A Wisconsin high schooler is fighting to wear shirts with images of guns to school. Matthew Schoenecker says his T-shirts reflect his personal beliefs, but after the Parkland school shooting, administrators at his high school said his shirts were inappropriate and that he could no longer wear them. He is suing his principal over the ban.
Shooting is an activity the Shoeneckers enjoy as a family, but it’s one Matthew now says is being used against him.
“They just said something like, ‘You could be the next school shooter maybe,’” he told CBS News’ Nikki Battiste.
The remarks are part of the backlash the 15-year-old now faces for wearing T-shirts with images of guns and a grenade in school.
Matthew says he’s been wearing the same shirts since the fall. But his parents say it was only after the Parkland school shooting in February, that the school’s principal sent home a letter telling Matt to “change the shirt” because “it was inappropriate.” When Matt refused, he was moved to a cubicle for two days.
“He says, ‘Well, your son’s T-shirt’s promoting violence,’” Matt’s mother, Pam Schoenecker said. “I said, ‘His T-shirts celebrate diversity. And then his other T-shirt says, ‘love.’ How is that promoting violence? None of the times was he able to answer that question.”
In April, Matthew filed a lawsuit alleging that “there are no school rules explicitly banning wearing clothing that depicts firearms” and that doing so “violated his freedom of expression.”
“He is perfectly within his First Amendment rights to wear those shirts,” John Monroe, Matthew’s lawyer, said.
Monroe is being paid by Wisconsin Carry, a pro-gun group.
“The issue here isn’t really a gun issue, it’s a speech issue. And, you know, if Parkland had never happened,” Monroe said.
Cases like Matthew’s are popping up across the country. In Nevada, a middle school student is suing his school district after it also barred him from wearing T-shirts containing images of guns. In a statement to “CBS This Morning,” a school spokesperson said, “the child was not harmed in anyway except for being asked to wear a sweatshirt over his shirt.” Lawyers in both the Wisconsin and Nevada case say the schools allowed students to participate in school walkout activities supporting gun control.
“I just, I just think they’re hypocrites….You can promote an anti-gun agenda but then you have a student that comes in there, knows history, knows the Constitution and you’re going to tell him he can’t,” Pam said.
“This is a complex issue. I think that schools should have the ability to regulate a student’s clothing for a whole host of reasons,” CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman said. “We don’t want violence in schools. We don’t want gang signs, we don’t want people with Nazi swastikas….These things are all obvious that we would not condone. But the mere picture of a gun? Is that sufficient?”
While the lawsuit is pending, Matthew can still wear his favorite shirt to school, expressing a belief the Schoeneckers say is a just a normal part of their lives. But why not just stop wearing the shirts for a while?
“Because that’s just who Matthew is….He’s always gone hunting, he’s gone target shooting,” Pam said. “The Second Amendment thing, the Constitution, all of that is part of our family.”
“I get where they’re coming from. But at the same time, they’re expecting my son to change who he is because of what is going on in another part of the country,” she said.
The Schoeneckers said they are not asking for financial damages in their lawsuit. They just want Matthew to be allowed to wear his shirts in school. CBS News reached out to Markesan High School and its attorneys, but they declined to comment.
Nine Marquette University High School students on Wednesday morning walked out of class to show support for the Second Amendment.
“We’re here for the Second Amendment,” said junior Jack Dubois, who was wearing an NRA sweatshirt to make his point. “There’s not many of us because our school doesn’t support it. They said, basically, ‘You’re going to get [detention] if you walk out.’”
The students were taking part in walkouts happening nationwide called Stand for the Second. They are protesting to guarantee their constitutional rights to bear arms.
WISN 12 News spotted school officials scattered around the building, even hearing one worker yelling at the students to come back in.
“It’s not just about the Second Amendment. It’s about the First Amendment,” said junior Jack Kujawa.
Shortly after making this statement, Kujawa was interrupted by a school official, who said, “I warned you. Don’t be late.”
A Marquette University High School spokesman told WISN 12 News that “no student was told they would face detention for walking out. Students were allowed to leave the building to express themselves via the walkout, and it was the position of the school that they would be allowed to express their First Amendment rights.”
The students’ version of what Marquette administration told them, if correct, is ironic since Marquette and all other parochial schools are able to exist because of the First Amendment. The cynic might believe Marquette administration changed its mind on detention after seeing the cameras, whose existence is also protected by the First Amendment.
The number one single today in 1966 was presumably played on the radio on days other than Mondays:
Today is the anniversary of the last Beatles U.S. single release, “Long and Winding Road” (the theme music of the Schenk Middle School eighth-grade Dessert Dance about this time in 1979):
The number one album today in 1977 was the Eagles’ “Hotel California”:
The number one British album today in 1972 was a Tyrannosaurus Rex double album, the complete title of which is “My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair … But Now They’re Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows”/”Prophets, Seers & Sages: The Angels of the Ages.” Really.
Today is Cinco de Mayo, so some Mexican rock would be appropriate:
The number one single today in 1962:
I’m unaware of whether the soundtrack of “West Side Story” got any radio airplay, but since I played it in both the La Follette and UW marching bands, I note that today in 1962 the soundtrack hit number one and stayed there for 54 weeks:
Regular readers recall my references to the movie “The Tao of Steve” and its three cool Steves:
Two of them are fictional — astronaut-turned-cyborg Steve Austin …
… and Hawaii Five-O …
… or Hawaii Five-0 chief Steve McGarrett:
The third is, or was, a real person — actor Steve McQueen.
Which brings to mind an eternal question: What is cool?
There are probably three elements of coolness. One is apparent effortlessness — the ability to do what you’re supposed to be doing, preferably well, without breaking a sweat. (Think James Bond.)
Another is the ability to come up with the correct line for every occasion, such as …
McQueen in “The Magnificient Seven”: “We deal in lead, friend.”
McQueen in “The Cincinnati Kid”: “I don’t need marked cards to beat you, pal.”
McGarrett I: “You know, it’s a funny thing. I’m used to Intelligence playing it cool. Really cool. But you seem more interested in a quiet funeral than in finding out who killed your man.”
Austin: “Well, thanks for the ride, Oscar. I’ll try and forget the conversation.”
McQueen in “The Towering Inferno”: “When there’s a fire, I outrank everybody here. Now, one thing we don’t want is a panic. Now, I could tell them, but you ought to do it. Just make a nice cool announcement to all your guests and tell them the party’s being moved down below the fire floor. Right now.”
McQueen: “When I believe in something, I fight like hell for it.”
McGarrett 2.0: “Guess the rest of us who don’t have a seat on an aircraft carrier will just have to get out our snorkels.”
Having a scriptwriter is useful to achieve verbal coolness.
The third is distance, including emotional distance, which is probably where the term came from. One never really gets close to a cool person. It helps as well to not know embarrassing details about that person. You probably would not think that, to use a random and (as far as I know) fictitious example, McQueen was cool if you knew that he ate paste in grade school.
The thing, of course, is that coolness cannot be acquired. Either you are cool, or you are not, and no efforts to make yourself cool will actually make you cool.
James Wigderson begins with something that came up at last week’s U.S. Senate Republican debate:
… we have to address [Kevin] Nicholson saying that his service in Iraq and Afghanistan is all the conservative credentials anyone should ever need from him. He’s not the first to make that statement on his behalf.
I have said before and I still believe that Nicholson has an interesting story when he says his military experience contributed to his becoming a conservative. But while that may be his personal story, it’s certainly not the story of every person who has served in the military. For example, my father-in-law served in the Marines and is very proud of his service, and our whole family is proud of him. But his service in the Marines doesn’t change the fact that my father-in-law has never voted for a Republican, and he won’t be voting for Nicholson, either.
We can run down the list. Does former Secretary of State John Kerry’s service in Vietnam exempt him from conservative criticism going forward? Because it never has in the past. Former Vice President Al Gore was in Vietnam, too. George McGovern, the liberal icon, fought in World War II. President Jimmy Carter served in the Navy on submarines. Walter Mondale was in the Army. And so on.
So when Nicholson tells the story of his military service, we can draw all sorts of conclusions about his character but it’s not proof of a political philosophy.
“I’m going to be blunt,” Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson said near the end of a debate with GOP opponent Leah Vukmir last week. “For those who have said that leading Marines in combat in two wars does not qualify as conservative credentials need to look inside them and decide what they think conservative credentials are.”
Pursuant to Nicholson’s instructions, I have looked deep inside myself to determine what a “conservative credential” is. And leading Marines in combat isn’t one.
In fact, serving in the military isn’t “conservative” or “liberal” at all. Both Democrats and Republicans serve bravely and honorably, and neither ideology has a monopoly on claiming patriotism and bravery on the battlefield.
Take, for example, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, who in 2004 lost both legs and suffered a badly damaged arm when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the Black Hawk helicopter she was flying in Iraq. Or late Hawaiian Senator Daniel Inouye, who was a medical volunteer during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and lost his right arm to a grenade in World War II. Clearly, one can serve with distinction in the military and still be a reliable progressive vote in public office.
Nicholson is trying to use his laudable military service as a stand-in for conservative credentials because he has so few Republican achievements. He has made no secret of the fact that he is a former Democrat, having served as head of the College Democrats of America and even addressing the 2000 Democratic National Convention in support of Vice President Al Gore’s presidential candidacy.
There’s nothing wrong with switching parties — Republican icon Ronald Reagan spent most of his life as a Democrat, as did Donald Trump. In fact, if Republicans want to return to a majority party in America, they’re going to need a lot more party-flippers.
But if Nicholson wants to convince Republican primary voters he believes in lower taxes, less regulation and the sanctity of life, he’s going to have to do more than cite his service in the Marines. As Vukmir said during the debate, while she respected his military service, the public knows more about his time as a Democrat than “his track record as a Republican.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that military service tells us nothing about a candidate. It can demonstrate discipline, leadership, and tenacity. It can be a sign that you can hold a position where your fellow soldiers’ lives are on the line, and it can signal toughness, dedication, and morality. (In contrast, President Trump eluded service in Vietnam by producing a doctor’s letter saying he had bone spurs in his heels and later would claim that avoiding sexually transmitted diseases while dating “is my personal Vietnam” and that he felt like a “great and very brave soldier.”)
If one discounts military service as an indication of “conservatism,” we are left to ascertain Nicholson’s dedication to the cause by what he actually says. And for the most part, he’s got an easy, appealing style that shows he understands the issues Republicans care about the most.
But as a representative of the Trump wing of the party, Nicholson sometimes strains to offer differences between himself and the established conservative, Vukmir. At one point during last week’s debate, Nicholson blamed Vukmir’s type of conservatism for a big liberal Supreme Court win a few weeks ago. Keep in mind, it was Vukmir’s brand of conservatism (aligned primarily with Republican Gov. Scott Walker) that led to Walker having won three elections and Republicans holding historical majorities in the state Senate and Assembly. The big losses in Wisconsin only started happening when Donald Trump was picked to head the Republican Party at the national level.
Yet the lure of Trumpism has led both GOP Senate candidates to take decidedly un-conservative positions. At the debate, both Vukmir and Nicholson lauded Trump’s decision to raise tariffs on China, which could trigger a trade war and significantly increase the cost of goods produced by Wisconsin’s farmers and manufacturers. While “sticking it to” other countries through protectionist trade policy might be a rhetorical winner in Trump country, it’s hard to believe it’s being taken seriously in a Republican Senate primary.
Through his military service, Nicholson has shown he’s brave enough to take on America’s enemies in a war overseas. If he wanted to burnish his conservative credentials for primary voters, he should now show he’s brave enough to stand up to a public opinion poll on trade.
It would be safe to say that military service is more important to Republican-leaning voters than Democrat-leaning voters. There has not been a Democratic nominee for president with military service since Michael Dukakis, and I bet most voters didn’t even know that Dukakis had served in the Army.
To Wigderson’s and Schneider’s points about Democrats who go from the military to politics, CNN reports:
Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson said in a radio interview on Wednesday that he questions the “cognitive thought process” of veterans who vote Democratic, arguing that their military service contradicts their political views.
Asked by host Steve Scaffidi on the local station WTMJ about Republican primary opponent Leah Vukmir’s suggestion that her record as a Republican state senator should mean more to conservative voters than his military experience, Nicholson argued that to serve in the military is fundamentally conservative.
“And just because some people that don’t call themselves conservatives and don’t always act conservative do something conservative — like, let’s talk about John Kerry — and signed up to serve this country, that doesn’t mean that that’s not a conservative thing to fundamentally protect and defend the Constitution,” Nicholson said. “Because I’ll tell you, the Democrat party has wholesale rejected the Constitution and the values that it was founded upon. So I’ll tell you what: Those veterans that are out there in the Democrat party, I question their cognitive thought process because the bottom line is, they’re signing up to defend the Constitution that their party is continually dragging through the mud.”
Nicholson’s military service has been a focal point of his campaign to be the GOP nominee to unseat Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin in November, as has his journey from being a member of the Democratic Party as a younger man to becoming a Republican. Nicholson was president of the College Democrats of America and spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention. He later joined the Marines and told Politico in September 2017 that his deployment to Iraq in 2007 was key to changing his political views, saying he was “livid” with Democrats for calling the war a failure.
Nicholson campaign spokesman Brandon Moody elaborated on the candidate’s remarks in an email to CNN’s KFile.
“Kevin made clear that all members of the military – regardless of their political party – sign up to defend and protect the Constitution and its principles,” he said. “But Kevin also believes that the Democrat Party has become unmoored from the Constitution and has lost its way. Kevin left the Democrat Party years ago and became a conservative, in part, because liberal Democrats and the policies they promote have shown overt disrespect to our veterans.”
CNN’s KFile reported in February that both Nicholson’s mother and father donated the legal maximum to Baldwin’s primary campaign in December.
Nicholson must have some interesting family reunions.
I didn’t vote for McGovern, because (1) I was 7 at the time and (2) as I’ve said before McGovern was rumored to be sending us children to school on Saturdays had he been elected president in 1972. I did not vote for Gore or Kerry, nor would I.
Kerry particularly earned Hypocrite First Class when 25 years after doing this …
… he dared to do this:
Reporting for duty? What an affront to every veteran.
As someone who didn’t serve (do you want someone with 20/400 vision defending your country?), I can’t say if being in the military gives you “conservative values,” but I have to wonder myself why veterans would become Democrats. Barack Obama’s Iran surrender — I mean treaty — made this country safer in absolutely no sense. Swearing to uphold the Constitution is inconsistent with working to gut the Second Amendment. The Democratic Party’s values include identification by every unimportant measurement — the _____–American — which clearly is not reflected in the military ethos.
There is an Assembly candidate in Northwest Wisconsin who touts his military experience. On the other hand, he’s also a social worker, and I would argue the latter cancels out the former in an ideological sense in his case.
A military background might be a plus, but I am not voting for any voting candidate based on his or her military service, or lack thereof. My votes are based on the candidates’ positions and that candidate’s electability. Recall that William F. Buckley Jr. counseled voting for the most conservative candidate who could win.
I will be on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network’s The Morning Show Week in Review Friday at 8 a.m.
The Morning Show and all the other Ideas Network programming (including my favorite, Old Time Radio Drama Saturdays and Sundays from 8 to 11 p.m.) can be heard on WHA (970 AM) and W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill., WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, and of course online at www.wpr.org.
You are reading this one day before my appearance, which gives The Donald one day to do something for us to talk about.
In addition to Star Wars Day, Friday is National Password Day. Saturday is, paradoxically, Cinco de Mayo and National Hoagie Day. Sunday is National Nurses Day, National Tourist Appreciation Day (for those who live in tourism areas all year and thus deal with tourism traffic, I guess), and National No Diet Day. (That’s every day for me.)
Friday is one day after the anniversary of National Public Radio in 1971 and our oldest son’s 18th birthday, which means that as of today (or, more precisely, 7:02 p.m.) there are now three adults in the house, though one is an adult/teenager, or teenadult, or something.
Watching the Sean Hannity show the other day, I heard four giddy words I can’t say I expected: “Up next, Piers Morgan!” Only a few days prior, after all, Morgan had been involved in one of his trademark Twitter spats — with Hannity mainstay Sebastian Gorka, no less — and it had ended with Morgan declaring America’s contribution to World War II overrated and unhelpful.
“Where would Britain be without you & your massive GUNS?!” Morgan had snippily tweeted at an American. “Speaking German,” replied Ben Shapiro, retweeted by Gorka. Morgan’s comeback? “It was really good of America to join WW2 two years later, after millions had died. Many thanks.”
That tasteful comment did not come up during the Hannity interview, which was instead a chummy exchange of shared disgust at the Mueller investigation, James Comey, and the latest dumb thing Joy Behar had said.
Morgan would have made a curious guest for a conservative talk show even without his recent foray into historical revisionism. To the extent he’s made any political brand for himself in America, it’s been as a hectoring anti-gun fanatic and generally condescending anti-American scold. Yet because Morgan has had some mildly sympathetic things to say about Donald Trump as of late (or at least hates some of the same people as the president) all is forgiven, and he’s now understood as “one of us” to some corners of the conservative base.
It was the same phenomenon that saw Kanye West’s remarkable rebranding last week. A tweet or two in the president’s favor and the man previously best known for calling George W. Bush a racist sociopath on live television and contributing such immortal lines to the canon of American music as “eatin’ Asian p***y / all I need was sweet and sour sauce” was reborn as a conservative folk hero. Perhaps West was taking his cue from Roseanne Barr, whom many on the right have given a similar mulligan for decades of far-left lunacy on the grounds she kinda likes Trump.
Conservatives are at their worst when they obsessively internalize leftist critiques, and no criticism has proven a greater font of conservative insecurity than liberal teasing that the Right is crotchety, backwards, and unhip. Much anxious effort has been exerted to prove these critics wrong, yet desperation rarely produces flattering results. The hurried search for conservatives with some progressive cachet — black, gay, famous, young, etc. — often manifests as low standards and embarrassing self-delusion, as the intellectual talents of various B-rate minds are inflated to heroic status the moment their public rhetoric drifts even the teensiest bit rightward.
It’s even worse than usual these days, given the very definition of “rightward” has become hazier than ever amid the rise of a fairly unideological Republican president and an increasingly visible fanatic far Left.
Since Trump plays his partisan role awkwardly, and is on the receiving end of a hysteria that often has little to do with politics, the president can come off a sympathetic figure, even if — perhaps especially if — one’s understanding of politics is fairly shallow. People who imagine themselves to be outspoken or uncouth outsiders with stylistic similarities to Trump can easily empathize with him, regardless of their policy opinions. This makes Trump a celebrity president who is often judged on celebrity terms, where arguments like “I just can’t stand him!” or “Show those haters!” are considered sufficiently full opinions.
Meanwhile, the cultural crusades of the far Left have become more conspicuous than ever through endless media coverage of language and thought policing at college campuses, newsrooms, and elsewhere. Again, regardless of the politics involved, this sort of thing is quite easy to engage with at a cultural level alone. Americans don’t like being told what to do or what to say, and there will always be a great deal of contempt leveled at anyone who affects the personality of a scold or busybody — and support for those who resist.
Conservatives can claim some degree of common cause with anyone who feels that Trump is being given a hard time and thinks the colleges are going nuts, but this isn’t much. Identifying political allies exclusively on such thin criteria will invariably require turning a blind eye to all sorts of other deranged opinions, and redefining conservatism into a temperament of shallow irritation with some characteristics of American political culture circa 2018, as opposed to anything resembling a timeless or coherent philosophy.
An obsession with building up superficially cool but intellectually preposterous right-wing celebrities has already led to disasters such as Milo Yiannopoulos, and one can’t help but feel a grim sense of déjà vu as an ever-growing parade of semi-coherent supposed conservatives from Hollywood, pop music, and YouTube are hyped by conservative media outlets desperate for validation by young, hip audiences.
That said, critics do run the risk of snobbery. Conservatives have to be open to newcomers, and ideological newbies — particularly those who were on the left until five minutes ago — will inevitably spout opinions that are one-dimensional, badly articulated, or half-formed.
The key is sizing up the motive animating the alleged new right-wing personality. Does the rhetoric of the nouveau-conservative appear to be coming from a place of genuine political interest? Do his opinions reflect a desire to engage in arguments beyond the present moment? Or has he simply discovered a new way to get in front of the cameras and exploit the wishful thinking of a uniquely desperate audience?
One of the few benefits of growing older is the realization that you longer need to follow pop culture, or often care what other people think. I can express that with a sentence, or two words.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 