kake said:

can we take back the rainbow from the gays?

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Tangerines said:

I want to take back the 'hitler mustache' as well.

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EllisDSox said:

Swastikas don't have any negative connotations for me, unless it's the Nazi version- black with a white circle and red all around it. Looks seriously menacing. A version with dots around it, in a more benign colour, just looks like an ancient Hindu and Buddhist symbol, to me, though I know very little about the origins of the Swastika.

Don't let a group of angry, scared, violent little boys with big guns from the past ruin a holy symbol.

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BrandNoob said:

This is something I've been thinking about a lot for the past several years, and again the past several months. Yes it should be taken back for religious and non-racist uses, and small steps and a lot of persecution is how we're gonna get there.

Did you ever see how the Raelians had to change their logo which was a unicursal Star of David/Swastika hybrid? It was awesome - even if they are nutty like a fruitcake. Now they've got the hexagram with a swirl in the middle. It's not nearly as cool looking.

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So is it rude to bring these memories to people, even though it's not the intention?

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is it a noble and controversial use of free spreech?

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You are a total buzzkill.

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It's not just a matter of it "looking pretty" and I don't like it just because people find it offensive.

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To some extent that seemed the case with the threadstarter though.

If you have spiritual use for the swastika then use it, but like you say it would be good form to keep it to yourself and informed people.

The time is not ripe. I live in Holland. For us the war started with one of our major cities (Rotterdam, to our nation then more important than New York City is to the USA) being leveled by the Luftwaffe. Then we were occupied for years, and on a population of a few million, well over a hundred thousand people were deported and killed in the concentration camps. Our workers were deported to Germany to be used as slave labor for the war industry. Now, over 60 years on, swastikas are still very much frowned upon and near-universally associated with Nazism.

The Swastika has quite a stigma. No religion etc requires that it is to be worn visibly etc, so why needlessly offend many people, with the added risk of drawing negative attention to yourself? Many people will think less of you and treat you accordingly and neonazis might raise their arm and start race war chitchat with you.

Why have all that to begin with