Well the Hitler thing, idk, because that is the Government. Seems wrong, but we don't know that the kids were taken just because of the names. But the NFL is a private organization, so they have a 1st Amendment right to not run the ad, that's their free speech, in that case it isn't a free speech issue at all. It's business that happens every day I am sure.

One principal that this country was founded upon was freedom of speech.  Websites and parents have this freedom just as much as the media.  It's a shame that the media doesn't elevate good news to such a degree.  I don't like some things in this world, but I would not want my right to speak out for my beliefs taken away.

I always find it funny how, on the blogs that talk about purity and abstinence, the ads for extra marital affairs appear. I've seen them on Revelife countless times. You have to wonder about the kind of people who subscribe to those sites, though. If they are the kind of people who obviously don't cherish commitment...why would they get married in the first place???

And for the kid named Hitler...well, yay for the parents for having strong beliefs, but I personally don't think it's fair to force their kid to take one for their cause. Little Adolf could grow up and disagree with the views of his parents, but his name will brand him forever. That's unfortunate. I hope they don't choose to send him to public school, he probably wouldn't make it out alive!

"Do whatever you want" is such a terrible foundation for a society. 

Ya' know, they say that silence is golden...

Here's where I blogged about Lil Hitler. I won't comment on that here.

As for the web ad: hell, I never pay attention to them anyways. Who does? I don't care. I don't support it, and neither should the superbowl. Free speech, insofar as advertisement can be titled "speech," is limited by the market. Paying to speak means that you can refuse the money. It's not really "free speech" because it was never free. The website has a right to exist, but the rest of us have a right to refuse that they ever spend their advertising budget anywhere except racist websites and porn blogs.

As for "Piss Christ":

"it angered me that someone took an image of the God I love in the very
act that gave me salvation and defiled it in the name of art."

I have to ask you first, what was the first commandment? Who were the first to die on behalf of that commandment and why? You should know that. If you like the Cross, fine whatever, but let the emotional attachment go. I'm pretty sure emotional attachment to such images is the reason why it said "You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God." It's like an emotional affair.

I sincerely believe that God wouldn't appreciate the symbology. How many people would want to be buried wearing the bullet they were shot with? If Jesus didn't take the cross with him on his resurrection, he probably wouldn't want you to wear it.

But don't mind me, I'm really not all that religious. It's just a thought. Consider it.

I'm a firm supporter of people's freedoms.  You can name your kid Adolf.  A store can refuse to serve you because of that (or for any reason they want, no matter how close-minded).

A company can encourage gross immorality.  The NFL can reject or accept their request for advertising on their programming.

People can profane any and all religious figures.

So long as they are not harming others, it's fair game.

Part of our freedom is the freedom to be idiots.  So long as your idiocy doesn't interfere with others, you've got the green light.  Christians often fret about hate speech being applied to preachers condemning homosexuality or kids not being allowed to do whatever in schools.  We want freedom.

To have freedom yourselves, you have to allow others to have it as well.  So get some thick skin, learn to ignore stuff, and enjoy liberty (before the gov't takes more of it away).

A related freedom is that of religion. An acquaintance at church was railing a while ago against Catholics and about the need to expel Muslims from the US... but ironically, he has the freedom to worship as he does because of a group of people who left Europe to find a place where they would be free to worship as they saw fit. We don't have a "Christian nation". We have a nation that allows freedom of worship.

Freedom is a messy business. Some limits on it are appropriate: prevention of suicide, restriction of pornography and vulgarity in the open media, traffic rules, building codes. There are issues of responsibility that go along with freedom.

Oy vey!

I agree... the only reason people do things like use their children for their own political reasons (not just the hitler naming but the guy that went around his wife to name his kid after palin/mccain) is that people respond to it.   Radio shows interview them, people blog about them (like here... ooh... can't say you "ignored them today" dear blog writer), people talk about them, news shows mention them.    We create and breed the very problems we dislike.

I completely agree with what you said about how the more people make a big deal out of something that offends them, the more exposure that thing gets. It's one of the things that bugs me most about Christian radio, specifically when a new book/movie has come out - the talk show hosts and guests expend so much energy complaining about the offensiveness that all it does is make people want to go read/see it to see what all the hubbabaloo is about, when they could so easily instead extoll the virtues of GOOD books/movies instead, and help the sales on those.

@Doubledb@xanga - Hey, so does that mean I can go on your Xanga page and post ads for gay extramarital incestuous sex as long as I pay you, and you have no right to refuse?  Awesome.

Web pages are kind of like billboards.  Or someone's front yard.  It isn't a public space in the same respect that, say, a park is.  It's more like your front yard and your neighbors front yard.  You could post a McCain/Obama sign in your front yard, no problem.  However, if you tried putting it in your neighbor's front yard, they have every right to say "Um. No."  Because it's their space that they paid for.

@misswonderj@xanga - I think when one of the other kids is named "Aryan Nation Campbell" (or whatever the last name is) it's pretty blood obvious what they were doing. And really, Himmler wasn't really a brilliant public speaker, either.