this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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I mean, the swastika was used in a very positive way for millennia, and from a design perspective it's just a great symbol.
If we can give up the swastika, we can give up red baseball caps.
It still is. Eastern societies didn't dump an ancient symbol of good luck just because of the nazis.
https://kashgar.com.au/blogs/ritual-objects/the-swastika
Though they're not exactly the same; the nazi version is diagonal, with the corners on the points of the compass, while the eastern version sits flat.
https://study.com/cimages/videopreview/o10s9j8gpl.jpg
All too often we let the assholes ruin good things.
Eastern societies are not western societies, I was speaking about western societies. Nazi Germany was a much greater influence in the west, the east was more dominated by Imperial Japan. The atrocities they faced weren't associated with the swastika, so they didn't really have a reason to give it up. The atrocities they faced were associated with the Rising Sun flag, which is stigmatized throughout Asia.
It's not really that we let the assholes ruin good things, it's just that they did. We can try to pretend they didn't, but then we just look like a Shcrödinger's Asshole blowing dog whistles. It's not true, it's not fair, but it is what it is.
Well, who's this "we" you're talking about, then? Seems like the only people in the west who need to "give up the swastika" are nazis.
But I certainly don't get bent out of shape when I see the eastern version in a western setting, such as in the various decorations of immigrants from the east. I was mainly saying that we shouldn't expect folks from the east to abandon their version because of what the nazi version represents.
By "we" I am referring to the west. People who live in places with a history of significant Nazi influence, where the symbol is most strongly associated with Nazis, where anything sufficiently close to that symbol arouses the possibility that Nazis are being endorsed. I also don't have a problem with the symbol itself when used in other contexts, but that one dominant context makes it pretty suspicious in the general western population. So it goes.
Join the crips: for all your gang warfare needs! Then you can shoot at anyone wearing red for any reason and not be "crazy" just "crips be crippin'."