How would you react to someone painting their miniatures as nazis or with confederate flags.

Someone with that opinion has clearly never been on the receiving end of a TAG in a sock...

 

Ah dreadsocks, one of the many things I don't miss from my youth, and we haven't even considered the thundercase yet... It's a very fortunate thing that infinity two player boxes have card rulers not the plastic rapiers favored by the Evil Empire in Lenton...

But yeah, context and intent (not that kind, dear God not again) is important, and there's always an exception to everything. If someone does something that you find offensive open a dialogue with them on it, decide what you think and go from there. We can't start thought control, but you are entirely within your perogative to think someone is an asshole if the reasons they give you for the things you find offensive don't cut it. Some stuff will never be 'okay' under any circumstances, and anything directed at a specific group or individual needs to be looked at in a different light, but generally it's best if you start with the idiom 'never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity' and form opinions on your own.

 

You will notice that despite the stars-and-bars on the Dossier art of the Ariadnan bikers, it's not on the studio models. Because we asked, "hey, CB, did you intend for the real-world baggage of that symbol to attach to the Infinity unit?" And CB said, "No, we did NOT want that baggage."

Me? I play Flames of War. Germans and Soviets. And Americans, and Brits. I don't remember if I still have the Japanese, and I sold the Italians. I have Panzer Lehr, Fallschirmjager, and even some Weird War guys that I usually play as Waffen-SS (they look rather like Kerberos Panzer Cops from Jin-Roh). Soviet Engineer-Sapper battalion, the guys called in to destroy a German strongpoint with Panzerfausts and flamethrowers.

I don't play American Civil War because I don't want to paint 2000 models in blue and another 2000 in various grays and tans. I'd play if someone else put the game together, though. Either side.

So I don't mind playing the Bad Guys, though I draw the line at playing actual convicted war criminals. Someone shows up in an SS uniform at a Flames of War game, he's going to get a talking-to. Unless he's wearing light brown waffenfarbe (piping on the shoulder boards), which makes him a Camp Guard, and which will get him beaten unconscious. "He's wearing the uniform of an SS concentration camp guard, officer. Them's fighting words."

 

Edit: Actually nah, I don't have time for another one of these fights.

 

As for playing bad guys, I can stand playing as Germans in a WW2 game, I couldn't stomach playing SS. If someone on the other side of the table does, well, fine with me (though personally I'd consider it bad taste).
Showing up for the game in the uniform, in full regalia... I don't think it could be justified as historical reenacment when at the gaming table. It could be seen as propagating given ideology* - and propagating totalitarian ideology is punishable by law where I live. Ex officio. So, no point getting your hands dirty beating the fella unconscious: just call the cops.

* I'm not an expert on the relevant regulations, but generally it is justifable if done for educational purposes, or to maintian hisotrical accuracy. And, as I said, that wouldn't exactly fly in case of a wargame.

 

Well, living in the US, it's not prohibited by law to propagate totalitarian ideology (there'd be a lot of people in jail, on both ends of the political spectrum, if that was illegal!). So the police can't do anything about it here.

That's why I'd have to do it myself. He has the right to say and believe whatever he wants. He does not have the right to be free of the repercussions of those beliefs.

 

To be fair, you would legally be liable for assault if you did though.

 

Depends on jurisdiction. In some places, there's a "fighting words" clause that actually makes it justifiable to hit someone for their words, but it only rarely applies to political speech.

That's why I said, "Them's fighting words, officer."

 

I should add that I would ask if he knew what the light brown piping on his shoulder boards meant. It's only if he said yes that I'd beat his ass. If he didn't, I'd help him beat down whoever set him up for an assbeating, that's some fucked up shit to dress someone up as a Concentration Camp guard if the person wearing the uniform doesn't know what it means.

 

I'd probably bully them for being a dorky LARPer.

Assuming it was out of place. Feeling uncomfortable about historicals is silly.

 

I don't think this is straightforward, and probably does depend a lot on context and intent. Back in the day, I remember an article in an English broadsheet newspaper about English punks wearing swastikas in a Jewish area of a German city.

The article quoted Jewish concentration camp survivors expressing their horror and offense at the display, which I'm sure we'd all agree was entirely understandable and reasonable given the unspeakable context of their own life experience.

As a young man who preferred Stiff Little Fingers and the Buzzcocks to the 'Pistols at the time, I was pretty sure those punks had little to say about Nazi concentration camps, but were just crudely reaching for Western 20th Century symbols with shock value.

There's a difference between the way a White Supremacist uses a swastika, and the way those early punks used them. One of them has a deliberately provocative agenda, whilst the others were being deliberately crass (the adjective, not the punk band )

 

I think I could maybe see it that way if I tried hard enough... But the baggage and implications, dear god.

...and here's me, contemplating whether it's really safe to put on that official Haqq/HB badge...

 

I can relate. In the end, I went with a Morats badge, and everyone just thinks I'm an art professor with a thing for Kandinsky.

Spoiler: Kandinsky versus Morats

 

Wait, I have to travel to the US to the Mission Critical Event in Waupaca. Should I be worried my bag and Miniatures case have all the Haqqislam patches and pins?

I just realized I also have a Bomb patch from winning the Highest number of Successful Sabotage Objective.

 

You will most likely draw attention to yourself at best and have your miniatures participate in a controlled explosion at worst.

 

If I were playing a historical and the army I was fielding would have included SS, well, I'd paint them as SS. That's simply being accurate. I would also be comfortable in one of those German WW2 great coats. I would not, in any way, however, attempt to make it look like an actual uniform or period piece. It's just a nice coat.

If someone else were playing Germans painted up as SS and was being "in character" because they thought it was funny (I was a teenage asshole once, too), I'd politely explain to them why that was rude, then clearly explain to them why they were going to stop or leave an never return. People tend to listen when take the "clearly explain" tone. Same with any of the various flags of the Confederacy. I live in fucking Williamsport, MD. Antietam is literally right up the street from me, I'm used to seeing them and reenactors. Not a lot of actual racists flying the flag around where I am, though (but plenty of dipshits from PA and West Virginy who think they're from the South, fucking morons).

 

Not likely to cause trouble, unless you carry your headphones in the army case (wires).

Had some issues on my way back from Japan, between all the electronics and a set of sake cups in my backpack. Sensor thought the cups were the wrong kind of clay or something...

 

Wha? Pennsylvania is on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line, they're straight-up Yankees. Damn Yankees, even. (Only those states south of the line could have legal slaves, and it's the border between Pennsylvania on the north and Maryland on the south!)

And West (by God!) Virginia exists as a state because it didn't secede from the Union. WVa ponied up a LOT of regiments for the Union Army because of that, too.

 

Honestly, I'm as my earlier post noted, I'm a free-speech absolutist.

As someone who would have been gassed in WW2 Germany, I still think people have the right to say/wear whatever dumb shit they want.

I can choose to ignore, avoid, or condemn them based on the content of their message and character, but I'm never going to say they don't have the right to express those views, no matter how hateful/gross they are.

It's far better to let them say it, and then offer 'so you want to gas me?' as a rebuttal, it tends to give pause. It puts a face on it. It asks, 'you want to gas me and my dad the minister because of our ethnic background? 2 generations back?'

But frankly, every speech is allowed in my book, it just in turn means I can say whatever I want in criticism and rejection of that message.

Far better to let them lose the battle of ideas in the open than recruit in private, in my eyes.

 

Had a friend bring back a titan from the UK (forgeworld warhound) and he got stopped at the airport because the resin was still outgassing and was giving the machine vibes of "plastique" (certain older resin mixes that FW used did tend to "smell" like semtex to those sniffers, also the density was about the same).
There was also the small issue about voids in the larger castings, which they (customs) was obliged to drill into to verify they weren't being used to smuggle contraband (and lets face it, a commercial quantity of horse or coke would at least partially offset the price of the titan :D ).

He had to come back the next day to retrieve it. He's still bitching about not getting compensation for them drilling holes in it (they aren't required to compensate).