There Are Very Few Words
Really ... I just can't even process this.
The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child's full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance.
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"There's a new president and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change," the 35-year-old continued. "They need to accept a name. A name's a name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did."
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Karen Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the decoration.
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The Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April.
Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because "no one else in the world would have that name." He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated.
(All italics mine, by the way.)
So let's break this down a bit.
A guy who is a strident racist is asking for some tolerance. Process this for a moment.
He's supposedly suprised that this was controversial. If you are living in a world where you think it's odd that people might find that offensive, or that there isn't a pretty good reason that no one else has named their kid after Adolph Hitler, all I'm saying is you are living in a pretty sad little cloistered world.
I don't actually think even he thinks that President Obama would think that a name is a name and that this is at all the kind of change anyone but a lunatic can believe in.
They wanted a swastika on an three-year olds birthday cake.
Look, the beauty of this country is that idiots are allowed to be idiots, and he is allowed to be wrong about probably everything. But to do that to your kids? There are a lot of kids out there with unfortunate names, but this borders on abuse. These kids now have two roads -- grow up indoctrinated into a frame of mind that thinks it's cool that they have these names, or grow up clear-headed and therefore horrified and stigmatized because of their names.
Just not a great path to put your children on.
Good lord. I haven't officially called it, but I'm thinking we have a strong leader in the clubhouse for Douche Nozzle of 2008. Lovely people.