Protecting Adolf Hitler Campbell
Were Nazi names enough reason for New Jersey to remove kids from their home?
Adolf Hitler Campbell, center, removed from his home by social services
(AP)
What happened
New Jersey child protection officials removed 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell and his two baby sisters from their home. The children and their parents made news last month when employees at a supermarket refused to put the boy’s name on a cake for his third birthday. A spokeswoman for the state's child welfare office said the agency gets involved only in cases of alleged abuse or neglect. “We would never remove a child simply based on their name,” she said. (ABC News)
What the commentators said
The state says it didn’t remove young Hitler because of his name, said Allahpundit in Hot Air, but there’s reason to be skeptical. Child welfare workers had already warned the children’s dad, Heath Campbell, to remove swastika’s from the family car to avoid endangering the kids. “If the fear is that the Campbells' politics had made them so unpopular" it put the children's lives at risk, then the state can "swoop in and 'rescue' any child" whose parents have controversial beliefs.
As a rule, it's wrong to remove children from a home over the parents' political beliefs, said Michael Tomasky in Britain's The Guardian. And it's true that surrounding your babies with Nazi symbols is different from denying them food, "but I think in this particular case most of us can agree that removing children from an atmosphere of obvious poison is probably a good thing."
That's an understatement, said Don Surber in West Virginia's Daily Mail. The social workers who stepped in to protect these kids are "real heroes." Nazism is a sickness, not a political belief. "Calling kids such terrible names" is abuse, and it's "enough for me to denounce this couple as unfit parents."
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25 Comments
Posted by BenECouch, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 1:49 pm What is happening in America? Did not Patrick Henry say "I do not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death your right to say it"? Social workers have strict guidelines to determine abuse. This obviously does not meet those criteria. Just because the welfare office does not agree with the parents does not give them the right to tear a family apart. If this atmosphere is truely harmful let them keep a close eye on the situation and move in when they can legally do so.
Posted by bob dole, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 1:59 pm Naming your kids after Adolf Hitler is not 'political free speech', so does not fit the Patrick Henry quote. And the upshot of the whole cake stunt was that these people are not just fans who want to be left in peace; they are using their kids names as a way to draw attention to themselves. That is harmful and warrants some action on the part of the state to protect the kids from being endangered.
Posted by CrazyInAlabama, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 3:06 pm I would never name my children such inflammatory names. But I have a serious problem with the state coming in removing their children. This is a slippery slope. If the car (with the swastikas) had bullet holes in it and the holes were located where the kid's car seats were, then I could see endangerment. But teaching your beliefs to your children should not be reason for the state to take your children.
Posted by nem0.n00ne, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 6:42 pm Where is the ACLU and all the liberals who are so interested in protecting terrorists' rights. I guess that a Democratic state government can take children away from their parents based on the parents' political beliefs as long as those political beliefs are not left wing. I wonder if a Republican state government took away the kids of communists who named their son JOE STALIN, would the ACLU and the left be so quiet?
Posted by Hitler Killed 6 Million people, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 6:48 pm Look all you anti-semites Hitler KILLED 6 Million Jews If somebody named their kid Kill Obama Campbell, you'd be all up in arms But no, Hitler is alright Hypocrites Oh yeah chears for Bob Dole you are the only sane poster
Posted by Hitler Killed 6 Million People, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 6:51 pm hey neo.noone, are you defending HITLER as a GOOD conservative--he KILLED 6 Million PEOPLE
Posted by Michael E., Thursday, January 15, 2009, 6:58 pm These parents are asses, pure and simple. And to name their children with such epithets saddles the poor kids with a deficit that won't be known until they go to school and have the other kids rip them to shreds. As far as my opinion about removing the children from their parents care, I tend to fall on the side of free speech. The unfortunate names are stupid and show a lack of any social grace, but it in itself doesn't seem enough to legally remove the children from their parents, no matter how cretinous they are. Nonetheless, let's remember that there might be any of an number of reasons, things that might be explicitly abusive that caused the child care people to act. I won't be surprised if we find that there was much more to the abuse accusations than just the hateful names that these idiots called their innocent progeny Perhaps we should wait a couple of days to find out what was really happening before we make up our minds about this one way or another.
Posted by Carly, Thursday, January 15, 2009, 9:38 pm Until the reason for removing these children from the home is made public you are assumiing the reason had something to do with the names of these kids. Quite frankly, the naming of their children, swastikas on the family car, two able-bodied parents living on public assistance, and their less than wise choice to seek attention for a silly dispute over a birthday cake demonstrate a pattern that is concerning - not abusive, but it sure does make them seem unstable. The media attention was just enough to make authorities take a closer look and what they found was apparently unacceptable. Now these two people are in a position of proving they are suitable parents. If they weren't so foolish they would not find themselves in this situation, but it's their actions that brought them to this point. Maybe they were using drugs, or breaking the law in some other way. You just don't know. Trying to make this a freedom of speech issue before you know for a facts is ridiculous.
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