55
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
55 points (100.0% liked)
QueerDefenseFront
622 readers
240 users here now
LGBTQ+ rights are under attack across the world.
This a Community dedicated to the discussion of how to protect, advocate for, and restore LGBTQ rights!
With the rampant increase of Anti LGBTQ+ hate crimes, speech and laws internationally, the LGBTQ community globally no longer feels safe.
We refuse to stand by while injustice against our community reigns.
Here we will organize, and discuss ways to make our voices heard!
Link to QDL Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Queerdefensefront/s/s1JGAmJK9d
Link to QDL Discord Server: https://discord.com/invite/ng7DZqP6pf
Community Rules:
- No Hate Speech
No Hate Speech allowed whatsoever. This is a O tolerance policy. This goes for any form of hate and/or bigotry regarding race, religion, or LGBTQ+ identities.
While we will have discussions on political issues dealing with hate and bigotry AGAINST the LGBTQ+ community, please keep your comments respectful of ail parties.
Be better than how your enemies treat you.
- Respect the trans community
Respect the people who belong here. If you're confused what that means, here's a minor primer:
No asking to date trans people or otherwise meet up with them. No treating being transgender as a mental illness or as being lesser in any way. No arguing with trans people about their identity. No arguing with trans people about their vulnerabilities, including anything related to sports, laws, etc. This includes anything else that the mod team deems disrespectful.
- Stay on topic!
Posts should be related to the defense, advocacy, and restoration of LGBTQ+ rights.
This Community is for news regarding, as well as the discussion of, anti LGBTQ+ laws, hate crimes, and propaganda.
- Bunnies are above the law
This isn't a rule but it shows you're paying attention to the rules. good for you!
Similar Communities:
c/Gaymers: !gaymers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
c/trans_guns: !trans_guns@Lemmy.blahaj.zone
founded 9 months ago
MODERATORS
I believe in giving people lots of chances at life. But multiples chances don't require seating people into public office.
I am not interested in the Democratic party being used as a chrysalis towards "John Fetterman"-ism or crypto-NAZIsm.
Have you actually looked into the guy or are you just going off of all of the headlines? I really think the tattoo thing has been blown way out of proportion.
how is Totenkopf blown out of proportion, you have to go out of your way to even get this tattoo, and normal tattoo artist will never try to put this on a client too much liaibility, he had to go croatia of all places to get one.
“The Nazi tattoo on the candidate’s chest has been blown out of proportion” is a really wild thing to read.
I honestly didn't know that skull was a Nazi symbol either. But now that makes the "Are we the baddies?" Mitchell and Webb skit twice as funny and on point to me.
I thought he was a pirate
Nazis are famous for co-opting popular symbols so i wouldn't blame anyone for not knowing.
But also pretty understandable.Considering how poorly we as Americans are educated on, well, any number of things. Had you gone to the street in any city or town November of last year. And asked people to describe a totenkoph. Even in a very basic generic sense. You would have been lucky to have one out of several thousand be able to do it.
That said, I would gladly take anyone who has made visible mistakes but attempted to learn from them. Over someone who pretends to be perfect any day. The more perfect they look. Generally, the more shit they're hiding.
But did any of the several thousand get it as a tattoo?
I mean, you have to be extremely stupid or caught in a 90s sitcom to get a Nazi tattoo by accident and not figure it out for decades. Neither are particularly good traits for a senator.
I suppose that depends on if you run around bare chested in public a lot. I don't think anyone but him or the people close to him saw it on any given day and gave it much thought. There are whole websites devoted to people getting stupid tattoos on the internet. This isn't some new or disqualifying thing.
Again, I would rather support someone who wears their flaws as a reminder of past mistakes. And the reminder to do better in the future. That plus he has other people speaking for him, who have met him, who know him, who's opinions I value. In the end though, it doesn't really matter as I'm not from the state and won't be voting in that election.
What do you mean accidentally getting a Nazi tattoo is not disqualifying?
It’s better than getting one on purpose, but it’s still an absolutely fucking moronic thing to do. It’s worse than the FUCK THE SYTSEM guy — by a whole lot — and I absolutely would not support the FUCK THE SYTSEM guy to run the government.
And I’m not ready to concede it was an accident.
If someone doesn't identify it as such or know what it is, they just find it appealing for some reason. How is that damning? Damning would be if he knew exactly what it was and got it for that exact reason.
What's really hilarious is that this whole tattoo business is such a non-issue. Largely stirred up by actual fascists in an attempt to help their candidate. He's said far more polarizing things on Reddit, good and bad. But somehow that's not what we're even debating. If you are a potential constituent, please go and inform yourself. Look at the things he said. Look at his platform.And most importantly, look at what he chosen to do. The actually important things to make a decision on.
Dude. It’s a Nazi tattoo. A NAZI tattoo. A NAZI TATTOO.
It’s not a non issue. If you think Nazi tattoos are hunky dory, you are a part of the problem.
So simply having any sort of Nazi symbol on whether or not you know it's a Nazi symbol makes you a Nazi. Not your actions or your thoughts. We should all just judge books by their covers?
And even if he was, people should be given an opportunity to change and grow. Because if we don't allow people to change and grow and acknowledge it. Then what's the motivation for them to do it in the first place. Graham is a grade A meathead no doubt. But just like every LGBTQIA person, he is more than skin deep.
It doesn’t necessarily make you a Nazi, but it does make you a moron at the very least, and it raises the odds of you being a Nazi by like a billion percent.
Is this really the best you guys can do?
Your words and actions make you a Nazi, whether or not you have a single Nazi design scrawled on your skin. There's reason they're not attacking him for his positions or platforms. Or anything that he's actually said and sticking to this whole Nazi tattoo thing.
Straight up the man has said some profoundly stupid things in his lifetime. But to his credit. Every time someone has engaged with him and explained the problems with it, he's actually shown the willingness and desire to listen and learn. which is an admirable thing. People could do a lot worse. If you want to see how a real Nazi behaves, observed the Hegseth tattoo controversy. They don't need to hide it anymore. They're in power. And they're pretty open about it.
Not everyone thinks much about the symbolic meaning of a tattoo - I certainly couldn't have identified the Totenkopf before seeing his tattoo and doubt I've seen one in the decade prior (at least where it was clearly a symbol being used by nazis). So unless someone at like a public swimming area where I decided to go topless pointed it out, I there's a good chance none of the people close to me would recognize it either.
I could totally buy the "I got a generic skull and cross bones tattoo cause it look cool" excuse if it wasn't for posting in a thread about the Nazi Totenkopf 6 years ago (long after getting his tattoo) and either not realizing it matched his tattoo (and him not being covered in like dozens of tats) or not caring to get it covered up/removed immediately. https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/_/ehbh3n6/?context=4
Apparently he also defended people getting SS thunderbolt (something I'd be surprised for a self-proclaimed military history buff would be aware of being a nazi symbol, even if not the Totenkopf) tattoos, both on reddit and response to being called out for his nazi tattoo recently. And two people have told reporters that he's talked about how his tattoo looks like a nazi tattoo to them (granted, if it were just anonymous "acquaintances" claiming this, I wouldn't trust them reporters at all).
Oof. Everything up to that I can potentially write off as dumb marine, but damn.
If he really cared about it, he'd have covered it up or had it removed like 6 years ago when talking about the Totenkopf on reddit. I don't think it necessarily makes him a nazi, but people who are indifferent to nazis or are too stupid to realize the tattoo they have looks eerily similar to a nazi symbol they were looking at aren't people we should celebrate trying to get into office (even if you ultimately elect them despite their shortcoming because everyone else is far worse).
Are we talking about the same guy who has consistently going back to 2012 called racists “fucking racists” and told them to get the fuck out?
His recently uncovered Reddit account shows he is the same person there consistently for a decade as he seems to be in his words now.
If you deride war criminals, say clearly fuck racists, and march at BLM rallies years before you ever think to run for office, it doesn’t paint the “I’m secretly a white supremacy wolf in sheep’s clothing” vibe you are suggesting.
Pretty sure I stated that it doesn't make him a nazi. Just incompetent or not anti-fascist are also perfectly fine explanations, and both alternative explanations make him far from an ideal candidate for such a high-ranking position.
Also, he is a war criminal. By his own admission. And said its the thing he's most proud about his time in the military.
Gonna need some detail on that.
I was in Iraq at the same time, I’m not a war criminal.
He has repeatedly called out anyone who glorifies committing war crimes, again for a long time, in his Reddit comments.
What makes you think he is and is proud of being a war criminal?
https://xcancel.com/BenMcCombe/status/1982083117709176945
The post where he brags about shooting a machine gun nearly straight up into the air in the city where they were afraid they might accidentally shoot themselves due to low accuracy, so they even took cover and said they had now clue if they actually were hitting their targets and finishes with "One of the things I'm most proud about having been part of"
Ok, so since I have intimate knowledge of how all of the systems in this description work, let me tell you what you are reading.
It is not a war crime.
The battalion commander, who later DID green light use of mortars at targeted locations, pinpointed by audio triangulation from incoming fire detection systems; did not want to use the higher explosive yield of a mortar in urban areas.
Marines are still absolutely permitted to use indirect fire weapons on indirect fire targets, such as a 40mm grenade. These hav a much smaller yield and casualty causing radius.
To ensure they could still engage the locations actively being pinpointed by the incoming fire warning system, they mounted a 40mm grenade launcher to a mount to use instead.
His post is literally them doing all the due diligence and work to calculate return fire trajectories so they were accurate on the mapped targets, not indiscriminate fire.
There is not only no war crime here, he actively describes all the work that went into making the return fire suppression lower yield in explosives and how to make it as accurate as possible.
You might as well just copy and pasted his explanation. Shooting in a city where you can't even be certain you aren't shooting yourself 100s of meters away from your target and not caring if you are even hitting your target or just something close enough to them is absolutely a war crime (not making any legal claim).
You can be certain you are not firing at one’s self by mere simple trigonometry.
The rest of what you are saying is made up or misunderstanding the premise completely.
His mention of not being able to see the targets, is just saying they are obscured indirect fire which you have to calculate fires for. It’s extremely common and not a problem.
You are hung up on this statement as if it says he was flinging 40mm grenades indiscriminately. It doesn’t. They put a mk 19 on a mount with math, fired single shot indirect fire, to targets they couldn’t see but were calculated trajectories based on the in common ground targeting.
No indirect fire, artillery, mortars or anything else can see their target. It’s calculated.
Which they did.
It’s not a war crime to fire back at someone firing at you. His solution was inventive and I have used a mk19 in a similar capacity in an improvised demolitions course.
I don’t know how else to say it. It was not even unbecoming or unprofessional.
We routinely would do BDA assessments to confirm kill train decisions were made correctly all the way from detect to detonate. These would also confirm the accuracy margins of the system they set up.
Long in the short, you want indirect fire that calculates and returns fire to be somehow this terrible thing that can’t possibly be accurate. It can be VERY accurate Bd I have dropped rounds inside specific tank hatches with a mk19 at 1900 yards.
Not. A war crime. He was fired upon, had a target solution, calculated the return fire, and sent it.
If he’s not a secret Nazi, he sure has poor judgement skills. I’m happy he’s marching and showing up, but maybe let’s not make him a fucking US senator?
He has stated the tattoo was a mistake, done drunkenly with other service members early in his enlistment. So he acknowledged it, covered it, never lied about it, and has never given any indication in any word or deed he has racist views.
I’m good with that being a mistake 20 years ago and he both owned it and has not shown any indication of the symbolism being a part of his life.
It’s rare someone stays on message for a decade in their private life, and all those same messaging pieces are kept going into a congressional run. He has.
/shrug
I don’t know the man, but sincerity and consistency of laudable beliefs are worth something. I cant vote for him since I don’t live in Maine. I only know the national GOP has launched a massive campaign to smear the guy in every way they can out of fear he wins. Usually when the GOP is afraid of someone they are my kind of person.
The tattoo is a permanent physical representation of the dozens of Iraqis he killed. Who fucking cares what you think about it? He is an evil person who has killed civilians in an imperialist war and was so proud of it that he got a nazi tattoo to commemorate being a bringer of death to impoverished people on the other side of the world. You are sick in the head if you're trying this hard to make excuses for the guy. Stop making a pedantic argument about the specific symbol. Reconcile the fact he got that tattoo to remind him of the role he played in murdering people and he is STILL proud of that. Disgusting.
Right? Best case he’s as impulsive incurious idiot. Worst case he’s an actual Nazi.
Move on, there’s nothing to gain here.