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Does the Government Have the Authority to Separate Hitler from his Parents?

Does the government have the authority to separate Hitler from his parents?

  • Yes, the court made the right decision

    Votes: 3 20.0%

  • No, this is a violation of the family's constitutional rights

    Votes: 12 80.0%
  • Total voters
    15
Cameron

Cameron

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Baby Hitler Parents Lose Custody Of All Three Of Their Kids | Fox News

Parents who named two of their children "Adolf Hitler" and "Aryan Nation" lost custody of all three of their children Thursday, even though they say a New Jersey appeals court found no evidence of abuse, ruling the children have been taken away without cause, MyFoxPhilly reports.

“Actually, the judge and DYFS told us that there was no evidence of abuse and that it was the names. They were taken over the children's names,” Heath Campbell told NBC 10 Tuesday.
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You may have heard of this family before. They made headlines when a grocery store refused to decorate a cake with the words "Happy Birthday Hitler" on it. The parents have been accused of using their children as a publicity stunt, and a social experiment.

Let's assume that there really is no evidence of abuse. Is naming one's child something like "Hitler" or "Aryan Nation," standing alone, a good enough reason to take the kid away? Is it a violation of the parents' rights to raise their children as they please, teach their children as they please, or their right to free speech?
 
I think there are two questions here.

1) Does the government have the authority to do this? I am not sure legally if they do or not, but based on the evidence that courts are upholding it, probably.

2) Should the government have that authority? To my mind, the answer to this is a big no.
 
Based on the fact they do not like the child's name I say no. Our president's middle name is the last name of a former brutal middle eastern dictator and I do not see the government trying to kick him out of office over it.
 
I think there may be an important distinction between (1) teaching children a particular political/social view, and (2) using your children as a political statement. I think there is a constitutional right to do the former, but not the latter. However, I'm not sure how easy it is to slide factual situations into one category or the other.
 
Krhazy said:
Baby Hitler Parents Lose Custody Of All Three Of Their Kids | Fox News



You may have heard of this family before. They made headlines when a grocery store refused to decorate a cake with the words "Happy Birthday Hitler" on it. The parents have been accused of using their children as a publicity stunt, and a social experiment.

Let's assume that there really is no evidence of abuse. Is naming one's child something like "Hitler" or "Aryan Nation," standing alone, a good enough reason to take the kid away? Is it a violation of the parents' rights to raise their children as they please, teach their children as they please, or their right to free speech?
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In this case, I would say that the government has no authority to take away this man's children. This is a form of government enforced thought control, and I find the entire premise to be dangerous.
 
I think the court is in the wrong here. As much as I disagree with the parents' beliefs, and as stupid as I think it is to name their kid Adolf Hitler, I still think they have the right to do it. I do think that the courts should be keeping a close eye on the family though, since they've shown a tendency to put their own beliefs ahead of their child's welfare. Unless there's evidence of abuse or neglect though, I don't think anyone has a right to take the kids away from them.
 
I don't disagree with overall concept that calling a child a certain name could potentially warrant government involvement. Calling your child "I hate niggers" in Oakland would run the risk of violent response, and would be justification for taking the child away. The real key is what the precise consequences of calling the kid Hitler in the community will be. Social persecution is pretty much inevitable, but that is not grounds enough. Only if the kid faces harm consistent with the standards for abuse as a result of the name, does the state have cause to interfere.
 
This is just wrong on so many levels. The government should not have this kind of authority, period.

Sad and scary days. I guess the days of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are truly gone.

Was nice while it lasted.
 
Redress said:
I think there are two questions here.

1) Does the government have the authority to do this? I am not sure legally if they do or not, but based on the evidence that courts are upholding it, probably.

2) Should the government have that authority? To my mind, the answer to this is a big no.
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What Redress said, though I imagine that if this makes it to the Supreme Court...and sadly I hope it does...I think it'll be overturned because I can't really fathom how in our law this should be allowable.

Its sad because I think the kids would likely be better off without these parents, but at the same time I think society as a whole is better served with the government not being able to take the children from the home.
 
If the names were placing the children in harms way or seriously interfering with their social development then such a case could meet the standard for abuse. However, immediately removing children is only done when the child is in eminent danger of severe harm or death and no less drastic option can protect the child. I seriously doubt this case was eminent danger.

A second reason for removal is when a situation exist that is detrimental to child, the appropriate agency has offered help to remedy the situation and the caretakers have failed to improve. A judge normally reviews this type of case to determine if the legal conditions warrant removing the child. This is likely what happened in this case.

A second possibility is that the CPS investigator messed up and thought this was eminent danger. Sometimes it is hard to discern borderline cases when you have a house full of adults and children screaming and possibly throwing things, spitting on you, etc. Been there.
 
Read article and did a bit of research on the case - "the appeals court ruled last year that sufficient evidence of abuse or neglect existed because of domestic violence in the home, and removed the children from their Philipsburg, N.J.home."

That makes sense. These are very young children. When things get physical as parents fight, children tend to try to protect their parent(s) and end up getting hurt or even killed accidentally.
 
Although I think government has a role in upholding and teaching certain moral values to its citizens, I don't know that it should waste time and resources on taking children who have less than classless names

If government was trying to teach morals and values to its citizens, parents might not be so tasteless in the first place.

If there is evidence of abuse in the household, then they should be removed. These people should have known they would be under a microscope with CPS. But considering what they named their kids, I'm not shocked that they are idiots.
 
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jamesrage said:
Based on the fact they do not like the child's name I say no. Our president's middle name is the last name of a former brutal middle eastern dictator and I do not see the government trying to kick him out of office over it.
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Hussein is a common name in Middle Eastern countries. It's like discriminating the name "Vladimir" just because Vladimir Lenin created one of the worst monsters in history.
On the other hand, Hitler is an extremely uncommon name.

There is a difference here
 
Not just for naming their children "Adolf Hitler" or "Aryan Nation". Although I honestly can see where the conflict in whether it could be considered abuse or not arises.

If CPS has evidence of actual abuse and/or neglect, then yes, they should be taken. I'm sure there is more to this than what the parents are saying, especially since there is a gag order on the case and I have read that both parents have some "unnamed physical and mental disabilities".

Parents Who Gave Children Nazi-Inspired Names Fighting to Regain Custody - TIME NewsFeed

Now I do think the parents are dumb just for saddling their poor children with these names that are very likely to cause them hardships throughout their lives, if they don't legally change them when they are able to do so. The parents can't even claim the "boy named sue" excuse here, since it is almost certain that these names were meant as some sort of political statement, not an attempt to instill toughness into their children.
 
Krhazy said:
Baby Hitler Parents Lose Custody Of All Three Of Their Kids | Fox News



You may have heard of this family before. They made headlines when a grocery store refused to decorate a cake with the words "Happy Birthday Hitler" on it. The parents have been accused of using their children as a publicity stunt, and a social experiment.

Let's assume that there really is no evidence of abuse. Is naming one's child something like "Hitler" or "Aryan Nation," standing alone, a good enough reason to take the kid away? Is it a violation of the parents' rights to raise their children as they please, teach their children as they please, or their right to free speech?
Click to expand...

I am inclined to say, emphatically, "No way!" It is a scary thing when the courts can take away your children because they think the names you gave them are politically incorrect.

...on the other hand, what if the parents had named their children "Dickhead" and "Kick Me in the Balls"?
 
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It really disturbs me that these parents would be such utter douches (on many levels!) as to name their kids Hitler and Aryan Nation. Both names are likely to place those children in an "outsider" position in society, and make them targets for social ostracism at best, physical attacks at the worst. To do this to your own kids, to such an extreme, for the sake of a political statement is either idiotic or incredibly callous, or both.

I really think those kids would be better off with someone else.

Having said that... I'm not comfortable with taking the kids just because of the names. Some are asserting that there's more to it, that both parents have unspecified phys/mental disabilities (no shock there!) and/or that there has been domestic violence between hubby and wife.

Let's get real... it's the names. The rest is an excuse to justify taking them. Don't most of us know lousy parents who have terrible fights who have been investigated by DHS or CPS or ISS or whichever and still have their kids? Hell they sometimes give kids back to drug addicts... just complete this 28-day detox and here's your kids back meth-ho....

I'm kind of torn. Common sense says that these parents don't deserve their children... but OTOH I don't want government making that call unless they have very strong evidence of abuse or other totally unacceptible conditions.

Overall I come down on No, gov should not take these children.... but somebody ought to whup Pa and Ma's ass for being so stupid.
 
Am I ever in the minority in this case.
Majority rule is not always best...There simply is nothing in our Constitution to handle this oddball case, the framers never thought that people coule be this idiotic/hateful.....
The judge did the right thing...
 
Goshin said:
It really disturbs me that these parents would be such utter douches (on many levels!) as to name their kids Hitler and Aryan Nation. Both names are likely to place those children in an "outsider" position in society, and make them targets for social ostracism at best, physical attacks at the worst. To do this to your own kids, to such an extreme, for the sake of a political statement is either idiotic or incredibly callous, or both.

I really think those kids would be better off with someone else.

Having said that... I'm not comfortable with taking the kids just because of the names. Some are asserting that there's more to it, that both parents have unspecified phys/mental disabilities (no shock there!) and/or that there has been domestic violence between hubby and wife.

Let's get real... it's the names. The rest is an excuse to justify taking them. Don't most of us know lousy parents who have terrible fights who have been investigated by DHS or CPS or ISS or whichever and still have their kids? Hell they sometimes give kids back to drug addicts... just complete this 28-day detox and here's your kids back meth-ho....

I'm kind of torn. Common sense says that these parents don't deserve their children... but OTOH I don't want government making that call unless they have very strong evidence of abuse or other totally unacceptible conditions.

Overall I come down on No, gov should not take these children.... but somebody ought to whup Pa and Ma's ass for being so stupid.
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Our government did the right thing.....
Whuping ass has never been a good answer....
The way to handle "stupid" is to have no children involved, then "stupid" can run its course..
Conservatives cry about "big government", but I say that is big due to ignorance and greed.
 
Sig said:
I am inclined to say, emphatically, "No way!" It is a scary thing when the courts can take away your children because they think the names you gave them are politically incorrect.

...on the other hand, what if the parents had named their children "Dickhead" and "Kick Me in the Balls"?
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Hitler and the examples are far more than "politically incorrect".
Far far more.....
There is a problem in our nation in that people trust not their own government....Government is partially to blame for this.
Partially....
 
So far I am one of the only people who voted that the court did the right thing. I personally believe that, even standing alone, a name can be sufficient reason to remove a child from the care of his parents. But it is a question of fact, and you have to prove that the particular name is likely to cause the child to suffer the equivalent of abuse. I mean, look at what happened here. The kid became the center of a media bonanza when his parents tried to buy him a birthday cake. His name effects how everyone treats him and pretty much every aspect of his life, and in a pretty objectively awful way. I think him having that names constitutes continuing abuse by his parents.
 
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Krhazy said:
Baby Hitler Parents Lose Custody Of All Three Of Their Kids | Fox News



You may have heard of this family before. They made headlines when a grocery store refused to decorate a cake with the words "Happy Birthday Hitler" on it. The parents have been accused of using their children as a publicity stunt, and a social experiment.

Let's assume that there really is no evidence of abuse. Is naming one's child something like "Hitler" or "Aryan Nation," standing alone, a good enough reason to take the kid away? Is it a violation of the parents' rights to raise their children as they please, teach their children as they please, or their right to free speech?
Click to expand...


I think I saw the Dad on TV and he said he wasn't racist. He said something like... we have elected a black president now, so we should also be above getting offended by a simple name like Adolf Hitler. And it turns out he has another kid named Aryan Nation, bull ****ing **** he isn't racist.
 
jamesrage said:
Based on the fact they do not like the child's name I say no. Our president's middle name is the last name of a former brutal middle eastern dictator and I do not see the government trying to kick him out of office over it.
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There is a difference... Obama wasn't named after Saddam Hussein. These kids were named after Adolf Hitler.
 
Redress said:
I think there are two questions here.

1) Does the government have the authority to do this? I am not sure legally if they do or not, but based on the evidence that courts are upholding it, probably.

2) Should the government have that authority? To my mind, the answer to this is a big no.
Click to expand...

In regards to number two, taking the kids away is an entirely different debate. I know it's the topic of the OP, but I'd just like to point out, in other countries it's illegal to name your children after Adolf Hitler or give them names that is humiliating or offensive. These names would be illegal in other countries, and could result in bullying and other social problems for these children. Also it's very sad that these children had to be born to such stupid parents.
 
molten_dragon said:
I think the court is in the wrong here. As much as I disagree with the parents' beliefs, and as stupid as I think it is to name their kid Adolf Hitler, I still think they have the right to do it. I do think that the courts should be keeping a close eye on the family though, since they've shown a tendency to put their own beliefs ahead of their child's welfare. Unless there's evidence of abuse or neglect though, I don't think anyone has a right to take the kids away from them.
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I don't agree with this whole concept of, let's allow people to name their children whatever they want. I do think that some names could be abusive and provoke shame and humiliation in children.

What if somebody wants to name their kid Little Bastard or Dumbass or adopts a baby from Africa and name it Nigger?

If my parents named me Aryan Nation, I'd ****ing change my name.. but I have to be 18 to legally do so first. I have gone through school with a name I already hate, but it's not as bad as Aryan Nation. It's was always on the class list... everybody sees it and calls me that name. It's hard to keep a name secret, even if you don't go by it.
 
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Blackdog said:
This is just wrong on so many levels. The government should not have this kind of authority, period.

Sad and scary days. I guess the days of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are truly gone.

Was nice while it lasted.
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What about the pursuit of happiness and freedom of these children? I don't think we should enjoy freedom at the expense of our children and I do honestly think that these children's names are going to create negative social situations for them. I am not sure if I really think these kids should be removed, I am leaning towards no... but I'd NEVER argue that the ability to name our children something socially humiliating for them is a symbol of our national freedom.
 
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