[PeterFinn]

As I have clearly said: if this was a swastika of burning gasoline poured on the grass I would not be saying that it might not be a hate crime. If this were in France or Belgium I wouldn't say this. But it is in Sweden where the swastika has historically been a good symbol dating back millenia before the advent of Hitler and his evil henchmen. I've also pointed out that the synagogue Beith Tefila in Gothenburg has swastikas on the front door as an example of such.

Since, as is your collective point of view, that any use of a swastika is a hate crime should the Jewish synagogue be destroyed and its members arrested for daring to defy your misconceptions?

Why not go to India and destroy every temple with a swastika on it? There's lots of them, by the way. Or go destroy the Laguna Bridge on the Hopi Nation. Why not destroy the Amiens Cathedral? Howzabout we burn some Buddhist Temples for having "NAZI!!!" symbols on them?

Why don't we just round up all of these people who are so offending you with their refusal to surrender their cultural icons to your hatred? Why don't we round them up, put them in camps, and gas them if they won't give up their non-Nazi swastikas?

You people are just as bad as the Nazis. You hate without even knowing what it is you hate. You don't even bother to look at the links I've posted that would show you that certain Scandinavians still consider the swastika as their own symbol and not a Nazi symbol.

Why not let us turn this around?

You put up a picture of the KKK appropriating a cross to burn as a symbol of hate. By your logic then, isn't ANY cross a symbol of hatred? Shouldn't we tear down each and every cross because of what that symbol meant to people oppressed, terrorized, and murdered by the people who used that symbol? C'mon, this is YOUR argument here.

So why is it that we can accept the cross as a symbol apart from the KKK who carry it as a symbol of hate to this very day - yet the swastika that was carried for a much shorter period as a symbol of hate *must* receive no tolerance? Why is it you cannot accept that there are people who don't care a whit about Naziism who use swastikas?

Aren't crosses an intolerable symbol of hatred? This is your logic, after all.

And don't give me some intellectually dishonest explanation that "it's different". It is not. A hate group appropriates a symbol and now it is lost forever to any other group?

Please.

Are you going to stop your children from enjoying rainbows because the homosexuals have appropriated the rainbow as a symbol of homosexuality?

Will mathematicians have to stop using the "=" sign because another queer group appropriated that?

Heck, a white power group called 'National Alliance' has used the Star of David in some of their sickening drivel. Should the Star of David be forever banned being as it has been 'tainted' by a hate group?

Of course not.

And there's no reason why people who have nothing to do with Nazis, the Klan, or any other offensive hate group should have to lose *anything* because of the actions of a bunch of despicable criminals.

Think about this: because of the Nazis you would hurt Native Americans, Hindus, Arabs, Africans, rural Europeans, Pacific Islanders, & etc.

Which is utter nonsense.

Which brings me full-circle back to my point that it is a fact (which I've substantiated) that some people in Sweden do not consider the swastika a bad thing.

If they did this out of ignorance (but meaning well) then they sure as heck need an education that while they have no issue with the swastika that Jewish people do.

If it proves out to be an act of hatred then I'm all for horsewhipping the clods who did it.

[rmlew]

What are you on?
Frankly, your comment about Jews needing to get over victimhood, says quite a bit about you.

Everyone in Sweden who opened a paper in the last week, would know what a Sawastika was used for by the Nazis.
The Vandals BROKE into a cemetary, desecrated commemoration candles, and put them into a symbol used by the Nazis. This was either the act of a complete RETARD, SPACE ALIENS, or Neo-Nazis.

Do you think that we are stupid?

[Rutabega]

Hey buddy, I have read your posts, and don't really think you are trying to start a flame war, but actually are thinking that Swedish people might be some sort of rural/pagan throwbacks that still use these ancient symbols such as the swastika.

I just came back from living four years in Sweden, and I must tell you; whomever put these candles there MOST DEFINITELY meant then as a racist statement. No Swedes I knew understood the swastika as an ancient symbol of auspiscion, and if they did, they would never have used it, the same as you and I wouldn't.

In Europe (though you might know this) people light very large candles in glass at graves on holidays (November 1 being the most popular, but including all religious holidays as well). You may have seen something like them in the Hispanic aisle of the grocery store (though the Euro ones don't have any pictures on them). For someone to have gone to the trouble of collecting them from other graves (which is rude enough as it is--considering they STOLE them from other graves) to make a "peace-symbol" from the pre-modern Sanskrit tradition, or some other BS, the day of the European commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Auschwitz, is beyond the realm of possibility. Truly. Truly. Truly.

In many circumstances, I might back you up, but not this one.

If someone put this there, it is because the major portion of Swedes are pro-Palestinian, and not because they are hearkening back to their pre-medieval roots, the same as you probably would not be thinking of a swastika in the agrarian, pro-happiness sort of way.

Please, move on to another argument, because this was definitely done by one of the 12% of the Swedish population that is a Muslim (or Muslim sympathizing) population.

[frwhiskey]

What might interest you in the force of the swastika symbol is the latest use in San Francisco. Apparently someone has figured out its extreme irritation factor, so that in order to get rid of public graffiti, instead of constanly calling City Hall or the police, one simply sprays a swastika over the offending gang symbols.

The graffiti will be gone in the morning, not sit for weeks or months.

An amazingly good idea... put the bad reputation of the Swastika to work, where it can do a liberal city some real good! Hammer and sickle, true evil symbols, will not do the trick, for the millions dead under its power are not known to the average empty American brain.

Mary