In Winnipeg, a white nationalist mother thought it was fun to draw a swastika on the arm of her seven-year-old daughter. When a teacher rubbed off the mark, the mother drew it back on. The second time, the school reported the incident and child welfare officials took both the daughter and a two-year-old boy away from the mother. It is a case that raises very serious questions of free speech balanced against child welfare.
Recently, there have been some alarming attacks on free speech by Canadian agencies, click here. This story, however, is the first involving the removal of children.
Schools are given a great deal of leeway in prohibiting hateful or inappropriate clothing. Presumably, this would also include body messages. However, the penalty is generally suspension or expulsion — not removal from the home. Moreover, so long as it is lawful for a child to receive a tattoo, a family is allowed to put a cross, star or other religious or political symbol on their children. The school may require that it be covered up, but it cannot prohibit a family from exhibiting their political beliefs.
The mother in this case is obviously pretty creepy with a house full of Nazi symbols. She now admits that it was a mistake: “It was one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my life but it’s no reason to take my kids.” Yet, Child and Family Services has removed the children because it considers such views to be potentially harmful for the children.
There is no greater form of government punishment for speech than taking away one’s children. This mother has a right to raise her children in a Nazi home. The school has the right to regulate some demonstrations of speech that are clearly inimical to the educational mission — though such limitations have to be narrowly tailored.
Canadians need to take a serious look at these attacks on free speech and the future of free expression in the country.
For the full story, click here.
Gyges:
Eavesdrop away. My comment referred to those not in the conversation or not welcome to participate in conversations I am having. I don’t consider my posts a billboard at all times especially when I am talking with someone directly. As far as I am concerned you are always a welcome member of the conversation. Plus I like your points in the recent post which provided some personal perspective.
Jill:
I think secular hate and religious hate are from the same tree and believe that to be abuse if taught to children. I also agree that any philosophy that teaches unwarranted hate is undesirable and its promulgation is abuse. I don’t like being so black or white on the issue, but I have seen the aftermath and its destructiveness outweighs notions of freedom of expression and religion when put into action.
Mespo,
I do think every society should try for this goal and I agrree that teaching a doctrine of hate is mental abuse. I’m not trying to deflect what you’re saying, but what do you think about all the other instances I mentioned, even the secular hate doctrines which have produced our current president and bush? This stuff is everywhere in one form or another. Additionally, there really are whole groups of parents who believe any parent who isn’t bringing their child up in a religious instituion is an unfit parent. Christians took away native american children because they thought the native americans’ religion was inferior to their own.
J&M,
At the risk eavesdropping (although how one eavesdrops on a public forum I’m not to sure) and of making an overly long post that nobody’s going to read (hint hint), I’m going to offer up a slightly different perspective on what you’re talking about. I grew up attending an Evangelical Free church (I always described us as Baptists that clap on the wrong beat). The hatred of non-believers wasn’t taught outright. It was a byproduct of a couple of highly stressed beliefs.
I was told that we should be separate from “the world” and that having non-christian friends was more likely to “drag me down” then “pull them up.” I was never all that clear about how that related to spreading the Gospel. There was also a deep rooted sense of being persecuted by the secular aspects of society (which is why I’m a little more sympathetic to which-ever Martha it was that’s super religious, I know how hypersensitive it makes one to be told ‘they’re out to get us’ all the time). Put those two ideas together and you’ve got a pretty good reason to dislike anyone that fits into the label of non-believer.
As far as indoctrination methods go it seemed relatively tame at the time. We did see a bunch of badly produced shock videos. Kid’s dying in car accidents and going to Hell was a big idee fixe. There were also camps where we sang bad music (If I were God I’d be pretty pissed that I went from getting Bach to getting Micheal W Smith) and listened to speakers talk about the afore mentioned beliefs. Although I used the camps mainly as a way to meet cute girls.
What I think separates the Church I grew up attending from
being a place that teaches a “doctrine of hate” was the REST of the messages we were given. For every sermon about being a stranger in a strange land there was one on helping the poor stranger on the side of the road and one on Jesus eating with the Tax collector. Were there people who ignored the parts of the Bible that started with sentiments like “what ever you do to the least of these?” Yes, but they were a small percent. Mostly it was just a bunch of people who were trying to raise their kids to pray before going to bed and to be nice to other people.
Jill:
I was specifically thinking of “Jesus Camp” and the myriad of other kooky things perpetrated against kids in the name of religion. Is there any indoctrination that would be grounds to deny parents the right to raise children? What if they preached but did not practice incest? Or their parenting style was to scream and berate the kids all day? Does society have no interest in ensuring that families are producing well adjusted citizens capable of handling freedom and tolerance? I agree that schools do socialize children to some extent, but the advent of home schooling vitiates this beneficial product of education. I have civil liberties concerns here as well, but this doctrine of hate seems egregious enough for me to equate it with mental abuse.
Mespo,
Sorry to not reply back. Yesterday was my group’s dance performance, part of which was in the river at night! (No snakes were handled.)
If you watch the documentary, Jesus Camp (very well done but really depressing) you will see clearly that the parents do want to train suicide bombers for Christ. Pick your religion or secular cause, there are always people who would sacrifice their children for it or teach them to sacrifice others. In these extreme cases I think a child should be removed for their safety and wellbeing. I don’t think this violates the law as we do have laws against killing and mass murder.
Here’s where the harder part comes in for me. I know many Christians who teach their children to HATE any lesbian, gay or non-believing person. They don’t stress that these people should be killed, but if you go to a Christian bookstore you’ll find some unwholesome references to that idea. This “right up to the line” stuff is pretty common.
Then I am familiar with “ruthless economic parent syndrome”. In this case the indoctrination is: be obediant, do your work, do not think , get into a good school and pick one of only a handful of jobs. This lovely worldview also produces children who HATE. They hate the poor–people in non-prestigious jobs who don’t make a ton of money. They hate those who don’t have power in their society. It produces some of our society’s worst criminals. It produces adults who believe in PNAC and justify torture. It produces traders who laugh about cutting off people’s power while they make money. To my mind these are very scary people.
So I see various types of truly destructive child indoctrination in many aspects of our society. Creating enough spaces where these forms of indoctrination are questioned is helpful. Creating spaces where children are loved and accepted is a good idea. Children and adults who are secure. (or at least more secure) within themselves and have been allowed at least a few times to make up their own mind about what they are being told will be able to make meaningful choices in their lives. So I guess I would say pluralism is one of the strongest helps in breaking free of indoctrination.
I hope this was at least semi clear. I do understand the horror of Nazi indoctrination. I am hoping that this child’s interaction with the “wrong” people at her school will cause chips to break in the Nazi armor. The school could certainly do lessons about the holocaust, about the many genocides that have occurred throughout human history, and they could take on the sociology of belief in general.
Jill
Josh:
“If so, then certainly religious indoctrination would count as abuse as well.”
****************
There are many people who think that religious indoctrination is abuse. There is a significant difference between education and indoctrination. The primary distinction being that dogmatism always accompanies indoctrination as opposed to the encouragement to question things found in education.I give your the Branch Davidians and Jonestown as just two examples. Even mainstream religion postulates dogmatism and infallibility, and as such constitutes an abuse of the mind as has been pointed out by intellectuals from Thomas Jefferson to Professor Richard Dawkins. Such training leaves many recipients with a predisposition to demean those who oppose the indoctrination. If you look carefully on this blog you might even see some evidence of that.
Sorry for leaving that thought dangling.
I meant to say that being exposed at a young age to some experiences, and or doctrines and philosophies that may be considered negative in general society, like say a single mother who supports her two children by dancing in a stripper bar, or a father who is a gun buff, and teaches his son to hunt and kill at a young age, is NOT considered “harm” as per how the law defines harm.
Nor is your mom drawing a fake tattoo on her kid of a distasteful symbol.
And defining what the word “hurt” means, is like straining at the meaning of the word “is”.
We all know what it means to be hurt.
And being exposed at a young age to some experiences, and or doctrines and philosophies that may be considered negative in general society, like say a single mother who supports her two children by dancing in a stripper bar, or a father who is a gun buff, and teaches his son to hunt and kill at a young age.
Once we start defining the meaning of harm, we will end up with an encyclopedia of potential “hurts” so thick the sheer tonnage of it will crush us.
This type of thinking always “sounds” good when security moms and dads consider the “keeping the kids safe” idea. But they are the pitfalls to totalitariansim.
Just look at police states, where the govt decides who can procreate, and how often. Like China, with their “1 child” rule.
Imagine. Living in such conditions. How could one of us, an American, survive in such conditions. Yet here we are, many of us perfectly ok with the notion of effectively kidnapping someones child, because you don’t like their political philosophy. Which just opens the door to more government interference in the family.
And calling it hate doesn’t make it right either. Is Nazism hate? Sure. But so are most religious beliefs. Most Christian religions hate homosexuals. In many countries Protestants hate Catholics to the point of war. And the Nazi’s don’t have the corner on Anti-Semitism. The Muslims are none too fond either. And Vice Versa. And they all hate us godless heathen.
So there really is no possible way to start deciding which belief systems “cross the line” other than a “one size fits all” policy. It must be a level playing field and therefore we only start drawing lines where laws are being broken or people are getting hurt.
To do otherwise is to open a can of worms we’d never get the lid back on. First its Nazi’s. Then its the Communists. Then its the Libertarians. Then its the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so on, and so on.
One thing you can be sure of when you decide to start deciding what people think, and that is you’re never gonna stop.
Josh
1, July 14, 2008 at 4:24 am
I can’t believe that all indoctrination is child abuse as was written in an earlier post. If so, then certainly religious indoctrination would count as abuse as well. (Please don’t think that I am comparing Naziism to organized religion, I most certainly am not.) In my mind freedom of expression ends when your words or actions incite imminent physical violence. Forgive my ignorance, but I do not know if the law agrees with me. I simply do not see any imminent threat posed by the woman’s addmittedly tasteless actions.
And you’re right. They do not pose a threat and no one could make that stretch, not at least plausibly.
As for whether the law agrees with you, the laws in the country usually seem to follow the old addage, “my right to swing ends where your nose begins”.
So no, once again its hard to produce a victim. Perhaps a holocaust survivor might be able to seek some civil compensation for trauma, but even that would be difficult if the person wasn’t rubbing it in their face.
Also, I liked your comparison of religous doctrine and this situation. Because in truth many, many religions can be demonstrated to be harmful to the kids. More mainstream ones than you know, too. For example, cases involving Jehovah’s witnesses have more than once found their way into the courts, usually due to withholding some sort of treatment for an ailing child. But just the concept of teaching kids to fear medicine could be construed by some as harmful to the child. But yet we don’t shut down the JW’s. Why? Because thats life. You don’t get to decide that your way is the best way for everyone. Look at the Amish.
How many more generations of inbreeding there before serious defects begin appearing on a regular basis? Couldn’t that be seen as real physical threats to the kids? But we don’t go round up the Amish.
The fact is life is dangerous to your kid. And children will be raised in all sorts of environments, and that doesn’t really mean a thing. Because kids can die in the safest of environments, and thrive in the worst of them.
At the end of the day, its the roll of the dice, and we can’t go around telling parents how to think, or what to believe in, just because it fits with OUR ideas about what is right and what is wrong. Doing so is to make Ameirca no longer America, but some sort of paranoid, overprotective police state, where busy bodies create smothering rules that the rest of us have to live under.
In this country, its legal to be a Nazi, so this case would be a no brainer. Or at least, it should be.
You can’t call it abuse, if the law recognizes it as a legal, constitutional right.
rafflaw said…
Some people may argue that using your child as a poster for some political protest or demonstration by painting signs or symbols on them, just might be considered harmful to the child.
Why?
Thats another protected constitutional right.
Politicians have been using their children for years to carry signs, and you’ve never heard of “kissin babies”?
That the symbol is distasteful to you does not preclude their constitutional rights to express themselves as they see fit.
Once again, unless you can demonstrate some law or statute is being broken, then how can you assume any sort of legal footing for removing the child? Of course I’m talking about US law, not Canadian now. Obviously if what Tek said is accurate and I have no reason to doubt that it is, then Canadian law has specific statutes against belonging to or symbolizing the Nazi party.
Those laws however do not exist in the United States. So on what legal grounds are you basing this? Because “someone doesn’t like it”?
Thats not a basis for taking children from their parents. And that “some” people “may” argue that a perfectly legal act is harmful to the child, those same “some people” do not have one ounce of legal standing to make that claim.
And implying they do is one of the reasons we’re finding ourselves in this growing police like state. Because we think we have the rights to decide what others can think, and believe. Do I hate Nazi’s? Sure I hate Nazi’s.
But thats the beauty of our flag. All living under it have the right to believe whatever they want, and assemble peacefully under whatever motto or creed they want, as long as they are not breaking the law.
And as I stated earlier, being a member of the Nazi party, or encouraging others to do so, is just not a crime.
So even though some people may feel that some people might make an argument, it is nonetheless not a tenable one.
You can’t decide somethings illegal just because you don’t like it.
I can’t believe that all indoctrination is child abuse as was written in an earlier post. If so, then certainly religious indoctrination would count as abuse as well. (Please don’t think that I am comparing Naziism to organized religion, I most certainly am not.) In my mind freedom of expression ends when your words or actions incite imminent physical violence. Forgive my ignorance, but I do not know if the law agrees with me. I simply do not see any imminent threat posed by the woman’s addmittedly tasteless actions. The fact that a child is involved is troublesome but not enough reason to have the child removed.
I’m not certain that I agree the government should do anything. I don’t think a government governing free people can impose tolerance on its citizens and still call itself free.
I am sad for the child. I am sad for the situation. I am appauled at the mother’s intolerance and ignorance. I believe the child’s best interests are probably better served by a foster family. But more than anything else, I believe it is not my place to be the one who makes that decision, and certainly not the government’s in a free society.
technikAL,
Thanks for the primer on Canadian law. After several posts Bartlebee, you came back to the jist of my earlier statement that is is an interesting case. Some people may argue that using your child as a poster for some political protest or demonstration by painting signs or symbols on them, just might be considered harmful to the child. If the parent wants to demonstrate, let them do it. But don’t use the child to make your point. Good night to all.
Of course, the school also has the right, even a public school, which is permitted to adjust its codes of conduct based on the communities in which it resides, to keep the girl from wearing such a stupid symbol on their school grounds.
And if the mother, continues to put the swastika on her kid, effectively keeping her from school, and if the mother does not provide another legally recognized venue of learning for the child, then obviously that would constitute grounds for removing the child, as the mother then is guilty of neglecting the childs right to an education and thus would constitute a form of abuse.
It is an interesting case.
teknikAL
1, July 13, 2008 at 6:40 pm
rafflaw
Canada has some pretty draconian laws regarding free speech involving NAZIism, the NAZI Holocaust and it’s symbols. I believe they have a man jailed (or now deported) because he is a NAZI Holocaust denier and published his beliefs. They classify that as a hate crime of some sort.
So Canada “does” have laws restricting membership to the Nazi party, or spinoffs. And apparently to even speaking about it. Which of course adds credence to your position Rafflaw, with regards to the states right to remove the womans kid from her home. At least in Canada.
If it is indeed a law or statute that she is violating in Canada, then of course legally they would have at least some grounds for removing the child, not that I agree with the concept. Like you, I agree it goes against free speech and self expression, which of course actually moves the state closer to the philosophy of the Nazi’s, than does permitting its citizens to exhibit a Nazi symbol.
In America however, it is not illegal to join, or proselyte others to join the Nazi party, so merely painting a swastika on your kid would not be grounds for the state seizing custody of the child, and therefore I am surprise to find some Americans advocating that position.
I find it similar to the flag burning Amendments being constantly proposed before Congress. Americans seem to be easily lulled into concerning themselves over a symbol instead of the principles they represent.
After all, our fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers, etc, fought and died over the course of our country’s history for the rights that flag represents. One of those rights, one of the fundemental ones, is the right to peacefully protest ones government.
Therefore, if one purchases a flag, with his own, legally earned or aqquired monies, and either has a permit to burn, or doesn’t require one in his neighborhood, and chooses to peacefully protest his own government by burning the flag, then that certainly constitutes exercising a constitutionally protected right. Yet Americans and Congressmen every day, from both parties, talk of outlawing flag burning, so as to remove one of the key rights from Americans, that the flag represents.
And of course the real irony in the flag burning Amendment is that the “accepted” way to dispose of a flag is burning. Any former Boy Scout knows that.
Which demonstrates the level of knowledge on the subject of the people suggesting, and supporting such measures. But the real issue is of course the hubris in making a law to make the cloth the flag is printed on more sacred than the principles it stands for. In fact, to remove said principles in order to turn the flag into some sort of false idol.
So too with making laws deciding what philosophies or attitudes people are free to observe. Saying we are free, except when it comes to belief systems and philosophies the majority of us do not like, is to not be free.
As long as those people are not violating laws, or injuring others in some way, then they have the right to assemble, and to think the way they so choose. Whether the rest of us like it or not.
rafflaw
Canada has some pretty draconian laws regarding free speech involving NAZIism, the NAZI Holocaust and it’s symbols. I believe they have a man jailed (or now deported) because he is a NAZI Holocaust denier and published his beliefs. They classify that as a hate crime of some sort.
Not to diminish that particular genocide, but there are a couple others that have been more bloody and deadly. What of their symbols and doctrine, can anyone name them? Mao Ze-Dong (China, 1958-61 and 1966-69, Tibet 1949-50) and Jozef Stalin (USSR, 1932-39).
These types of laws diminish their plight as if the people killed in the NAZI Holocaust are of greater value than these others.
I don’t believe in that type of law that suppresses free speech no matter how incorrect or offensive. It stifles debate, which is the best way to the truth.
But I wholeheartedly agree with your statement about the country leaning fascist since the Supreme Court ruled George Bush gets to be king for a bit. But we have ourselves to blame for that, more than we do Dubya and friends. After all, if we didn’t buy it, he never could have sold it.
“Soccer Moms”, “Patriots”, waving flags and spying on their neighbors. Cheering new constitutional restrictions and handing over freedoms gladly using the time worn excuse of;“well, if it keeps us SAFE”.
Of course, who said life was safe?
Our battle cry used to be “give us liberty or give us death”, emulating the famous speech of Patrick Henry. Now, our battle cry is “take whatever of our liberties you need Mr President, just don’t let us, or the kidz, get hurt“.
Just as in this case in Canada, we see Americans would rather lean to the side of “being safe” than enjoy their constitutional right to not have their kids kidnapped by their own government.
Concluding that drawing a flag on a kid is somehow so damaging to the kid, that it would be better to steal the child away from its family and toss him into the care of the state, which is usually incompetent to begin with, is ridiculous.
Kids endure all sorts of mental abuse growing up, and are exposed to a wide variety of environments. Its called “life”. Most will deal with it, and grow up reasonably normal, and others will not, and thats just the way it is.
Trying to create a nation of bubble-boys, isn’t what a democracy is all about.
The truth is, I think some of us, claiming to love democracy, would rather live under a Police State, where every thought ANOTHER person has, is strictly regulated and controlled.
Democracy’s a messy thing. Too messy for the faint of heart.
That its distasteful, and politically incorrect, is not in doubt.
But we don’t take peoples children away for that in this country.
At least not yet.
And let me clarify my obvious opening, that even in the absence of a recorded law, the action would have to be something outside of what is already accepted as legal code of conduct, within the constraints of the judicial system for something to be rendered, “extraordinary”.
And since being a member of the Nazi party, and proselyting others to join is legal in this country, and most likely in Canada, therefore the circumstances could in no way be construed as extraordinary.
Rafflaw said..
Is teaching your kids to be a skinhead extraordinary? I am not sure, but it is getting close
Well it may be unsavory. Unseemly even. But “extraordinary”?
There would have to be a law against being a skinhead, for that to be true.
And of course we don’t know thats what she was teaching the kid, even if there was a law against being a skinhead, which theres not.
She was putting the nazi swastika on the kid.
And the swastika, is a legal symbol. So is being a Nazi for that matter. Being a member of the Nazi party is perfectly legal in this country, and the Nazi party regularly petitions state and federal government for permits to legally demonstrate and voice their beliefs, under their constitutionally protected right to do so.
So for this to be “extraordinary”, there would have to be some sort of crimanal act here, which being, or teaching someone to be, a Nazi, is not.
Now I’m not familiar with Canadian law, and if you’re implying its illegal to be a member of the Nazi party in Canada, then your position would have more merit. But from a legal standpoint, I can’t see how she did anything to warrant having her children taken away.