Tell that to the Cathars and every non-Christian who was tortured and murdered by the Inquisition.

Batty, you're way off. WAY off. Yes, the Inquisition, I know. How about I also tell it to the church down the street that brought me food and helped pay my electrical bill when my power was turned off. You're being ridiculous. No comparison.

Yeah, those users of the cross are nice people who don't burn people at the stake, but there have been people throughout history who have given the cross as bad a name as the Nazis did the swastika, just like there have been many users of the swastika who have been as commendable as the people who helped you. It's a collection of lines with no inherent value one way or the other except for the power you give it.

Like I told Larehip, Batty, if you believe that then wear swastika's around town.

Common sense survival instincts have nothing to do with the moral nature of the swastika.

Your argument just ate itself

How many people in the western world have used that symbol for anything other than showing their affinity for neo nazism? If someone has that tatooed on them I'm going to ask.

No, you just used bad logic. You basically said that somebody's subjective opinion on something is representative of its objective worth. From what I've been given to understand there were venues you could go to in the eighties where wearing a Metallica or a Motley Crue shirt to an Agnostic Front show could get your ass kicked too. Doesn't mean Metallica or Motley Crue necessarily suck.

OK then let me clarify. The contention that there is no meaning beyond the pre-WWII meaning of good fortune is not correct. In the vast majority of Europe and the Americas, the swastika = Nazi Germany. I recognize that in Asia the symbol is still used. It is simply not true that the symbol has the same meaning as before WWII.

Symbolism = language.

And it's "correct" meaning is that which is intended by the "speaker". If a Buddhist monk walks around Israel, somehow, someway ignorant of how others might interpret it, and others interpret it as a Nazi symbol they have just misinterpreted it. Because they are both basically speaking a different language. Hence, a symbol has only the power that you give it. If I see some punk-looking dude with a studded leather jacket and a mohawk wearing a Nazi armband, then yeah, I'm going to assume he's being a twat, but that doesn't mean that another use of the swastika is any less valid. The problem being many people's ignorance of any other use of the swastika other than as a Nazi symbol, which unnecessarily taints other representations that could otherwise be positive.