discussing the oppression of black people, Indigenous people, and others. In 2017 students decided to have a black-only discussion. A professor, Bret Weinstein claimed whites were “ordered” off campus, facing an unruly crowd of student protesters, leaving the campus in “fear,” and sued the college for $3.8 million. Eventually they got $500,000 and they left the college.

This incident launched a student-led demonstration against the Evergreen State College Administration on behalf of Blacks, Indigenous resulting in the resignation of its President after his office was occupied by students. Here is a description of what happened there.

This has spread across the country. Young people are able to see the oppression of Black and Indigenous people, and they want it to stop, right now. The worship of those racists, Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee must end, their statues must be pulled down.

At Ivy League schools, a professor expresses some negative opinion about Blacks, LBGQT, and the students organize a demonstration to have them fired. J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books expressed an opinion about trans-women, and she’s cancelled.

Full Disclosure: I’m a leftist, and I sympathize with these students. I understand how the feel, about the oppression of Blacks and the Indigenous. I see what they endure in the face of white privilege every day of their lives. I sympathize with the desire for it all to stop right now. But I fall short of damaging the freedom of speech. Speech must be countered by speech, not cancelling.

Wokeism, a definition. An intellectual idea is taken to its extreme. Anti-racism, social justice, those ideas are transformed into that intellectual reality where no racism, no white privilege exists. Actually, a goal I might agree with, but I would favor a more careful movement in that direction rather than right now. Young people, though, don’t have that patience (I remember those days) and want it to happen now.

Republican Wokeism

Something like what happened on the left is happening now on the right. An intellectual idea is taking complete hold and a demand is building for it to happen right now. The intellectual idea is personhood, that a fertilized cell is a person. This idea is taking advantage of a great deal of ambiguity. When is a fetus a person? Some in Judaism believe it is when it can breathe (Genesis 2.7), and some Christians believe it is when it can be when they can be baptized. But the biology is unclear. It’s begins developing at conception. It must implant to proceed to an embryo. It’s weeks before it’s viable, can breathe outside the womb, the original Roe v. Wade.

The ambiguity about when it is a person is resolved by some people, mainly conservative Republicans, in the same way racism was resolved by the students at Evergreen College, by defining the original conception, an easily identified biological event, as personhood.

Conservative Republicans in Red States like Louisiana and Alabama, like the University students, are taking this idea to its extreme. 166 House Republicans have co-sponsored a “Life Begins at Conception” bill that would use the 14th Amendment to criminalize all abortion after the moment of fertilization, with absolutely no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the woman. The fertilized cell has all the rights of a person, especially the murder indictments of anyone who presents an obstacle to its birth. This would include IUD’s, any contraceptive or medication preventing implantation. Also, actions taken by the mother to afflict the embryo, drugs, alcohol, failing to properly nourish it.

This new Republican wokeism renders the woman to being a vessel for bearing children. That is where they want women to be. Men can’t bear children so they want complete control over those who can.

This is so twisted. The Bible has it completely backwards. Biologically women are the fundamental humans. Men are versions-+

of women (why do they have nipples?) to allow for the mixing of DNA providing for natural selection to operate. Their greater strength has allowed them to dominate, but in fact the human race could do well without men. It is possible to mingle the DNA of women to carry out natural selection without men entirely. Men should be grateful to women for their existence, not antagonistic.

At this time, all this is unfolding. Several Red States, Idaho, Alabama, Louisiana, are proposing anti-abortion laws with no exceptions for rape, incest, or health of the mother. The development of “personhood” for fertilized cells appears to be advancing. Our country is dividing up into Red States and Blue States. We don’t know for sure where this will end up.

Those who believe in personhood at conception have a biological problem however. Sexually active fecund women will often expel fertilized that haven’t implanted in their menstrual fluid. A rough calculation shows that perhaps a hundred million “persons” die every month on this planet.

If you’re a Christian believing the fertilized cell is a person, then what happens to all those hundred million? They aren’t baptized. Where do they go? A fetus can’t be baptized. It would make a lot more sense for Christians to believe that it isn’t a person until it can be baptized, which means viability, which was as decided in Roe v. Wade. We didn’t need Dobbs.