"Second Life does not allow Nazi iconography as it broadly offensive."

This is completely revelant now. Just because it was a semi recent event in history gives no less merit to the crusades and inquisition.....we're talking about symbols. The Swastika has been a symbol of good luck for centuries ....just because one man tainted it we can never see it again?

Likewise the cross has been around for centuries and the majority of people that use this symbol are decent people ...despite the fact that lunatics in the past have used the symbol to try and subvert or abolish whole races of man.

You can't declare one symbol as evil while cherishing another that has seen as much if not more blood.

I disagree. Your comments are about the reactions of people to certain symbols now that are associated with events only 60 years ago and then you compare peoples reactions to symbols related to events long long ago. Basically you are implying people are overreacting. My point was simply what was their reaction to the cross shortly after the crusades.

Everytime someone brings this up I get a chuckle because people act like the US was the first country to ever conquer an untamed territory. Sure its sad what happened to the American Indians. But what do you think they were doing before we showed up? Smoking peace pipes 24/7? No, they had many tribal wars.

Are you equating the US in Iraq with Nazi Germany? Let me ask you this, how many innocent Iraqi's have been killed by the US vs how many were killed during Saddam's reign? And if Saddam was still in power how many would have been killed since the time he was taken from power until now? And before the this war were you complaining about Saddam's rule and calling him Hitler? Or are you only calling the US names because it serves your agenda?

I bet its legal reasons behind LL's decision. Again, its THEIR world, THEY make the rules. Its not like you cant discuss history in TONS of other places. Hell I was playing SL the other night with a documentary on Hitler in my picture-in-picture screen on my monitor. If your only source for history is SL then God watch over you. Oh wait, I cant say God! *runs from the stones*

The heartfelt post by Fritz has raised some questions for me. I have to agree with him, "in Reality, a total ban is the only way to prevent the Symbology taking on a vicious life of its own."


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Okay for those of you less educated in the use of Nazi imagery here goes.

Often used in BDSM circles because of the connection to power and control.

Often used by Punk Rockers for its shock Value(Sioxsie walking around Paris wearing a swastika armband, Sid Viscious in his swastika t-shirt)

the above two, blindingly obvious examples, are of folks who are not actually Nazis and are guilty of nothing more than a lack of respect/understanding.The conclusion being of course that even though they sport a swastika they are not nazis in the same way that the guy romping around in his bling cross may well not be a christian.

Often used by the KKK and other white supremicist organisations as a symbol of all they beleive in, dating back to its use by Adolf Hitlers Nazi party in WWII.

Used by Neo Nazi organisations the world over as a sybol of worship in rememberance of their greatest hero's i'e Hitler,Boreman,Eichmann,Mengele etc etc etc - EXCEPT of course in Germany where they had the common sense to ban it.

Two examples of its use by people who glory in all that the Nazi's did and by people who's most fervent wish is to return to those days.

C O N T E X T

Now to OUR problem:

Linden Labs very very wisely banned these images for NO other reason than the abuse they are open to within the context of Second Life - an entertainment medium. Linden Labs are not the only software company to do this of course, another example is CRS software makers of World War Two Online.

Now I have a question of my own, given your knowledge of some of the complete fruit cakes we sometimes get in Second Life - WHAT is it you dont understand about Linden Labs reasoning behing this decision?????????????????

So what symbols do we ban next? By banning this symbol we are saying it is an evil symbol which it is not. The fact also remains that the Swastika wasn't thought up by hitler for the nazi party. Another german in the mid 1800's brought the swastika into nationalism paintings and literature...it had been in use as a good luck symbol in Germany before hitler was even born.

Should we ban asshats that use the symbolism in an evil way ....yes....should we start banning symbols that the majority of people misunderstand....never. Unfortunately the human way has always been to kill that which it doesnt understand.

If the swastika must be banned then shouldn't the cross be banned as well?

adding to this that lookign at some inquisition museums will show you how sick and twisted the human mind can come when its about making you die slowly and very painfully until you actually BEG for death.
(wheel, rat cages, iron sandals, various crushing devices, limb dislocation, hot irons, stakes, vivisection, wooden horse, chinese saw , impalement ,etc...)

Get your facts right plz the symbol used by the Nazi party was in fact a reverse image.

Get your facts right plz the symbol used by the Nazi party was in fact a reverse image.

Its Nazi use was linked to the belief in the Aryan cultural descent of the German people. They considered the early Aryans of India to be the prototypical white invaders and hijacked the sign as a symbol of the Aryan master race.

The Nazi party formally adopted the swastika - what they called the Hakenkreuz, the hooked cross - in 1920. This was used on the party's flag (above), badge, and armband.

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote: "I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika."

Go back to the original Swastika dear lady which dates back to egypt and you will see that the image used by the Nazi party was REVERSED to mean the exact opposite of luck and re-birth.

And if you cant understand the meaning of context then I'm not the one with the small mind.

Go back to the original Swastika dear lady which dates back to egypt and you will see that the image used by the Nazi party was REVERSED to mean the exact opposite of luck and re-birth.

Again you are quite wrong as to the meaning of the so called reversed swastika.....and if you would like I can prove it to you with all new imagery.....

Neither of which is the original - more research needed there.

But you digress - small minded I may be - blind I'm not, and if you cant see the abuse this is open to the it's hardly suprising you cant understand why Linden Labs banned these images and icons.

Geometrically, the swastika can be regarded as an irregular icosagon or 20-sided polygon. The arms are of varying width and are often rectilinear (but need not be). Only in modern use are the exact proportions considered important: for example, the proportions of the Nazi swastika [4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#endnote_flagspot.net-proportions) were based on a 5x5 grid.

The swastika is chiral, with no reflectional symmetry, but both mirror-image forms have 90° rotational symmetry (that is, the symmetry of the cyclic group C4).

The mirror-image forms are often described as:

left-facing and (as depicted above) right-facing;
left-hand and right-hand;
clockwise and counterclockwise.
"Left-facing" and "right-facing" are used mostly consistently. Looking at an upright swastika, the upper arm clearly faces towards the viewer's left or right . The other two descriptions are ambiguous as it is unclear if they refer to the direction of the bend in each arm or to the implied rotation of the symbol. If the latter, the question as to whether the arms lead or trail remains. The terms are used inconsistently (sometimes even by the same writer) which is confusing and may obfuscate an important point, that the rotation of the swastika may have symbolic relevance.

The swastika is, after the simple equilateral cross (the "Greek cross", the next most commonly found version of the cross.

Seen as a cross, the four lines emanating from the center point to the four cardinal directions. The most common association is with the Sun. Other proposed correspondences are to the visible rotation of the night sky in the Northern Hemisphere around Polaris.

[edit]Sauwastika
See main article: Sauwastika

The name sauwastika is sometimes given for the supposedly "evil", left-facing, form of the swastika . However, the evidence for sauwastika seems sketchy and there seems to be very little other than conjecture to support the notion that the left-facing swastika is regarded as evil in Hindu tradition. Although the more common form is the right-facing swastika, Hindus all over India and Nepal still use the symbol in both orientations for the sake of balance. Buddhists almost always use the left-facing swastika.

Some contemporary writers — Servando González, for example — confuse matters even further by asserting that the right-facing swastika, used by the Nazis is in fact the "evil" sauwastika.[5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#endnote_gonzalez) (González "proves" that the left-facing swastika is the sunwise one with reference to a 1930s box of Standard fireworks from Sivakasi, India.) This inversion – whether intentional or not – might derive from a desire to prove that the Nazi's use of the right-handed swastika was expressive of their "evil" intent. (See also Taboo in North America and Europe.) But the notion that Adolf Hitler deliberately inverted the "good left-facing" swastika is wholly unsupported by any historical evidence.[6]

The one image is a hindu image still used today and it is reversed as you say but does no mean what you assume it does.....again the American troops also used the same imagery....


Oh I understand completely....small minds will often kill spiders because they are afraid of them as well...

As I stated before if someone is using this imagery in a manner that is consistant with bigotry and racism then the person should be suspended. If the person is using the imagery as it has benn used for thousands of years before hitler then I don't think it should be outlawed.

again a nice image of an American poster of the mid 1920's

I'll be putting up the one with the american flag in my shops to see exactly how small minded people can get.

Oh I understand completely....small minds will often kill spiders because they are afraid of them as well...

The one image is a hindu image still used today and it is reversed as you say but does no mean what you assume it does.....again the American troops also used the same imagery....


Oh I understand completely....small minds will often kill spiders because they are afraid of them as well...

As I stated before if someone is using this imagery in a manner that is consistant with bigotry and racism then the person should be suspended. If the person is using the imagery as it has benn used for thousands of years before hitler then I don't think it should be outlawed.

again a nice image of an American poster of the mid 1920's

I'll be putting up the one with the american flag in my shops to see exactly how small minded people can get.

Who has the small minds?

What is the swastika remembered as?

I'm sure the billions of people remembering the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two this year will be thinking of how peacful that symbol looked on tanks and planes and banners all over europe 60 years ago.

I'm sure the ghosts of Auschwitz are thankful for you open mindedness

I'm sure that the United States of America only went to war with Germany in 1942

I'm sure that Adolf Hitler was not in power nor the swastika a sybol of hatred across the world when the USA used it back in the 1920's

I'm sure that those brave Allied troops who died on D-Day to set Europe free would be happy to know of your displaying that symbol in you virtual shop window in your virtual. world




Yes and the symbol hanging in your shop fluttered above hunderds of concentration camps that did EXACTLY that. I'm not the petty one here and neither am I the small minded one.I can see the difference between 'freedom' and common sense which is blatantly something you cannot.

I've already seen a re-creation of a concentration camp crematoria in the game and I've already seen cross burning by men in sheets and I fought to have both removed.Because all men are not equal in intelligence dear lady - SOME men will hang that flag as a symbol of race supremacy and jam down my throat that they are better than me because I have brown eyes & they have blue.

I back Linden Labs 100% in this and when I see your swastika displayed proudly in your shop I'll do all I can to have both it and you removed - and if that makes me small minded then I'm glad to be so.

I thought the argument was about nazi images? The symbol here isn't a nazi flag.

I thought the argument was about nazi images? The symbol here isn't a nazi flag.

You are correct sir....but those amongst us want to take it further and ban the swastika now in any form.