This is a little bit into my gray area. I disagree with the judge but I can see his point even if he overstates it with the shirt in question:
“The impact of violence is so great that it now has equal importance as the issue of illegal drug use in schools,” U.S. District Judge James Knoll Gardner wrote in an opinion handed down this week.
“There is nowhere that is truly safe or immune from the problem of school violence, from the one-room schoolhouse to America’s largest universities,” Gardner said.
“Students,” he said, “have no constitutional right to promote violence in our public schools.”
What this judge apparently doesn’t understand that his own orders are carried out with the threat of violence. There is illegal violence and there is legal, even praiseworthy violence. I don’t see that the shirt advocated anything illegal or immoral:
According the court order and the article the complete text on the back of the shirt says, “Special Issue-Resident-Lifetime License–United States Terrorist Hunting Permit–Permit No. 91101 Gun Owner-No Bag Limit”. The front of the shirt has a gun on the pocket which has a gun and says, “Volunteer, Homeland Security”.
And how does this “promote violence in the school system”? It is promoting the rapid stopping of illegal violence using legal violence. If the shirt advocated hunting Muslims, blacks, Jews, or some other ethic, racial, or religiously identified group I would agree with him. But not this. Terrorists are not, or at least shouldn’t be, a protected group.
I must conclude this is another case of simplistic minds either refusing to or being unable to see the total picture.
Judge Chuck says:
“The complaint filed by the school is stupid. It shows a complete lack of understanding by the school officials. Their inability to use even the most simplistic logic in determining what should or shouldn’t be allowed to be worn in schools makes me fear for their ability to teach critical thinking to the student body. Since their idiocy has wasted the court’s time, I find them in contempt, and sentence them to 1000 hours of community service, at least half of which will be spent reading the constitution, the federalist papers, and select readings from our nation’s founders.
Further, advocating violence, or any other form of speech, should be the one thing our schools push for, over all others. Hateful, spiteful, and unpopular speech is what tyrants and tyrannies fear most. We’ve a million man military ready to defend his right to speak, and you yourselves, in any other country, would fear death squads and retribution every time political power changed, simply because you are teachers.
Just because you are afraid of his shirt, or his speech, doesn’t give you the right to limit it.
Do this again and you’ll be hanged.
Case Dismissed.”
Harsh!
It’s the same mentality that hates the U.S. military because it kills people. Extreme intellectual laziness. It’s easier to oppose all violence rather than have to decide right and wrong, advocating unpleasant, risky or difficult action to save life and liberty. ‘Course, as you say, they must trample on people’s rights and/or security to hold such a position.
My son has worn a T-shirt to school saying, “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of all who threaten them” with a photo of an AK. One teacher threatened to take it away. The school counselor (who, interestingly, is a far lefty) said it didn’t advocate anything wrong or immoral, and that instead it advocated the protection of life and liberty (which is of course true). To take any other position is insane, IMO.
Lyle,
Most liberals and leftists hate the military because they have neat, short hair and clean, well maintained uniforms. Oh yea, they do kill people too. Bad people in most cases.
Where can I get one of those terrorist hunting permit “T” shirts?