Pair told not to name son '4real'

AP via CNN ^ | June 21, 2007

[Silly]

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand authorities have blocked a couple's bid to officially name their new son "4real," saying numerals are not allowed.

Pat and Sheena Wheaton said they decided to name their new baby "4real" shortly after having an ultrasound and being struck by the reality of his impending arrival.

"For most of us, when we try to figure out what our names mean, we have to look it up in a babies book and ... there's no direct link between the meaning and the name," Pat Wheaton told TV One on Wednesday. "With this name, everyone knows what it means."

[Irish Queen]

"It’s the pinnacle of selfishness for parents to give kids vanity names like this. It’s the child’s name - not theirs."

I'll add my Amen! to that. As a teacher I've encountered some truly awful given names.

Boy names: Precious Angel, Spud, Evening Dawn, Kramer

Girl names: Yonkers, Bronx, Pity, Unique, Heavenly, Maedysin, Brittinee, Doe,

[Xenalyte]

I have added you, hellinahandcart, and Condor51 to my copy of The List.

[arderkrag]

Children are right's bearing individuals just as the parents. The government does have a legitimate role in settling conflicts between rights-bearing individuals. Since children cannot petition the government, that means that the government also has the moral legal authority to act as a petitioner on the child's behalf.

Fixed. Government should be a legal body, not a system of moral enforcement.

[hellinahandcart]

Well, I wouldn’t do Jon-Eric. Reminds me of that actor Jon-Erik someone, the actor who accidentally shot himself to death on the set of his TV show.

Also, too many syllables. With a three-syllable last name, I would go with a one or two-syllable first name. Otherwise you will wear people out talking about you.

And nothing that ends in Y, or you’ll just have a long EEEEE sound in the middle of your name. Example: “We went to see BillEEYEEasterday last night at the Carlyle, boy, he was great.”

[Jibaholic]

Fixed. Government should be a legal body, not a system of moral enforcement.

I disagree. First, the government needs the rightful moral authority to pass laws in the first place. So you cannot separate the two. Secondly, most laws are moral laws. What are laws against murder and theft but moral laws?

I would actually put it the other way around: a government that can make laws apart from moral authority is tyranny. That is why the secular left is such a danger. As William Penn put it, "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants."

[Fresh Wind]

How about ‘Soda’?

I went to high school with a kid named "Coke".

[arderkrag]

Murder and theft infringe upon your rights. Rights must be written above and seperate from moral ideals, since morals are subjective. The left is wrong not only due to their goals, but also their methods. No one should use government to impose morality. It’s just as wrong as using government to impose gun control, or market controls, or pass laws against thought crimes - the list goes on and on. your rights should extend to you doing whatever does not infirnge upon the rights of another. If you support passing laws supporting your morality, you shouldn’t complain so much when an equally control-based leftist government comes to power. The minute you legitimize using government to enforce morality, you also legitimize the left doing the same, just with a different set of morals.

[anton]

I can’t stand to deal with people who have those stupid names that can’t be spelled or pronounced correctly except with coaching. It draws attention away from the person and onto their name. And, the name becomes a resume item to tell prospective employers/customers/contacts that the person who named them is a low life, since no one but illiterates and celebrities pick these goofy names.

[Jibaholic]

Morals are not subjective. Any ethical theory of rights recognizes that rights have their roots in morality. If morality is subjective, then so are rights.

More specifically, rights are simply duties placed on other people. Your right to life means that I have a duty that limits my own freedom - I cannot move my hand in such a way that I stick a knife in your belly. I am not free to do that.

Similarly, a right to procreate also imposes duties. It imposes the duty of providing love, care and support for the child. Children are not the posessions of voluntarily consenting adults as many libertarians would have it.

Ultimately you are holding an untenable position, which is that you want to claim that rights have a real existence outside of the moral realm. But if you get rid of the moral realm, or banish morality to subjectivity, then you banish rights along with it.

[arderkrag]

Ultimately you are holding an untenable position, which is that you want to claim that rights have a real existence outside of the moral realm. But if you get rid of the moral realm, or banish morality to subjectivity, then you banish rights along with it.

Well, fact of the matter is, I think they do, and quite a few people agree with me, and the right and the left. And you still haven't addressed the core of the issue here - if you legitimize using government to impose morality, you legitimize the left using it for the same goals. You can have rights seperate from moral codes. While our rights may be based on a moral coe, they do not have to be tied to it, which is what "seperate" means. We are allowed to do things in this country which do not directly jive with any established moral code, for freedom's sake. We have a list of supreme rights, based on the the Magna Carta and on the concepts of free markets and free will, which nanny-staters on both sides of the aisle have whittled down. If you want to define that as a moral system, fine, but it's a loose definition at best.

[kidd]

OTOH, the kid would have had an easy time picking a screen name when he becomes a Freeper.

[Silly]

Yes, I agree with your points on syllables and the EEEE thing.

Jon by itself is okay. I’ll do some searches.

[Jibaholic]

Well, fact of the matter is, I think they do, and quite a few people agree with me, and the right and the left. ... You can have rights seperate from moral codes.

You keep asserting this, but you have done nothing to try and defend that claim. But I have consistently shown that they only way to get to a doctrine of human rights is through morality (see a fuller discussion here).

We are allowed to do things in this country which do not directly jive with any established moral code, for freedom's sake.

Sure, we can perform morally good and morally indifferent acts. And we are free from having morally bad acts performed against us.

We have a list of supreme rights, based on the the Magna Carta and on the concepts of free markets and free will, which nanny-staters on both sides of the aisle have whittled down. If you want to define that as a moral system, fine, but it's a loose definition at best.

I hate to break it to you, but the Magna Carta was not a basis, but rather makes it very clear that it itself was based on God's law. The "concept of a free market" is not a right. Instead, participating in free markets is something you do when you have rights. So once again, free markets require a basis on something else.

Like most libertarians, you have a big case of cognitive dissonance. The liberty that you cherish cannot be defended apart from a system of morality, ethics and duty. And any system of morality, ethics, and duty that will get you to a genuine concept of freedom will be based on God.

[Cailleach]

ping! Make sure you follow that link...but be warned, your brain (Brayne? hey...that’s a potential name) will hurt afterwards!

PS do not worry, I was not reading the lists for potential names for your grandbaby to be. I got a huge laugh out of the mixing of mother and father names...are they having thoroughbreds or humans?! Perhaps we should name grandbaby to be Chimee or Aimis...

[arderkrag]

The Magna Carta and the Common Law stemming from it were a LARGE basis of the Constitution (any History major - like me -could tell you that), and the fact that it is based upon "God's Law" is beside the point, since the Founding Fathers removed most of the religious dogma and simply gave everyone Freedom of Religion. This makes our code of laws separate from its basis, you see? The two are untied, disconnected. To quote people who knew far more than either of us:

"Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary,"

Article 11

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Now, if you think that you know more than the remaining Founding Fathers that were still around to fight the Barbary Pirates, please, don't let fact stop you. As I have said before, if you want to call a very faint derivative of English Common Law a "moral code", be my guest.

The "concept of a free market" is not a right.

..And I didn't say it was. But it is a large basis of the Contitution, and the protection of a free market was one of the foundations of our code of laws, and thus, the rights we are afforded under them.

Like most libertarians, you have a big case of cognitive dissonance.

Statements like this are why my party is growing.

[Jibaholic]

The Magna Carta and the Common Law stemming from it were a LARGE basis of the Constitution (any History major - like me -could tell you that), and the fact that it is based upon "God's Law" is beside the point, since the Founding Fathers removed most of the religious dogma and simply gave everyone Freedom of Religion. This makes our code of laws separate from its basis, you see? The two are untied, disconnected. To quote people who knew far more than either of us:

The problem is that the Magna Carta was not secularly inspired. The moral basis for those freedoms was the moral law that came from God. Any attempt to divorce these two concepts is utterly irrational. There is no secular defense of rights.

If there is no God, then where do rights - or the Non-Aggression Principle - come from? Where do you locate our rights? In your body? Can they be found in an autopsy? Or are they on the moon? Are rights made out of sub-atomic particles and can only be seen in particle accellerators? If you believe in these invisible rights, why don't you also believe in Santa Clause? And Mother Goose? And the Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Now you see why most liberatarians (Ayn Rand not withstanding) have abandoned the non-consequential case for libertarianism. Instead they try to defend it on utilitarian grounds. Self-interested people can best maximize their wealth if society follows libertarian precepts. But now that we've abandoned freedom and rights, you have to face the fact that self-interested people can also maximize their self-interest by owning slaves.

Statements like this are why my party is growing.

Twice small potatos is still small potatos.

[F.J. Mitchell]

LOL! He will IVsure.

[Freedom4US]

As silly as these gomers are, I’m gonna have to side with them in principle. It’s not up to government or “authorities” to decide what parents name their kid.

[arderkrag]

The problem is that the Magna Carta was not secularly inspired. The moral basis for those freedoms was the moral law that came from God. Any attempt to divorce these two concepts is utterly irrational.

And I didn't attempt to seperate the Magna Carta & scripture. I didn't even hint at it. Good grief. The Contitution, however, IS divorced from scripture. And as I have stated before, the fact that is is based on God's Law is irrelevant when you look at what the Founding Fathers kept from it. The Constitution isn't based in scripture, it's based in the Magna Carta and English Common Law. It would take quite a leap of reasoning to belive that this also makes the Contitution based in scripture. For a further exmple, take the Napoleonic Code, a large part of which derives from the Constitution. Does this also mean that the Napoleonic Code derives from the Magna Carta? No, of course not.

If there is no God, then where do rights - or the Non-Aggression Principle - come from?

I never said there was no God. I am a Christian, friend. I simply believe in having no religiously based laws. Let people believe what they will, and if it doesn't interfere with your rights, allow it. Society should handle religion and faith on its own without government intervention.

Now you see why most liberatarians (Ayn Rand not withstanding) have abandoned the non-consequential case for libertarianism.

Ummm...no, I don't. And no, they haven't. Defense of rights from a secular standpoint is the basis of the entire Libetarian platform.

Twice small potatos is still small potatos.

This is the thinking that killed the Whigs & Federalists. Any party can rise to power given the opportunity. Any.