Prince Harry - Idiot

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Pac-man
Could you substantiate your statement please? Name an incident when Harry has intentionally done something bad in order to gain media attention. I couldn't think of any so I went throught the BBC news archives for the past 6 years.
Before this particular episode his infractions have included:
:- Under aged Drinking and Smoking Canabis. Big deal he was a teenager, probably 90% of his age group had drunk underage and 50% smoked cannabis. It sure as hell wasn't his idea to have it publicised.
:- Teacher claimed she had done his A-level coursework. Definitely not the Prince trying to gain attention this time.
:- A scuffle with the paparazzi when he was actually because he was pissed off they were trying to put him in the news.

The only times he has actually gone for big publicity media events is for charitable works when trying to carry on Diana's work. In Australia he threatened to leave the country on his gap year as the media wouldn't leave him alone.

Darkthrone.
I know there is a difference between the two, but I don't trust the EU to. There are too many stupid laws they have formed to give me any confidence in their ability to moderate themselves. Classics include the minimum length of a cucumber and the maximum bend in a banana. Please recall we are not talking about a public display of Nazi symbolism in Harry's case but a private party. (Incidently the Sun was banned from covering media events of Harry and William in April last year)
I agree there is not much ridiculous about the actual History of Nazism. However, when you ban something you make it that more appealing to a certain brand of people - in this case generally young skin head tough guys with more testosterone than brain cells. Ban it publically and it goes underground. How many things that have been banned have actually disappeared? What about "The Satanic Verses", by all accounts a very poor book but a best seller because of the Islamic response. Or the BBC's ban on Relax by Frankie Goes to Holywood which immediately made it a hit in the British charts for a year? Ridicule something, poke fun at it and it loses it's "tough guy" and rebel appeal.
I can't comment on how Germany deals with nazi's or neo-nazis but found this article (going back a few years though) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1364876.stm
Can it honestly be said that banning public displays of symbols would have any effect on membership of such groups? Or does it just make people feel safer because they don't know how many people might feel that way?

 

Now that would be awful. And yes, the Comission has done various weird things and nothing would be surprising from them.

Yeah, exactly what I think.

It looks like those pharaohs ordering the names of their less liked predecessors scratched out of monuments. To ban any mention of something looks exactly like that. As Cicero said, to be ignorant of history is to remain a boy forever. If we don't learn from our previous mistakes, we will make them again.

[ January 18, 2005, 15:18: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Of course they don't mean tv shows, movies, books, etc... why would he even mention that ? But openly wear swastikas or nazi uniforms is a totally different matter, how hard can it be to understand that ? Those things belong in a museum, not on the streets, or on parties. Surely Harry must have known this too, but still decided to wear it. Says a lot about his personality, doesn't it ?

If the banning would include tv programs and books and such, it would be an insane demand, but if it prevents people from presenting themselves in public with stuff like that, i'm all for it.

 

Pac man -- it's something else to openly promote something, or show tolerance for it (as p. Harry did), and it's something else to depict it to show.

Problem is -- it doesn't. People forget. We forget. We no longer remember how terrifying the Cold War was. A generation after such a ban emerges and EU splits over nationalistic ambitions.

Besides -- censoring or banning intellectual creation instead of polemics (how ironic! 'poleme' is Greek for 'war') opens straight path to 'only correct' literature, meaning ideological propaganda spilling straight into the minds of -- especially -- children.

Ban swastikas? What would be next? It's already illegal in France to wear religious (or even perceived as religious) symbols in the public. It's not illegal to dress in misdemeaning manner (there's no misdemeanor to even name such outfit), but it is illegal to wear a religious symbol. What's next? Will it be illegal to be even slightly tanned?
Returning to literature, what will be censored and/or banned after Nazi symbols? Music (my pot of pie) which can be associated with Nazism? Sorry, but Bach, Wagner and R. Strauss will stay in their place -- on my shelves. Maybe all religious inclinations in any book Regardless of the context, regardless of whether praising or denouncing religion -- to remain completely "neutral?" Or maybe ban only the books praising religion (including the Bible)? Sure, then they'll have a 'neutral' outlook on the literacy market.

Sorry, but they belong on the streets. What I mean is that everyone should be reminded -- even constantly -- about what it represents. If they stay in the museum, only those that go there will see them. And only if they want to. People don't want to think about what they don't like think about. Out of their own volition they will not think about it. Besides, we are a forgetful lot. We don't like to remember about things we don't like to think about...

That he [prince Harry] met with public criticism for his demeanor is reassuring. What is not reassuring, however, is that there is no ban in the EU on the representation of hammer & sickle -- symbols of the regime that took away possessions, liberty, and life of many more individuals than Nazism did. And I'm talking about only the Stalin era vs. Hitler era in the Third Reich...

 

Well personally I find symbols to be insignificant. I do not care what symbols people wear on the street. It's their right to have on them whatever symbols they want. Of course I would not wear the swastica because I would think it is inappropriate but if someone wants to look like an idiot on the street (or a party like our little prince here) then fine let them.

If you start forbidding symbols you might as well forbid the Belgian flag or the name Leopold for the massacre Leopold II caused in Kongo, which according to some studies even exceed the number of deaths caused by Hitlers holocaust. Forbidding the use of the Christian Cross might also be in order since it was used as the symbol of the massacres in America by Spaniards and the Portugese. The Russian flag also should be forbidden because of the misdeeds of Ivan the Terrible, and the French Tricolor because of Napoleon.......

 

But even if they did ban the public display of nazi insignia - would Harry have done anything illegal? I mean this was a private event, and there is something vaguely sinsiter about the government proscribing one's attire in private.

That said, my theory is that his grandad put him up to it. It's been a while since Philip caused a nice scandal, so maybe he's moving into more sinister Iago-like methods of international incident by proxy How's that for a conspiracy theory?

 

Exactly, Morogoth, It's not the symbl that's bad, it's the deeds. Wearing a swastika is nothing. Killing millions of people for arbitrary reasons is bad!

 

OK. You're all right. And wrong. Of course, wearing a swastika is not killing anyone. Spitting on the ground in front of a black or gay man is not killing anyone. Pissing on the grave of Jews is not killing anyone. Calling a handicapped person names is not killing anyone.

Is spitting on the ground a symbol or a deed? It may well depend on your point of view. Is wearing a swastika a deed? An insult maybe? To millions of people all over the world? Hell, yes, it is! Just because you don't feel insulted doesn't mean that it is not in any way insulting to anyone whatsoever.

"Those symbols belong on the streets ..." Huhuhu, hahaha. Please tell me how exactly someone who proudly wears the symbols of nazism and displays nothing in terms of comprehension of the cruel deeds of this period is reminding anyone of our dark history. Those who already know learn nothing new. Likewise those who have never known anything.

No one is speaking about banning the Third Reich from our history books.

Germany has banned those symbols for 50 years now. Go ahead, test your theory. Are there more Germans who have forgotten about WWII and nazism than, say, Englishmen? Or Scots? Or Poles? Tsktsktsk.

And at the same time you display understanding of why anyone may feel insulted by a swastika. Because you feel insulted by the insignia of Stalin. And yet you are not able to abstract. Sad.

Talking about hammer and sickle may well be worth the effort - but Harry didn't dress as Stalin's guard of honor. He tried to impersonate Erwin Rommel or somesuch. In this regard I find the reaction of the EU more obvious, I must say.

Could it be that you're reflexively biting against anything the EU spills forth rather than arguing according to your consciousness?

 

There is a big difference between wearing a swastika and all those things below. In wearing the swastika you are not directing your insult towards a specific person in the rest of those cases you are doing that. In Finland it's not even illegal to insult a specific ethnic group but if you happen to insult someone specific then you're committing a crime.

The fact that some people happen to feel insulted by something I wear is not my problem. Let them feel insulted. Wearing the mask of Osama bin Laden might be very insulting to some in America but was not illegal the last time I checked.

 

Ask any survivor of the holocaust if he feels an insult of that kind is directed at him or not. It's not for you to decide, isn't it.

True. And true for anything else, starting from dying children in Palestine and ending with genital mutilation in Africa. Oh, and your neighbor beating his children. Nothing is really your problem. It's a good thing you are completely autarkic. I envy you, cause I'm not.

Oh, and Harry didn't do anything illegal, that's for sure. We're talking legitmacy and decency here. And how this might lead to illegality as well.

 

No it is not, but it's not for him to decide what I wear either is it?

Decency and legimacy have a big difference indeed.Just because something is undecent it doesen't mean that it should be illegal. I consider wearing the swastika undecent but definently not something that should ever be illegal.

 

No, you're right, they should all start wearing swastikas in public, without shame. That way i have a clearer view of the target.

 

I agree with Morgoth! *shock*

 

The title says it all: he's an idiot. And yes, he did, by wearing that uniform, **** on a lot of brave men who died to defeat everything that uniform stood for, not to mention the many innocent English men, women, and children who died under the bombs dropped by planes bearing that symbol. (Yes, yes, many more Germans died later under Allied bombs. When the German Chancellor attends a party wearing a Union Jack armband, post it.) He might also have reflected on the fact that if the Nazis had won, his grandmother would be lying in an unmarked grave with a bullet in the back of her head.

 

Bull, first nobody except the top-Germans knew the Jews were slaugtered, everyone knew Jews were oppressed, did anyone care??
No! Because that was happening for thousands of years, even Churchill had problems with everything that wasn't white brittish, oh the sheer racism *cry*

And if somebody is gonna call me an ******* because I take a **** on their sacrifices, remember that anyone who says they died for *defeating what the Nazis stood for* is taking a **** on their sacrifices.
Apparently, their original sacrifice, dieing because they had too, dieing to free europe, wasn't enough, you had to add the other thing to make their sacrifice seem worthwhile..

 

Ah, yes, as usual, the tabloids report that there has been a "fury" and a "public outcry" regarding some total non-story, whilst everyone else in the country doesn't really give a damn.

Awfully stupid thing for him to do, though. I think Prince Phillip is training him up as his apprentice or something.

Good god, I hope nothing ever happens to William. He'd be a really quite abominable King.

 

I have to say that my post was just a second reply--I made another one earlier--to the original question, after I'd thought about it a bit.. I hadn't read any of the other posts on this topic, and still haven't, deliberately.

[ January 25, 2005, 10:59: Message edited by: Cernak ]

 

I realize this is off-topic, but...

No. That's incorrect.