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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   12528 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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But what other levers do they hold?

Sic the CRS on him? Arrange for a boating accident?

Get him a quiet sinecure at some mid-tier university or NGO to disappear under fat stacks of cash?

For comparison, there's Katie Hill from 2019. She resigned due to a scandal involving leaked photos on a wife swapping site revealing an... affair? throuple? with a 22 year old staffer who reported to her. She even sports her own Nazi tattoo (NSFW).

Her sinecure is with a California homeless services nonprofit, as CEO.

(The homeless services nonprofit work is probably the most morally questionable thing she's done, in my book.)

She was the CEO of a homeless nonprofit before she was in Congress, so I don't know if that job can be considered a sinecure. It also pays less than she made in Congress, and Low Angeles isn't exactly a low cost of living area. If she were at a think tank or doing speaking tours I could see your point, but not this.

It's an Iron Cross. She probably got it because she wanted something edgy but didn't have the chutzpah to go for a swastika.

But the Iron Cross looks so cool. I understand Platner's skull and crossbones was particularly the nazi version, but there's no such thing with the Iron cross, it's always been the same shape.

Still, insisting that the Iron Cross is Napoleonic German military regalia, or that the totenkopf is equally understood as a jolly roger, is very much like saying, "it's ephebophilia." Yes, technically correct, but not convincing.

I'll have you know that my swastika tattoo has nothing to do with the Nazis, but is a sign of my admiration for the Finnish Air Force!

Related, but it's a shame more edgelords don't go for Adolf Galland's nose art as a tattoo... Mickey Mouse with a gun & axe, smoking a cigar, is too awesome to languish in the history books.

I just really like Kipling, ok.

"an Iron Cross in isolation (i.e., without a superimposed swastika or without other accompanying hate symbols) cannot be determined to be a hate symbol"

(the ADL, as quoted on WP.)

I will grant you (and @The_Nybbler) that in a German political context, an iron cross is just a replacement for a swastika which will not land you in legal trouble. But there is a difference between carrying one on a banner through Berlin and having one tattooed beside your pussy. The latter seems more likely to signal biker/metal chick than Nazi bride.

Likewise, the generic skull and crossbones are widely used and nobody cares about them at all. Tattoo GHS06, U+2620, U+1F571, or all kinds of skulls realistic or fantastical with bones behind or below them, and people with probably think you are metal, goth, or perhaps punk. It is only the variant used by the SS which is considered Problematic.

Of course, with Platner, the story that he got it in Croatia and had no clue what it represented seems likely.

An iron cross tattoo below the waist, especially for someone Hill's age, makes me think she was a slutty skater chick in the early/mid 2000s. It says more about her consumption of Rockstar Energy than her views on race.

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