It's So Hard To Be A Conservative These Days When Everyone's Going "Woke"

What happened to making money and not giving a shit about people?

For at least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols

• Aldous Huxley, Complete Essays, Vol. I: 1920-1925

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, it was easy to be a Conservative and feel good about Big Business. All that businesses cared about was making money. That was the Be-All and End-All, the Prime Directive if you will. The profit motive ruled all, and what Liberals thought of how they conducted business was little more than an afterthought at best.

Now it seems as if everyone’s going “woke.” They’re worried about “inclusivity,” “gender pronouns,” and acceptance of “alternative” lifestyles, genders, and sexualities.

It’s become SO much harder to be a good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual. What’s a culture warrior to do?

Fox news published two truly stellar op-eds this week from people who were very sad about corporations supposedly going "woke."

In "Disney World was our destination. What I found could be the end for a beloved American company," NYPost columnist Karol Markowicz shared the very traumatizing story of how she went to Disney World and was very distraught about how woke it has become — so woke that several of the rides were not working. That's a thing, you know.

Now, Karol with a K wants us to know that she had intended to stop supporting Disney after they were so mean to poor, innocent Ron DeSantis when all he wanted was to keep children from finding out that LGBTQ people exist before their parents even have a chance to really mold them into the little Anita Bryants and Rick Santorums they were meant to be.

However! Markowicz was heartened by the fact that she felt DeSantis had really done a good job of silencing the company and hoped that they had learned their lesson. So when she was offered a chance to speak at Disney, she packed up her family and headed on down. But she was not prepared for what she saw there.

Wow, when a good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual can’t even keep her children from being exposed to LGBTQ people, how is she supposed to shelter them? How can she ensure that her precious snowflakes grow up with proper values (as good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexuals) and practice the One, True, and ONLY faith?

If her progeny are exposed to all manner of “woke” messaging, how can she be sure they won’t grow up to be “woke” Liberals? OMG, she might end up with a passel of kids who want to work for the Peace Corps or do charity work or…gulp… care about others.

Oh, the humanity….

But the horror of what Karol Markowicz saw at Disney World may have just pushed her over the edge:

We arrived at our hotel late, and while my husband and I checked in, the kids watched a TV in the lobby. "I remember this show from when I was little," my still little seven-year-old exclaimed. It was "The Three Caballeros," his favorite.

As I looked up the year the film was made (1944), I discovered that Disney has inserted a disclaimer before the film that notes: "This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together."

The disclaimer also appears before films like "Aladdin," "Dumbo" and "Peter Pan." It’s another attempt by Disney to placate the woke critics. What Disney should learn, quickly, is that those critics can never be placated.

She’s right, of course. Once we Liberals are given an inch, we’ll take a f*****g mile. Why? Because we think the feelings of others should be taken into account. Membership in the White Conservative Christian heterosexual majority doesn’t grant someone the right to trample on the feelings of other, more marginalized groups.

Besides, as I’ve often mentioned and will no doubt mention many more times, being “woke” means giving a damn about others. It means having a functional giveafuck. It means being conscious of systemic racism and injustice- AND NOT BEING OK WITH IT.

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To a good, God-fearing White Conservative, Christian heterosexual, some of it can seem a bit silly, which is probably true if you view things from a White-centric perspective. Of course, that assumes that a White-centric perspective is the only valid worldview, which certainly isn’t true.

As much as I hate to break it to Ms. Markowitz, White Doesn’t Make Right.

If Disney thinks it has pacified the wokesters, it’s mistaken. Walking around the parks with an eye on what the woke will target next is an exercise in finding "problematic" issues everywhere. Disney World bathroom signage at the parks still has depictions of dresses for girls and pants for boys.

Uh-oh! "[I]t’s a small world" uses the same stereotypical depictions of various cultures that Disney has informed us are unacceptable. The Hall of Presidents has much that it "chooses not to depict" about each man. There is no pacifying the rabid left, and the sooner Disney learns this, the better.

The problem with Markowitz’s critique is that Disney’s process is ongoing. Disney World is a big place, so I suspect they’ll constantly be identifying signage and other issues they’ll want to address and make more inclusive. But that’s not going to happen overnight.

It’s not about “pacifying the rabid left.” Like many on the Right, Markowitz is quick to ascribe some awful, nasty motive to “wokeism.” But it’s not about that at all. “Woke” means “having or marked by an active awareness of systemic injustices and prejudices, especially those involving the treatment of ethnic, racial, or sexual minorities.”

That’s it. That’s all. It means not being a selfish, racist asshole- something Ms. Markowitz might want to consider. It’s not about finding “problematic issues;” it’s about finding ways to be just and inclusive to everyone whenever possible. That’s not a bad thing, despite what she may think.

“Political correctness” is, more than anything, about respect.

We don’t want to hate Disney. We don’t want to see it destroyed. But the trust has been broken again and again. Parents feel like they have to closely monitor what Disney produces, lest the company sneak in just this kind of indoctrination to their children.

This is unsustainable. Those of us still hoping that Disney can reverse course lose a little of that hope every time the company does something clearly bad for its business. We may think of Disney as "too big to fail" today, but plenty of huge companies have collapsed after taking a wrong turn.

If Karol Markowitz feels the need to “closely monitor” what Disney produces, that’s certainly her prerogative. And it’s certainly her right to hate Disney. As it is to teach her children that being a good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexual means White Makes Right.

It’s sad that she’d choose to teach her children to hate, but she’s free to raise her children as she see fit. I can only hope that when her children leave home, they’ll have the sense and intelligence to see the world on their own terms.

Of course, if she hates Disney that much, she’s free to take her kids to the rebuilt Noah’s Ark in East Bumfuck, Kentucky. Or the Bible Museum in Washington, DC. I hear both are just a laugh a minute and the sort of thing Conservatives love.

But no matter how much Ms. Markowitz whines and moans, she won’t convince anyone that Conservatives are being repressed by the “radical woke left.” No one’s forcing her to go to Disney World, after all.

And, as if Disney going “woke” wasn’t bad enough, the news got even worse for Conservatives. “Fox Across America” host Jimmy Failla wrote a fiery screed attempting to take down America’s favorite purveyor of homophobic chicken sandwiches, Chick-fil-A.

Failla’s magnum opus was titled, "Chick-fil-A's 'cauliflower filet' smacks of fowl play. Who needs a 'plant forward' sandwich?"

I don't know, vegetarians who hate gay people?

The entire premise of this is that it is bad that Chick-fil-A is making a sandwich he doesn't like and that making this particular sandwich means that the company is caving to the woke mob.

“That's not a healthier sandwich, that's Cos Play, for people who really want a fried chicken sandwich but can't bring themselves to give up the "meat is murder" sticker on their Prius.

It goes too well with the "Hate Has No Home Here" and the one that says "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."

Earth to Chick-fil-A: stop this charade right now.

You are absolutely beloved by millions of people who consume your product like it's a religious experience.
And if you betray their faith, it's only a matter of time before customers start giving YOU the bird.”

So, yes, unless Chick-fil-A is going after the coveted “vegetarians and vegans who hate the LGBTQ community” market, a “cauliflower filet” makes no sense. People have fawned over the chain’s chicken sandwich for decades, so I doubt the “meat is murder” crowd will be doing cartwheels and hauling ass in their Priuses to their local Chick-fil-A franchise.

Finally, Martha, we can ethically eat lunch AND hate the gays!!! Praise God!!!

Conservatives, as might be imagined, are nonplussed by the “cauliflower filet.” The idea of eating something that didn’t have to die to grace their plate being a foreign concept, good, God-fearing White Conservative Christian heterosexuals view the “cauliflower filet” with suspicion.

What manner of sorcery is this? How do they make a cauliflower into a chicken? Is this not some sort of Satanic transformation?

Of course, this is

such an incredibly apt metaphor for what truly drives the American conservative. No one is taking this man's chicken sandwich away. His experience going to Chick-fil-A will not change, he can still go there and order whatever it is he orders there. But now they're just also making a sandwich for other people who might want something else, and this fills him with resentment and rage. He doesn't want people to have the sandwich they like, he wants them to have the sandwich he likes and to be happy with it.

Ultimately, Conservatives expect the world to be structured around what they like and are comfortable with. Anything outside their narrow comfort zone fills them “with resentment and rage.” They want to force the rest of the world to live by their rules, because what’s good for Conservatives and their comfort should (and therefore must) be good enough for the rest of the world.

That’s not an optional concept, by the way.

When you break it down, that’s what’s at the heart of every culture war issue. Conservatives don’t ask for much, only that you consent to living by their rules. Do that, and everything will be wonderful. Refuse to live by their definitions of what’s right, appropriate, moral, or just, and prepare to be met by the righteous hellfire of the godly.

There’s only one proper worldview for Conservative culture warriors- theirs. The sooner heathens realize and accept that, the better off we’ll all be.

Except that for those of us who refuse to live by such a narrow and hypocritical moral code, standing up to Conservative culture warriors is the only course of action available.

Unless, of course, you want to live in Gilead.