Lil' Hitler's Legal Bind

There's a trial going on in Winnipeg where authorities are attempting to win the legal right to take away a young girl who's parents are suspected Neo-Nazis. It is alleged that her parents trained the child to be a racist who hates "niggers" [sic] and calmly talks about how all black people should be killed. The girl also believes that any visible minorities are a threat to white children. The story first broke last year when the child showed up to her school with swastikas and white supremacist slogans drawn on her skin. It was not so much what the girl was saying that alarmed social workers but the cold, matter-of-fact way in which she said those things. Social workers allege that the parents have Nazi paraphernalia around their home, have made frequent racial slurs, and have trained their child to think this way. The parents are fighting the seizure of their children on constitutional grounds citing freedom of association, conscience, and belief. The question is whether or not authorities are taking the right steps by trying to take this girl away and more importantly how the final decision will affect future cases.

It's the old can of worms argument once again. Can the state really take a child away due to the beliefs of their parents? Also, how does the state determine what beliefs are acceptable and which are not. In this particular example, assuming the allegations are true, I think child protection services has a perfectly viable case. Obviously the girl has been taught to believe that violence is perfectly alright. She may not pose a threat now but as those beliefs fester, it could lead to violent physical acts in the future unless she has some sort of epiphany before that happens. No matter which way this hearing goes, it could set a precedent that this country is not prepared for; setting off nightmare constitutional problems and potential legal double standards. There is no clear definition of what is and what is not an issue when parents bring children into highly charged politics. Most recently was the case where Tamils were alleged to have used their children as human shields during the blockade of the Gardener Expressway in Toronto earlier this month. The case seems different at first glance but is surprisingly similar to the case of the Winnipeg Neo-Nazis. Both peoples are using their children as a means to further their political cause. One is a hatred for blacks, the other is a hatred for the Sri Lankan government and frequently its Sinhalese majority. What about Muslims that take their kids to Mosques where radical Imams preach violence against Jews and the destruction of Israel. What about blacks who teach their children to fear whites or Hispanics who teach their children to blame the United States for issues in their home countries? Should these groups also have their children taken from them? Other recent issues involved the FLDS in Texas, which sparked controversy when American authorities seized children from parents belonging to the sect for at least partially indocrinating them in polygamy and a view that women were inferior. The question we need to ask ourselves is at what point does ideology become abusive. It's simply not as clear cut as physical abuse is. The racial element that is often involved only makes things more complicated, especially with the inevitability of human rights tribunals becoming involved; who's members which as we have learned are not always formally trained in law or politics. Unless physical abuse is involved, removing a child from the home in these cases should only be a last resort when counselling fails. Arguably simply taking the child away does not attack the root of the problem, where as court ordered psychiatric help for both the parents and the child would certainly be a start. It's just too much of a legal burden to decide which ideologies constitute abuse and which ones do not.