When The Mods Go Shopping On Amazon

"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
07/23/2015 at 19:09 • Filed to: Rants, Mods, Lada

DISCUSSION (24)

BReLp7dzHM3ytYsE > For Sweden
07/23/2015 at 19:10

Is this an admission or an accusation?

CB > BReLp7dzHM3ytYsE
07/23/2015 at 19:11

Both and neither.

BReLp7dzHM3ytYsE > CB
07/23/2015 at 19:13

BorkBorkBjork > For Sweden
07/23/2015 at 19:15

So Amazon removed the Confederate Flag, but you can still buy a Soviet Flag?

Rainbow > BorkBorkBjork
07/23/2015 at 19:22

Please tell me you really do see the significant difference between those.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:26

You do realize you can still buy all the Nazi stuff you want on Amazon, too. If one is bad, so is the other.

Rainbow > Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast.
07/23/2015 at 19:28

Well yeah, but that’s a totally separate issue.

Jedidiah > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:28

One was a country that enslaved people.

The other had leaders that murdered millions while its citizens lived in inescapable squalor.

They both suck

Rainbow > Jedidiah
07/23/2015 at 19:31

Well sure, but one is currently used as a hate symbol by the KKK and the other only really shows up in textbooks. I’m not saying anyone should be buying it, but it doesn’t promote racism or any other form of discrimination like the battle flag does.

BorkBorkBjork > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:31

I do, but still, bad guys are bad guys. Soviet atrocities to their own people (and those Moscow subjugated) were just as unspeakable as ours were to African slaves. Does the court of public opinion (which is what truly drives “bans” such as these) have such a short memory when it comes to international affairs? Why is one OK and the other taboo? Fundamentally, should a big-name retailer discriminate against a seller that wants to offer a Nazi Flag? A Confederate Flag? A North Korean Flag?

Rainbow > BorkBorkBjork
07/23/2015 at 19:34

I think the important difference is that the confederate flag promotes racism, while the Soviet flag isn’t really used to mean anything. It just kind of exists.

Mr. Ontop, No Strokes, No Smokes...Goes Fast. > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:42

In my mind they are not. Neither side has a moral high ground.

Jedidiah > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:43

Both countries’ governments committed crimes against humanity. You can buy Nazi shit legally too.

The Soviet flag is flown by plenty of anti-establishment and anti-American groups, whose message is pretty hateful despite not being necessarily racist. However, I wouldn’t exactly call it agreeable or good natured.

Regardless of whether it’s a good opinion or not, people will use whatever means of communication, including symbols like flags, to defend/express their opinion.

At the end of the day, it’s just a stupid flag flown by stupid people. Take as much offense to it as you want, but it isn’t going to go away.

Regardless of it’s legality and historical context, people are going to fly it anyway if they agree with it’s connotation or apparent message.

BorkBorkBjork > Rainbow
07/23/2015 at 19:43

Anybody can use anything to promote anything they want, and they should be free to do so. I saw this gentlman on a Penn & Teller show called Bullshit! a while back.

And how is racism (which was definitely present in the Soviet Union) worse than any other -ism? Stalin killed ~40mm people but that’s ok because he didn’t sort them by skin tone?

GhostZ > BorkBorkBjork
07/23/2015 at 20:42

And the American flag was waved during the Trail of Tears and Hiroshima bombing. Doesn’t make it a hate symbol.

Confederate flags are taboo because they’ve become, since the war, a symbol of a jingoist hate group, even though many people were using them for “southern pride”. The problem is that there’s a very powerful group of minorities that are strongly offended by that celebration.

There isn’t, in the US at least, a hate group waving the soviet flag around.

It’s fine to buy any flag you want, but waving it publicly is going to draw hate and when that hate becomes a public safety issue, then legal measures such as banning the flag must be taken, regardless of the original intent of the flag.