Let Your Freak Flag Fly

Happy Flag Day, Canada!

In other flag news, last week the Kennewick School Board took on our struggling public education system by tackling the prominent issues of our time. You guessed it: flags in classrooms. The discussion and ultimate vote can be watched here; before that, there was public comment on the same topic.

The measure ultimately failed, 3-2. The two yes votes came from the class of 2022 newbies, Micah Valentine and Gabe Galbraith, both of whom were elected to open positions with the support of the local Republican Party in a wave of COVID and mask-related backlash. 

First, the conservative awakening towards our school boards on a national level is a welcome one. For far too long, this has been the sole province of the left. During COVID, it became evident that across the country our school boards needed to be more responsive to parents and the needs of students and less attuned to unions and political ideology. Conservatives (broadly speaking) woke up (no pun intended) and began to run for these positions and did quite well. Locally, the Richland School Board made waves and then some. 

Yes, there is a problem in our public education system (in particular higher education) with woke teachers, troublesome curriculum, and poisonous ideology. But flags in classrooms?

This echoes the Republicans of 2006 in my mind. Nationally, Republicans took control of both chambers in the 109th Congress and held the presidency with George W. Bush. Did they address entitlements? Immigration? Well, they chatted about those, sure, but they spent considerable focus on a flag-burning amendment and a definition of marriage amendment to the Constitution. This culture war stuff of course back fired as misplaced priorities which begat Obama who begat Trump who begat Biden. 

Now, I'm not claiming if the GOP had not proposed those amendments that today we'd be living in a conservative utopia instead of, well, here. What I am saying is that conservatives and others on the right-wing spectrum who find themselves with sudden power need to focus on the big stuff. If a teacher is indoctrinating students in outright Marxism instead of teaching math, let's address that. However, parsing through library books for anything hurting delicate Christian sensibilities and working to reduce the presence of pride flags is maybe not as important of an issue. Maybe that's somewhere on your list, but near the top has to be those math and reading scores, right?