Artifacts are neither moral nor immoral. We don't even suggest that it's immoral to house military artifacts from any source in a museum. The only thing that is immoral is to collect such artifacts out of reverence for what they symbolize.
Artifacts are neither moral nor immoral. We don't even suggest that it's immoral to house military artifacts from any source in a museum. The only thing that is immoral is to collect such artifacts out of reverence for what they symbolize.
In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.
"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the worlds problems.
Mahatma Gandhi
My late father-in-law was with the Second Marines during the assault on Tarawa. While there, he and a couple of buddies found the body of a Japanese soldier lying on the edge of the airfield that was cut into the jungle in the middle of the island, and Joe took the soldier's bayonet and scabbard. (While he was retrieving this souvenir, they came under fire from the surrounding jungle and were just able to get away safely. He told me it was the dumbest thing he ever did in his life.) There's a place on the scabbard where it's obvious a bullet was deflected that adds to its uniqueness, I think.
Joe was wounded on Saipan and sent back to Hawaii to recover, but his souvenir of Tarawa was safely packed away with his gear and followed him.
Some years ago, when he knew he had terminal cancer and was getting things in order, he handed the bayonet and scabbard to my wife and said that maybe we'd want to "put in on eBay or something". She told him, "No, your grandson will get this when he's old enough" - which he does now, along with Joe's medals and a few other things. Hopefully they will always stay in the family.
Nazi memorabilia - or for that matter Imperial Japanese memorabilia - is not something I personally care to collect, but if someone has a special interest in that war and finds collecting those things to be edifying, I don't see anything wrong with it from a moral perspective. For some reason I was looking at Viet Cong and PAVN medals on eBay the other day, and there are quite a lot of them listed. I don't own any of those, but I used to be much more into collecting military badges and insignia than I am currently, and I acquired twenty or so Soviet badges, including the Order of the Red Star, some years ago.
As far as Nazi firearms go, semi-automatic pistols don't really do anything for me, as far as collecting. I've always had a special affinity for revolvers, and of the 23 or so different models of pistol that the Nazis used I believe they were all semi-autos, so chances are I would never be tempted.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
Many WW2 veterans have memorabilia that they took from dead Nazis. I have a 94 year old client who had me running around getting a Mauser on his carry permit. My father had a few rifles from the war.
Collecting Nazi memorabilia isn't the same as proudly displaying it in your man cave as you yearn for the good old days.
It's ok to marvel at German engineering
No. It is called collecting. It is not immoral.
It would be immoral if you were collecting sex slaves.
Orion Rules (10-13-2020)
nope its part of history just like the statues democrats are destroying , lets be honest antifa would come for it and the rioters would also
Back when the whole "racist" thirteen-star flag on the sneakers thing was in the news, I happened to be checking out one of my favorite thrift stores and I found a full-sized, mint condition thirteen-star flag for five bucks. I don't know - if there hadn't been so much hoopla and silliness going on about it at the time, I probably wouldn't have looked at it twice, but I just bought it. I didn't really think too deeply about why I felt like buying it, nor have I given it all that much thought since - but it's barely possible that I bought it because at the time some people were suggesting that it was politically incorrect, in some way, to own or display one. The thrill of the forbidden, as it were.
At the same store I found a full-sized nylon Marine Corps flag priced at $1. The manager who marked it, who is an Army veteran, was standing there at the counter grinning when I bought it, and he verified what I suspected - that he'd priced it so cheaply as a joke. He told me to look at the tag where the category of an item is listed - Furniture, Household, etc. - and it read "Toy". So he got his good-natured rib in and my son got a very nice flag to display with his grandfather's medals.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. - Robert E. Howard
"Only a rank degenerate would drive 1,500 miles across Texas and not eat a chicken fried steak." - Larry McMurtry
My brother picked up a US flag with less than 50 stars on it. HOw many of those do you find nowadays?
Additionally, my father brought back some nazi pieces: pistol, helmet, jewelry. Most of it was in his office when he died and his buddies took it.
Last edited by Calypso Jones; 08-01-2020 at 04:31 PM.
I've never liked 20th Century American militaria. Everything is so drab but the one exception is firearms. My brother has an M-1 Garand and a carbine. They're a lot of fun to shoot. He has a Mauser too but that could be from anywhere. They made tens of millions of them all over the world.
Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.
~Alain de Benoist