Ignorance is the symbol you are talking about

Ignorance----of the malicious variety----is the only thing that is in play here. It's only a matter of what Manifestation of it you want to talk about. The moment you make the deicision to mock someone else's legitimate life experience, and its an experience that you have not lived yourself.....that's where we wind up.....

Hate is hate. Ignorance is hate of the truth. It's the finest form of hypocrisy.

Let's delve deeper into what you are talking about: You are referring to the Confederate flag being a masked swastika. Because your shephard told you so... So the swastika, that never belonged to N4zi Germany, who existed after the Confederacy, was stolen BEFORE by the Confederacy from Ancient Sumer, which was largely u discovered at the time..., given to the N4zi Germany, then taken back and regiven back to America and incorporated into our symbology for NASA and Medical science. PS the svastika was in use is before Judaism was even a thing. The more we learn about history, the dumber we look. *Note that swastika predates everything you are talking about. EVERYTHING.* *Also for sensitivity issues, please note that this swastika does not belong to us. It PREDATES us.*

Wow, complete swing and a miss. On all points except the history of the swastika, which is irrelevant to its modern symbology and meaning.

How does it all tie together? It doesn't.

The ideologies do. Both Nazism and the Antebellum American South are about ONE "race' or people being "superior" to all others...and that "superiority" justifying the brutal exploitation of those who were deemeded "lesser races". In the US, this led to rationalization and institutional exploitation of Africans as slaves for forced labor (and other things). In Germany, it led to Eugenics, Genocide....and a war to annihilate a second people (Slavs) and drive them off their land for use by ethnic Germans (Lebensraum). Both are essentially white supremacist ideologies. With the Battle Flag of the Confederacy becoming the symbol of the American variation of this mindset. While the Swastika becoming the symbol of its European culmination.

Actually it isn't. What I'm talking about is being talked about right now. I'm not making it up. There are actually people trying to connect it all. It's NUTS.

[quote]There are actually people trying to connect it all. It's NUTS.[/quote] Since when is actually knowing what you're talking about ever been a pre-requisite to having an opinion? Its why you always want to do your own leg work when it comes to learning about things, and NEVER accept anyone else's opinions at face-value. Especially those who have a vested interest in you believing certain things. If you don't know history, you're liable to fall for anything.... Both the Battle Flag of the Confederacy and the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] Swastika have earned their foul repuations. But what unites them as symbols of hate is the foundational ideologies of the regimes they symbolized. Not the fact that both are (ultimately) perversions of religious symbology.

That's just it. I have svastikas on my lawn. They are on statues. My wife is Buddhist. And I get shit for it, because I am white and I have a Germanic last name. It's DUMB.

...and I am as well. A Zen practitioner for 25 years. Its not "dumb". Its a case of being "dead right"....and in the real world, "dead right" is just as dead as "dead wrong". You get shit for it because 99.99% of people have no familiarity with the swastika's roots in Hindu (and Buddhist) religious iconography. Hell, Hitler and the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] were so -blam!-ing ignorant that they didn't realize that the original Aryans were BROWN-skinned people. In fact they probably looked most like modern Northern Indians, and not blonde-haired, blue-eyed Teutons. However, you'd have to have been living under a ROCK to be unfamiliar with the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] use of that symbol, and what the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] stood for. Which is why, in Germany, displaying it in ANY fashion----even by accident----is a crime. So----no personal disrespect----any insistence on displaying that symbol in some misguided effort to reclaim and redeem its Vedantic roots is PROFOUNDLY insensitive to its JUST AS REAL (and more real in the eyes of the modern world) racist and anti-Semitic history and symbolism. Some symbols are simply irredeemable...and the swastika is one of them. You could not PAY this Buddhist any amount of money that would have me display any Buddhist iconography with that symbol on it. One of the foundational principles of Buddhist practice is "Ahimsa" to be "non-harming" or "non-violent" in speech and action. To assert "my right" to display a swastika simply because it was a Hindu symbol millennia ago, and to disregard what has become of it in modern times is to DISREGARD the dharma practice of Ahimsa. Because it dishonors the memory of the 60 million who died in World War II....and the 11 million people ( 6 million of them Jews) who were exterminated under that symbol, and in in the name of the evil that that the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url] embodied.

Not just a millennia, but at least 8 millennia. Now see, in the context of time...what symbol hasn't been perverted? Ok not to the extent of what we're talking about...but even still. I can't even fathom a person making that bowl in 6,000 bc. What did they use? Sticks? What's remarkable is the symbol isn't just found in Buddhism...it's found everywhere. Like snakes or serpents. Every religion on earth has them. Every. Single. One. So are pyramids. There is something else going on here... And it gets even weirder. NASA. How did NASA come to be? Alistair Crowley. Carl Sagan. Braun... They all worshipped the serpent. The svastika is the coalescence of 4 snakes. It means everlasting life and good health. It is a blessing. Good fortune. Moses' staff. Snakes. Mayan god? A snake. Pyramids in both places. Weird. I can trip out all day on this stuff. Lol.

If your wife is a Buddhist, then she can explain to you the notions of "Ahimsa" and "Impermanence" . As well as the "Boddhisattva Vow". Listen to her.

Nobody is right, because everyone is wrong. That's really all I'm saying. We are literally proven wrong on a daily basis. "The earth is flat"- clearly it isn't. And yet there are people arguing this point to this very day. Even though you could take them into orbit and they could physically see the curvature of the earth...it's still flat. How could any one religion be THE religion? I think it's all garbage. Why would God demand you worship him? Why would God care? It's God. He could make you do it. It's dumb. So then the argument is that God gave us free will. Because he was so dumb...and wasn't really god and couldn't see this backfiring in the future. But wait! The story doesn't make sense. Because if Adam and Eve weren't given free will until they were expelled, then how did Eve have the free will to eat the serpents apple and defy God? It's all a bunch of bullshit rules made by men.... to control you. It's wrong because it was written by people. Nobody is right, because everyone is wrong. The science of today will be disproved by the science of tomorrow. Ouroboros *Seriously, I just got my genealogy results. It's freaky as hell. Apparently I am Nordic and Native American. LMFAO! How does that even happen? This is such proof our whole history is TOTAL garbage*