An admittedly crude German/Celtic Cross I made, combining two of my ancestries. Like it or dislike it? How could it be improved without favoring one ancestry over the other? I'm not convinced the German comes across strongly enough.

[edit] Just added an 2nd version that pronounces the German a bit more.

I think they came out nice, but be careful, here in Europe the respectable Celtic Cross is often associated with far-right parties, racists and extremists.

The situation might be different in the USA, that's why I just wanted to tell you, in case you didn't know.

In the US, we're a lot less sensitive to the Iron Cross than we are to the swastika. The swastika having been lifted from all sorts of places and inverted so as to be mysterious.

Nintendo got into some trouble over that with Zelda II back in the 80s where one of the dungeons was shaped like Maniji, IIRC.

This isn't something that I've heard before. On some level it doesn't surprise me, we've had a lot of trouble over the years with trying to get rid of our extremists, but largely due to the lack of censorship they haven't been adopting new symbols, making it a lot easier to identify them.

Around here it's pretty much just bikers and punks that go around from time to time sporting the Iron Cross.

Indeed, it's hard enough to deal with the problem when you can see them, good luck trying to address it when they can play the oppression card.

Lot's of bad publicity with both, I guess.
I like second one better, because I think German one looks better.

Didn't mean to imply that it was. Justified or not it is oppression, and whenever the government does things like that it has to be really careful not to disrupt legitimate free expression.

Ha ha, americans and the myth of free expression.

So, we should let racists ans extremists freely use a symbol
1 - they didn't create
2- they use for a meaning that was not the original meaning ?

/troll in
Guess I'm off to burn some Stars & Stripes flags, in the name of free speech
/troll out

Sometimes, I have the feeling people don't understand there's a difference between freedom of speech and freedom to say racist/insulting things. It's not about banning symbols we "don't like", it's about making people understand they have no right to pervert symbols.

There isn't a difference. If we all agreed as to exactly what we should be able to say we wouldn't need the 1st amendment protection on free expression. Defenders of the 1st amendment inevitably end up spending all their time defending people for saying disgusting things because if they don't eventually it will start to effect important speech.

We've already seen it in Europe, and we don't want that sort of bullshit starting here in the US. We know pretty well what happened during WWII in those camps, and our own camps, precisely because we have freedom of expression.

I feel sorry for you if you don't have that where you come from.

The second one looks awfuly like the logo on a Black Sabbath T-Shirt I have

Wow, Hedwards, I don't really understand how you link freedom of speech to WWII camps, but well, let's say it's okay (which is not, but it's not the problem here).

You know "pretty well what happened"?? I'm soooo glad for you. Too bad I come from France, where we know more than "well" what happened because, guess what, we were actually there when it all started, happened, then ended. And that's certainly the point when you'll do one of those oh-so-funny-american-jokes about french people being so fast to surrender without fighting. Yeah, I know Internet, too.

So, don't start lecturing us on anything regarding WWII, okay? European historians have probably spent more cumulated years on studying WWII than american historians spent studying the American Civil War. All the WWII dirty little secrets (the fact that the Bush family had strong links with Hitler, that IBM provided the nazis with "computers" used in the Shoah, that Winston Chruchill and the other "Free World" leaders knew from 1943 about concentration camps but decided it was of no strategical interest to do something about that, then played complete surprise when the first camps were liberated in 1944-45...), we know them, so I have no lesson to receive from you.

And I do find ironic to receive a lecture in "freedom of speech" from a country that has Sarah Palin, Creationists, pro-life extremists, who never miss an occasion to silence their opponents, almost by all means possible. That's much the same than when I saw the "payback for Pearl Harbor" messages on Facebook from american people when the earthquake/tsunami happened in Japan two months ago.

Freedom of speech is something so important that it must be handled in a responsible way. And when some people/groups outrageously cross the line of what's decent, then they must face the consequences of their acts.

The "american freedom of speech"?? Hell, I hope it will NEVER reach Europe!! We need responisble, adult speeches, not the kind of free-for-all you have. Our medias are biased, yes, but at least we don't have some trash like FOX News.

So, you enjoy your 1st amendment? You enjoy your freedom of speech? Very well, it's totally fine for me, as far as I'm concerned. But NEVER try to impose it on me, that's when things would get ugly.
Haha, typically american: no middle ground. You're either with us or against us (where did I hear that, already??)

Sorry, things in Europe are a little bit more complicated. Did you even know that in France we have legal far-right and far-left parties? Incredible, huh, for such a land of oppression of speech that is France!! And I've heard that in other european countries too, they have such parties, and they even sometimes get in charge, on a local or national political level. OOOhh, we european are such tyrants against the freedom of speech!! The thing is that, they are legal, but must face the consequences if they say or do something openly racist.

I believe the Clash put it best: You have the right to free speech, as long as you're not dumb enough to actually use it.

Hahaha, as if you were the best qualified to tell me to get off my high horses, given your past here on GOG, huh.

Sorry, but your theory of "there is free speech or there is no free speech" is so basic that it's unbelievable. Life has much more nuances that plain black and plain white.

And you obviously don't know jack about the situation in Europe to write what you wrote.

Some examples, hoping it will be clearer for you:
- in France, we have a far-right party called the Front National ("National Front") which openly says we must favour french before foreigners, that foreigners are the main source of crimes, that they should be kicked out of France and so on.
- I obviously don't like what they say, but I'm not wanting the government to shut down this party, because I believe that they have the right to express what they think.
- On some occasions, some leaders of that party said in national media that they didn't believe that gas chambers actually existed during WWII, that it was a myth created by Jews so they could gain compensations.
- This is when I want them to shut up, because what they say in that precise example has nothing to do with freedom of speech and is a simple crime against Truth, a scientific and well-established truth.

If you don't understand than there is more than "freedom of speech/total oppression" in the world, I can't do anything for you.

That whole claiming gas chambers didn't exist, I'm sure the BNP party here in Britain said something similar as well.... That and The utter cu.... Party leader.... That runs it was also photographed with a member of the KKK and when asked about it, he claimed he was a member of a "non-violent" KKK.

The world is mad.