Ohio Judge Pictured With Che and Obama Posterin Office

mmarsh said:
I have a Hitler Youth knife on the wall, does displaying that automatically make me a Nazi?

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Hi MM - nothing personal here, I hope I know you better, but, with the accent on 'displaying' I suggest that would be fair question for consideration .

I hate going there, but you pose the question and I have not been able to shake the image from my mind, if it had occurred in the home of a friend of mine. Over a great many years, one of my closest friends and travelling companions, unfortunately no longer with us, was a dealer in fine antique weapons and included top Nazi artefacts in his inventory; I quite understood that without qualification, but for me personally it was untouchable.

On the other hand, I must admit that for 30 years or so I had a nazi helmet which I used as a doorstop for the back door, acceptable only because it could be moved around by foot.

Hitler, Che etc. I do believe that such images shape comprehension of attitudes, and politically have to be taken into consideration.

I do accept the power and influence of such images, and in the power of ridicule to dilute them.
 
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Mmarsh, if you had a Hitler youth knife on display, a Swastika flag on the wall and perhaps a Herman Goering paper weight, the odds of you being a Nazi would be rather big.
If you were a politician and in a higher than usual amount of cases, offices that support you have a Nazi flag, a Hitler poster, a Joseph Goebbels coffee mug etc. and are putting them in the line of sight of camera footage, chances are that we could suspect (perhaps come close to concluding) that either you are a Nazi candidate yourself, or your platform appeals highly towards fascists or racists.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Mmarsh, if you had a Hitler youth knife on display, a Swastika flag on the wall and perhaps a Herman Goering paper weight, the odds of you being a Nazi would be rather big.
If you were a politician and in a higher than usual amount of cases, offices that support you have a Nazi flag, a Hitler poster, a Joseph Goebbels coffee mug etc. and are putting them in the line of sight of camera footage, chances are that we could suspect (perhaps come close to concluding) that either you are a Nazi candidate yourself, or your platform appeals highly towards fascists or racists.
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Not at all true. I had a history professor who is a collector of Nazi memoribilia, hes got everything from knifes to Nazi silverware. You go to his office and its full of trinkets. Does that him a Nazi? That would be unusual as he's Jewish. He teaches European History, and What he is interested in is German Historical memorabilia. There are plenty of collectors out there who don't subscribe to Nazism. Just like wearing a Che tee-shirt or have a poster doesnt make you a Communist.

As the adage goes "Don't judge a book by its cover".

Del Boy

I understand what you are saying, I have told you about my Grandparents who lived under the occupation would probably agree with you. However I come from another Generation, Nazi memoribilia doesnt bother me, I was born 30 years after the war ended. When I hold a German helmet (Grandfather kept one too) or the Hitler Youth Knife, the German Mauser K98 my uncle has, I have no ifinity the the evil ideology they were created by. To me they are merely artifacts of a bygone era such as the Mongols under Ghanhis Khan.
 
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Mmarsh, what you have with your professor is called an exception to the rule. They are called exceptions to the rule because they are precisely that and in your case we are talking about only one particular individual. Mine encompasses several individuals. The odds in the example I gave, that your political platform would appeal to non-Nazi, Nazi and World War II memorabilia collectors is pretty darn slim.
In my room you will find a replica of a RoK Marine NCO sword inside a display case, a "Support Our Troops" coin, a Pentagon coin, my 6th Marine Brigade Coin, a few Marine covers, a RoK Marine BDU and field jacket, a pair of standard issue Marine combat boots, two packs of MREs and there's a photo of me in uniform when I was a Private (reminds me when things really sucked).
Now let's say I supported a particular politician (haha) and other supporters had similar possessions. I don't think it's because that politician has some kind of discount policy for military gear collectors.
 
Not to mention the fact that people in society, at least American society have been assaulted for much less. I don't see a problem necessarily with the collection but you have to be careful in who you allow to know about it. Like it or not, we are going to be judged by the what we have, who we hang with, who we're tight with and all of that kind of stuff, at least initially and if folks are not impressed with what they are seeing initially, they won't give you, me, we, us the chance to get to know us better to make sure we're not like what our initial appearance might have been.
 
So you are saying we should accept social conditioning even if it is bigoted and poorly informed?
We have a lot of people on these forums who trumpet any attack on political correctness as a second coming when it involves hoisting flags and being patriotic and yet we have the same people saying we should be mindful of what others think on topics they don't approve of. Is there any chance we will see consistency?
 
Sometimes, certain things might get us riled up and we say things or write things we wish we might not have later. I'd be a liar if I said I wasn't guilty of this from time to time.
 
In the case of collecting WW2 German equipment I think it needs to be understood that there is a difference between collecting an items for its historic and interest value and glorifying it.
For example the reason I started collecting firearms was because I inherited two pistols my father "acquired" in Italy during WW2 (Walther P38 andGlisenti 1910) along with that were a ton of other memorabilia (flags, propaganda leaflets, badges, currency etc.) my choices were to dispose of them and have the weapons destroyed in accordance with the law, give them to a museum (most likely the Army museum) of preserve them and get a collectors license.

I chose to get a license I do not consider that this makes me nor my father a "Nazi" and would quite happily elevate the nut sack of the person that insinuated I was to about neck high.
 
The difference with this story is that the Guy is a Judge. a Position of power and legal authority. A Position in which he must be impartial and yet he has a large poster of Che. Next to that is a large poster of Obama.

Judges should not show their political opinions in their chambers and offices. There is a difference between private and public. Judges are public service. Bad idea for him to do that. What does it say to the public he is supposed to serve?
 
From that scenario, I'd assume it would be wise not to broadcast a different opinion from his, at least not until the case is finalized.
 
Alright whatever. I made my case.
Personally I don't see how the logic doesn't fly. If a lot of people who support you also associate or support extreme far left entities (that are just as bad as Hitler though maybe not with as impressive of a body count) chances are you too are extremely far left or have a platform that appeals to the far left.
I'm sure if you were running for office or endorsing someone running for office, you wouldn't exactly take out your Nazi memorabilia and put them on display in front of the camera. If you did, you'd be an idiot.
 
Barack_Obama.jpg


Oh look... Obama, Castro, and Chavez....
 
I am not sure I see your argument he is still pushing the same case he was at the start of the thread I am sure it didn't escape you that this was really a thread to make baseless claims about Obama being in league with those nasty "socialists" hence the type of responses he received from most of us.

I love how some people are still fighting the cold war.
 
Actually the Cold War was just the USA vs the USSR.
Clash of ideologies goes back much further than that and that is what this conflict is.
Funny thing is now right vs left and USA vs Russia are now two completely different conflicts.
 
I should be shocked that 5.56 would provide baseless accusations with no supporting evidence.

But since thats all he has been doing in every thread for months, somehow I'm not too shocked.

Obviously he has not yet grown up enough to debate like an adult, instead he simply says his point of view then covers his ears. Shows how strong someone's convictions are if you cant even debate them well.
 
5.56X45mm said:
Barack_Obama.jpg


Oh look... Obama, Castro, and Chavez....
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This is just name calling. If you actually compare the three, Obama has absolutly nothing in common with either two. If this namecalling is the best the GOP can offer America for the next 4 years, they deserve to lose...badly.
Its things like this that makes em believe that all the GOP is interested in is hanging on to power, for power's safe.

And what has Bush done thats so great that we need to elect a clone for an additional 4?
 
mmarsh said:
The answer to your question 5.56, is that the world views Che as a resistance fighter not as a communist. And frankly today, hes more of a fashion statement than either of the above. People are uneducated in America
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I'd agree with that if it was the typical college student activist, Che T-shirt , Mao red star cap, sign toting, birkenstock wearing "I'm gonna Change the World" liberal arts major. And I'd blow it off.

This however is a sitting judge. Apparently intelligent enough to complete law school and pass the bar and get elected or appointed to the bench. I'd be surprised if he didn't know what Che was really about.
 
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