American confederate flag

[Gandalf]

The Nazi flag is vile, but the more I learn I tend to find many flags conjure up similar connotations. Maybe the people wanting these flags are associating with different things. For instance, Beanz, if you wave a Union Jack it will likely be for positive reasons whilst I am seeing monarchy, occupation and war. In that sense we are both right based on what we perceive. I just struggle to get enraged on a topic like this and think US media and politics has once again gone slightly mad.

Not at all. Firstly you are assuming I am the type of person to be waving a Union Jack about. Not being ashamed of being English and being blindly patriotic, just like the Union Jack and the Swastika, are in no way interchangeable.

Back on topic though, a flag is still just a flag. I don't understand why it would upset people or have people wanting them banned. It is a very PC attitude to be having or even somewhat Nazi too! And I am not saying that is you, so don't get angry. That is more Master. Pretty hardcore. Not that he is a Nazi or anything like that.

Again I am not even remotely angry Jesus it's hard work having to climb a slope before people can even take a post as coming from a flat place.

So Back on topic. I agree it is a PC attitude to want to ban a flag but if you can not understand why it may upset people then that is simply because you have not been directly affected. If members of you own family had been killed by Nazi's, which is the case for many European Jews, than of course you would be upset. But again the Union Jack for all the behaviour under colonialism, is not a simple equivalent flag as the swastika. You can only argue that if you ignore huge historical facts, the same thing you are blaming blindly patriotic people of doing.

So while everybody should have the right to fly whatever flag they want they can not then be surprised if people treat them differently or draw what may even be false conclusions from this. To argue for free speech and then throw your toys out of the pram and insist any challenge or disagreement resulting from that is more important than the expression itself, is far more dangerous than any perceived PC like behavior.

It's a stupid argument. The oft repeated idea that people do not have the right to be offended, and if they do they must be ultra PC sheep or bed wetting liberals. It just reveals a pomposity and arrogance from the person insisting on the right to do so. It is tantamount to saying "My argument has no merit and so I will accuse you of being PC because that is my get out of jail card". It is as though treating people with respect and not being mysogonistic or racist or homophobic or ignorant was a much missed era. Rose tinted glasses where people pretend calling a black person a coon or nigger, or calling any Asian a Paki, or Gay people fagots, or Sikh's or arabs ragheads is supposedly the same as calling a spade a spade.

"Oh , I am not PC myself I call a spade a spade" as though we are all supposed to marvel at their rebelliousness and intransigence, unwilling as they are to leave the comfort of the stone age. That is real wet paper bag stuff. Someone so limp and childlike that they think not only is it clever to use terms that are stupid and offensive, but then to use the exact same argument that real sufferers of politically correct syndrome employ to try and shut down the debate.

And am not angry or addressing you. You dumb ass korean cracker

What on earth are you going on about? I don't like flags, I don't like Nazi's, think gay people should marry, and I don't believe in God and I think that about sums it all up for me. You will disagree with me, NV will disagree with me and I will say that is alright by me, you bunch of oddball's; me included.

[Beanz]

Miles if you can not see why a swastika might upset people then you are not really engaging in a debate. You are just digging your heels in and refusing to see reason. You can entrench yourself there for as long as you like but your argument holds little merit until you can verify such a dumb statement. That does not mean people should be banned from flying a swastika, but you can not expect to be taken seriously when you continue to insist that there is no reason for flying that flag to upset people. The freedom to offend is a right that I am seriously invested in defending, but that does not remove the right for people to be offended.

[Gandalf]

Nah, I have stated all along that I think all flags are silly and so I don't understand how I am entrenched. All I say is that I think freedom of expression is paramount. Can you disagree with someone? Sure. Can you have a Nazi flag? Sure. I think you would have to be very odd to be into Nazi's, but there are odd people out there. All you can do is educate people and refuse to associate with such a person if they are so offensive to you. Once you start censoring you quickly find you cannot say anything and governments manipulate this all the time. For instance harrassment law in the UK is meant to stop actual harrassment but is used to go after free speech. I really don't think it is a good idea to go down authoritarian paths. That is where books get burned and freedom of expression is lost. It is closer than people think.

[Gandalf]

I don't particularly want to be offensive myself but can and will be. People can call out oddities and discuss them, but we agree that banning is extreme too.

[Beanz]

Context

So last week in Britain, Britain First, the far right group who misleadingly present themselves as patriotic, attack Comedian Jason Manford, who is about as mainstream as you can get. Why ?

Because he decided to delete some facebook friends who post and forward their propaganda. They (Britain First) attack him for branding them racist and then go on to respond by posting a photo of unfunny comedian Jason Manford, and funny comedian Ross Noble, in front of a swastika flag with the caption

"How is it 'racist' to oppose a multi-racial religion whose adherents include black, white, Asian and Oriental people? Is it 'racist' to oppose Islamic extremism? "Any man who thinks Nazism is funny is a disgrace."






Manford responds with "No, Nazism isn't funny, but Mel Brooks' 'The Producers Musical' is.

Because he is appearing in Mel Brooks musical with Noble.


So obviously parodying Nazism in a show or film like that is not the same as flying a Nazi flag outside your house. I mean in a way that would be display quite a Jewish sense of humour, if the resident was a non-gentile, but in all likely hood that would more likely be an insensitive prick, trying to make a point. Now if that angered residents both Jewish and non-Jewish in the neighborhood to confront him, ( after all many, many Christians in Britain died fighting the bastards) then maybe he would see things differently. So their right to be offended would actually have produced some good.

Meanwhile Britain First's right to be offended reveals the simple mindedness at the heart of all their propaganda.

You will remember that many Punks played with Nazi imagery and wanted to provoke and offend. They never encountered PC attitudes until they went to America where in huge parts of the media, there was an irony and complexity failure, that meant they just could not process it. That American PC attitude is still there at the heart of those who insist on only seeing things as black and white. So the right to offend is not synonymous with the right to employ that right willy nilly, without ever having to expect it to be challenged.

[Beanflicker]

Context has completely been destroyed now a days by these righteously indignant morons.

Anyone who says "(Insert subject here) is NEVER funny" is a tool. ANYTHING can be funny, and nothing should be off the table IMO.

[IamInuit]

Seems odd to me that it took an act of brutal murder to give that flag its exit papers. Claiming it as some southern cross is like hanging a Nazi flag in a state in Israel and claiming its a symbol of National Socialism.

For the Hindus and Buddhists in India and other Asian countries, the swastika was an important symbol for many thousands of years and, to this day, the symbol can still be seen in abundance - on temples, buses, taxis, and on the cover of books. It was also used in Ancient Greece and can be found in the remains of the ancient city of Troy, which existed 4,000 years ago. The ancient Druids and the Celts also used the symbol, reflected in many artifacts that have been discovered. It was used by Nordic tribes and even early Christians used the Swastika as one of their symbols, including the Teutonic Knights, a German medieval military order, which became a purely religious Catholic Order.

Even with that history, you dont see neighbourhoods at least in the Western world dawning that symbol outside of the nutbar skinheads and white supremacists.

[walrus]

Seems odd to me that it took an act of brutal murder to give that flag its exit papers. Claiming it as some southern cross is like hanging a Nazi flag in a state in Israel and claiming its a symbol of National Socialism.

For the Hindus and Buddhists in India and other Asian countries, the swastika was an important symbol for many thousands of years and, to this day, the symbol can still be seen in abundance - on temples, buses, taxis, and on the cover of books. It was also used in Ancient Greece and can be found in the remains of the ancient city of Troy, which existed 4,000 years ago. The ancient Druids and the Celts also used the symbol, reflected in many artifacts that have been discovered. It was used by Nordic tribes and even early Christians used the Swastika as one of their symbols, including the Teutonic Knights, a German medieval military order, which became a purely religious Catholic Order.

Even with that history, you dont see neighbourhoods at least in the Western world dawning that symbol outside of the nutbar skinheads and white supremacists.

Oddly, it was a Christian church in his home town where Hitler first saw the symbol which would come to be called the swastika. It is still there today.

[Gandalf]

Seems odd to me that it took an act of brutal murder to give that flag its exit papers. Claiming it as some southern cross is like hanging a Nazi flag in a state in Israel and claiming its a symbol of National Socialism.

For the Hindus and Buddhists in India and other Asian countries, the swastika was an important symbol for many thousands of years and, to this day, the symbol can still be seen in abundance - on temples, buses, taxis, and on the cover of books. It was also used in Ancient Greece and can be found in the remains of the ancient city of Troy, which existed 4,000 years ago. The ancient Druids and the Celts also used the symbol, reflected in many artifacts that have been discovered. It was used by Nordic tribes and even early Christians used the Swastika as one of their symbols, including the Teutonic Knights, a German medieval military order, which became a purely religious Catholic Order.

Even with that history, you dont see neighbourhoods at least in the Western world dawning that symbol outside of the nutbar skinheads and white supremacists.

Oddly, it was a Christian church in his home town where Hitler first saw the symbol which would come to be called the swastika. It is still there today.

The Swastika is sometimes seen throughout Asian countries, I've seen it here often enough, and and is typically associated with Buddhism. It can can have peaceful meanings that go far beyond the over played Nazi card. If flipped suggest something different, but most are too ignorant to even realise which way it should go round and would likely start spitting something about 'evil' and 'ovens' and how disrespectful it all is. 'Look in the mirror, my rotund friend, and let's talk about respect' says the monk in a moment of non serenity. And he is not politically correct either! Holy cow, call CNN! As I say, a flag is just a flag. It's meaning is whatever the propaganda and yourself allow it to have. The rest should be up to you.

[IamInuit]

Seems odd to me that it took an act of brutal murder to give that flag its exit papers. Claiming it as some southern cross is like hanging a Nazi flag in a state in Israel and claiming its a symbol of National Socialism.

For the Hindus and Buddhists in India and other Asian countries, the swastika was an important symbol for many thousands of years and, to this day, the symbol can still be seen in abundance - on temples, buses, taxis, and on the cover of books. It was also used in Ancient Greece and can be found in the remains of the ancient city of Troy, which existed 4,000 years ago. The ancient Druids and the Celts also used the symbol, reflected in many artifacts that have been discovered. It was used by Nordic tribes and even early Christians used the Swastika as one of their symbols, including the Teutonic Knights, a German medieval military order, which became a purely religious Catholic Order.

Even with that history, you dont see neighbourhoods at least in the Western world dawning that symbol outside of the nutbar skinheads and white supremacists.

Oddly, it was a Christian church in his home town where Hitler first saw the symbol which would come to be called the swastika. It is still there today.

They dont parade it. That confederate flag represents the same thing as the Nazi flag minus the ovens.