Shouldn’t different communities and people with different ideals be allowed to break away if they want and manage their own affairs in the way they prefer?
The battle started a decade ago with conservative parents in the eastern areas of Baton Rouge, Louisiana seeking the right to send their children to better public schools.
Their requests for a redistricting to build a new school in their area was denied by the city. Year after year Louisiana public schools have been rated some of the worst performing schools in the US, not just in education but also in safety.
Then there was the ongoing threat of rising crime combined with persistent Democrat controlled leadership; the policies of progressives directly contributed to repeat offenders being released onto the streets. Conservative residents, feeling that Baton Rouge leaders had no intention of representing their interests or listening to their concerns, decided they had to take drastic measures to make a change.
The result was an effort of citizens in the east to break away from Baton Rouge entirely and create their own city, called St. George. The problem for Democrats was that citizen proponents of the new city would be taking away access to their money, their businesses and their children. This was apparently unacceptable.
The corporate media and elements of the Democratic Party immediately launched a propaganda effort to paint the breakaway community (and other movements like it) as “white flight” and a new form of segregation. Their argument was that the petitions for St. George were racially motivated and a return to the Jim Crow era of Louisiana politics.
Keep in mind, the St.George movement started in 2014, well before the full bore institution of woke propaganda in Democrat run public schools districts. In hindsight, the people in eastern Baton Rouge timed their efforts perfectly and there are a lot of reasons to leave, as the city has only become worse in the past ten years.
Advocates for St. George argue that the move was never racially motivated, only policy motivated. Everything Democrats touch eventually turns to rot. This has been consistently proven with the top most violent cities in the US being managed by Democrats and the top worst cities for school safety in the US managed by Democrats. Progressives have tried to deny this for years but they can’t argue with the numbers; their only retort is that the issue is “more nuanced” than conservatives believe.
Racially speaking (if Democrats really want to go there), it’s fair to point out that the worst hit areas for crime in cities like Baton Rouge are consistently in neighborhoods with a black demographic. It’s not racist to say this, it’s just a reality. Politically speaking, it makes sense that conservatives would want to protect their children from far-left ideological narratives now permeating public schools within progressive areas, as well as keep them safe from random violence. The leftist position is essentially this:
“You aren’t allowed to shield your children from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training. To try is bigotry and you must be stopped. Woke ideology is not optional, it’s a requirement.”
In other words, separation based on preference is considered “wrong” by Democrats. This has been the underlying motivation for the progressive war on school voucher programs and public choice across the country. Leftists are only able to survive when they can force people to participate in their systems. Whenever individuals are given an alternative and an option to walk away most of them do. Leftists don’t like it because it makes them look bad and it moves delicious tax dollars out of their reach. Democrats see taxes as a form of wealth redistribution rather than communities investing in their own infrastructure, and this often leads to egregious mismanagement of city funds.
Let’s not forget, these are the same people that constantly cry about conservatives supposedly threatening democracy, yet they are quick to criticize when democracy doesn’t work to their benefit.
Luckily, a majority in the Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the creation of St. George and the residents there have been given a chance to go their own way. The media is calling it an attempt at “secession” and maybe it is, but is that really a bad thing? Shouldn’t different communities and people with different ideals be allowed to break away if they want and manage their own affairs in the way they prefer? As long as they follow basic constitutional principles then there’s no reason for Democrats to object, unless the issue is really all about control.
