This town’s obsession with optics is growing. It seems every passion, cause and public spat ends up on a lawn sign, waving in the breeze from front lawns everywhere.

We have signs protesting an asphalt plant, signs preaching that Hate Has No Home, and signs proclaiming that Black Lives, Blue Lives and All Lives matter. We have more than a thousand little red flags waving to everyone from the front lawn of our historic town government center. We have signs objecting to program changes at the high school. We even have some presidential election signs clinging to life on a few scattered homes.

While many of these causes are worthy and the passions behind them are so important in a nation built upon virtues like free speech and the freedom to assemble peaceably, these signs and flags have muddied, busied and botched up a once picturesque landscape that separated Barrington from most other communities.

The irony is that people today have more methods to communicate, connect and object than ever before. Through a multitude of social media platforms, mobile phone technology and virtual government meetings, you can connect with anyone and everyone in a matter of seconds. You can rally a crowd, stir up passions or directly lobby any government official or organization in just a few key strokes.

And yet the lawn signs proliferate.

It’s worth considering the long-term effect of all this lawn sign over-stimulation. After every single wish or want ends up on a lawn sign, won’t they just wash out the landscape and leave people numb to whatever seems to be flying atop the flagpole or jammed crookedly into the passing yard?

When the Black Lives Matter flags first sprouted on lawns throughout town, they were stark, powerful and poignant. Now that they’re just one of the many billboards wafting on the breeze, do they mean as much?

Lastly, before we leave the topic of those tiny red flags on the Town Hall lawn, we have to question the wisdom of formally approving their placement and duration. It’s one thing when people rise up in protest, organize and make a public gesture — as happened when the crowd objecting to high school de-leveling planted their flags at the center of town.

It’s something else when the town manager gives them approval to place them and leave them up for two weeks. This seems oddly similar to when he told the Black Lives Matter crowd he would fly their flag atop the Town Hall flagpole. Many months and marathon meetings later, the town eventually approved a makeshift, unclear, subjective flag policy. This seems a little like history repeating itself.