Is this the place for Nazi memorabilia?

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fishface5

fishface5

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I note a for sale post for Nazi memorabilia. It doesn't seem to be against the rules. I am no snowflake, but does it really fit with the community we have here to sell items that many including myself feel are vile? It's not a knife, or gadgets or gear. Does this belong on BFC?
 
Technically, it's not a knife, so it fits in Gadgets and Gear.
These items are not illegal to possess or to sell. As such, there is no rule against selling them.
The mods have queried the site owner for clarification.

And you, being a long time member, should know better than to post the question in General Forum. General Forum is for discussion of knives. I have moved the question to where it belongs, Technical Support.
 
If you aren't a snowflake then why are you thinking with emotions instead of logic? You act as if Nazis are the only ones who tried to gain political power by removing certain segments from their society. Japan has done it with China, China did it with themselves, communists from a lot of countries have done it. Hell, America did it to natives. Would it be appropriate to forbid old cavalry hats? What about American flags on knives? Should that be forbidden because the American government killed almost all natives within the continental US? What about the firebombing of German civilians durint WW2? What about the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in Japan to strike fear into the Japanese society in order to manipulate them for political means?

Point being, if you use logic to wade through this, you're asking for a strict rule that forbids the sale of an item because it offends you where MANY people can claim offense for MANY reasons. I don't think anyone wants to see BF turn into some marketplace for selling gear that implicitly condones genocide but it needs to be balanced. If an uncommon sales thread pops up and the gear isn't illegal, I'd think it should be allowed. If it starts getting overrun with talk that promotes violence against anyone or the gear itself is obviously advocating illegality, then sure, ban it. If you start banning anything that could offend even a single person, the marketplace would not be very active.

I hope Spark and the mod team make a fair ruling on this and defend freedom of speech (or in this case, freedom to exchange goods, within reason) unless the sellers and/or conversations turn genuinely bad which in this case I doubt would happen.

Don't be a snowflake, OP. It's not okay to punch a person you disagree with.

fishface5 said:
I note a for sale post for Nazi memorabilia. It doesn't seem to be against the rules. I am no snowflake, but does it really fit with the community we have here to sell items that many including myself feel are vile? It's not a knife, or gadgets or gear. Does this belong on BFC?
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My only question is why post it here for sale ? There are dozens of military forums where this kind of stuff is bought and sold every day .
 
If i had a katana from Japanese imperial officer from 1943, would it raise as many questions? What about if i had a full officer's uniform? The Japanese military killed many, many more Chinese people than Nazis killed.

What about if i had Russian bolshevik uniform items from the revolution timeframe?

What about if i tried to sell an American cavalry hat from 1860? Would that be okay to sell?

The mods seem to be accepting as long as it falls within the current policies and that seems pretty fair. But since people are raising eyebrows I'm curious about where the peanut gallery (me included) wants that line drawn.

Are the actions of the Nazis against the Jews worse than the actions of the Jews against Christians in early 20th century Russia?

Are the actions of the Jewish bolsheviks against christians in Russia worse than the actions of American Christians against the Indians in the 19th century?

Are the actions of the American christians in the 19th century worse than the actions of the Comanche against other indian tribes?

Where is the line drawn? If someone can't sell Nazi stuff, can i not sell a comanche headdress? A person of Sioux lineage might get triggered? Can i not sell a zippo from WW2 because a person of Japanese descent might feel bad feelings that Americans bombed his family? And if there's going to be a line, where should the line be drawn about what's gadgets and gear and what's not? A playstation is okay but not a book? Brand new work boots are okay but not uniform boots from WW1?

This is an interesting topic and I'm just looking for civil discussion. I think the mods are doing a fine job and am not questioning their current stance.

Planterz said:
"Memorabilia"? o_O
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You're right, you can't sell Comanche headdresses. If you had clue one you'd know how disrespectful that was.

You also can't create as bad as equivalencies vs. made up events in your head.

As for the initial item it could be a war trophy but it has no provenance listed. It's a weird thing to own or sell as a stand alone item and I don't know anyone who did take war trophies in WWII who would be now selling them here. That's way out there for a Vet.
 
"Memorabilia" is a shotglass from your ride to Sturgis. A T-Shirt from a Bob Dylan concert. Or a hockey puck signed by The Great One. A Nazi armband is not "memorabilia". Unless you're a Nazi.



EDIT: To be fair, the seller in question did not refer to his items as "memorabilia". Nor do I think that fishface meant anything disrespectful by using that word. I just don't like the use of that word when applied to artifacts of this kind.
 
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The world is gray not black and white. But we still draw distinctions. Such as between misdemeanors and felonies, or the age of consent, or on this forum what content may only be posted in whine and cheese. I'm not saying that it should be illegal or forbidden to do so anywhere, but selling items that commemorate the Nazis specifically on BFC does not seem to align with the efforts of this forum to create a welcoming community, IMO. And I'm not "punching someone I disagree with" I'm raising the issue for discussion among forumites in a separate post.
 
I am extremely disgusted by this.

I believe there are limits and this is to much
 
Like i said, i find it an interesting topic that people don't accept one atrocity with vehemence yet find others completely acceptable. The dissonance intrigues me. Why be so against what the Nazis did but not what the Jewish Bolsheviks did in Russia? Why not be just as against what America did? Where's the false equivalence? Trying to genocide people os equally abhorrent, whoever commits or attempts to commit the act. But people single out Nazis like they're the only ones who are truly despicable when others, including Jewish communists, performed act that, in some cases, were even worse. 6,000,000 (or whatever the number actually was) is a drop in the bucket compared to the 80,000,000 in Russia or the hundreds of millions in China. I don't hear people saying "punch a chinaman" or "punch a jap" or "punch a commie Jew" or "ban Chinese or Japanese merchandise" yet it's fine to say "punch a nazi" or "hey, BF, ban Nazi stuff" when every example i listed commited heinous acts against people because of their race or religion or different ethnic background. They're all bad, but why is only one held up as the only atrocity worth remembering?

I'm curious about why that would be.

Planterz said:
What are you trying to justify and to whom are you trying to justify it?

Don't answer, as I really do not care what your answer would be.
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Someone1 said:
Like i said, i find it an interesting topic that people don't accept one atrocity with vehemence yet find others completely acceptable.
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No one in this post has said that that other atrocities are completely acceptable. The question of where to draw the line is, like all matters of human interaction, complicated. Human interactions involve emotion, not pure logic, and that is where the question of respectful boundaries should be addressed, especially in an online community that strives to be welcoming. Items commemorating a genocidal regime with explicit racist underpinnings does not seem respectful or inclusive. I welcome Spark's decision in this particular case; a different post would need to be evaluated on its own specifics.
 
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