If I had Chinese symbols saying I was a nazi tattooed on me, I'd be at the nearest open parlor to get it covered up the same day I learned about it.

If he really did somehow just learn about it during the campaign, it should be gone by now.

Edit: which apparently it is, so good on him for that.

Yeah, that is generally referred to as "flash". The catalogue of stencils that an artist has on hand for walk ins and the like. And considering this was apparently some hole in the wall in Croatia (unclear if it was when he was in the military or at Blackwater), there is a good chance that entire catalogue was full of nazi shit and this had the least amount of swastikas.

But you, and many others, are fixated on him getting it. Which... it raises questions on his judgment, but people do stupid shit all the time. The issue is more the having kept it for 20 years while being terminally online (almost impossible to have not seen the Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies" meme that is literally about totenkapfs) and being a self proclaimed military history buff. And then 5 years ago having talked about "punisher skulls" in association with, gasp, SS totenkapfs.

No true Scotsman faults the guy for making a mistake 20 years ago. We very much fault him for not having rectified it at all in the two decades since.

Marines getting dumb ass tattoos while drunk in a foreign country is a story as old as time. He definitely used to be a moron, getting a tattoo under those circumstances was obviously a terrible decision.

I will say this.

A LOT of people in the military just get their "unit tattoo" or whatever without any thought. In large part because the people who tend to be the hardest on that are the psychopaths who get off on murder and might think it is a funny joke to rape you in your sleep (as a joke). Captain Roman Salute isn't wrong about that: There are a LOT of black guys and hispanic dudes who end up with SS skulls and lightning bolts all over their body by the time they get out.

And most of the people who have those, upon being told "... is that a god damned SS skull?" IMMEDIATELY have a panic attack and go get it removed or covered up.

Which is where Skorzeny Of The Blackwater is, at best, a complete and total moron. In the 15 years after getting it, not a single person who saw it ever said "da fuq?". And he, as a self proclaimed military history buff, never drew any connections with some of "the most elite troops of World War 2". And then, when he explained why people have "punisher skulls" in a thread about SS soldiers with totenkopfs, he STILL never drew the connection to the thing that is on his body staring at him every time he showers and kept it for the next 5 years.

Pretty much all inclusive ors:

• He is a complete and utter moron and is not fit for office
• He is a neonazi who just mostly stuck to dog whistles rather than replying to Always Sunny meme posts with "sieg heil! THE FOURTH REICH SHALL LIVE!!!"
• Every sexual partner and person he hung out with at the beach or pool or while he was stripped to his underpants in a bar has no issue with nazi imagery: Which speaks poorly of him
• He thinks The American People are dumb enough to believe his blatant lies... okay, that might actually be a statement in favor of his judgement but... yeah

But hey. The Left needed their own "it is not a nazi salute. Elon was just giving a roman salute" moment. And you can never have too many Fettermans running cover for the centrists who don't actually want to support a progressive policy.

What the fuck? Do you know every hate symbol and slur in the world? Why would you expect your average person to casually know this sort of thing? Not knowing obscure Nazi symbols doesn't make one a "moron;" I for one have much better things to do than learning how fascism group#3011 decided to tell everyone they hate Jews.

Check out the exchange where I ask for details of the "confirmation," it's fucking wild lol

"He OBVIOUSLY knew, for fuck's sake he was commenting under this picture showing the exact same symbol on the SS uniforms!" I'm only very slightly exaggerating. Try to find the symbol, it actually is there...

He also uses the seldom seen turbo fallacy "little did you know that by responding to my argument you have SAID EXACTLY WHAT I SAID YOU'D SAY AND SO I WIN!" It's so fuckin' bizarre... in fairness I knew these dudes would be here as soon as I saw the post topic and knew we'd be talking about some bullshit, but honestly I am surprised by the nature and ferocity of it.

Reproducing from a previous comment

In the thread in question

https://web.archive.org/web/20190226141422/https:/www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/auy0bi/battleweary_ss/

• Person A: The totenkopf on the dude first on the left is a good clue.
• Person B: has literal human skulls on uniform (...)
• Person C: Many soldiers still use the skull as an emblem (see the Punisher skull for the SEALs) or regiment emblems all around the world. It's a way of making others fear them and all. (...)
• Person D: (...) Punisher is a kind of unofficial emblem and it's more something some individuals do. I've seen it more on civvy and moto stuff than on actual servicemen.

And, reproduced without edits, Lil Skorzeny himself

When I was in Ramadi in ‘06 as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers.

There’s no question it’s far more prevalent on all the dumbass Grunt Style and Nine Line shirts these days, but the teams definitely adopted it for a while.

Confirming he understands that the punisher skull usage is in the same vein as the totenkopf. And considering his tattoo is much closer to the latter and he outright mocks the former?

So... try again. Maybe argue that him knowing how stupid it looks is an indicator that he always hated the nazi tattoo he had for 20 years and is thus a hero. Or just scream "fake news" until you go blue in the face.

So, to save us all some time: Here is where the bad actors insist that he was just posting to the internet and not actually reading what thread he was in or what the people he was responding to were saying and we really can't judge him based on that.

It is close to the form used by the Nazis, but that exact form was used by many people other than the Nazis. The Nazis were not the only ones to use this variant of a death's head. That's why it's not a Nazi symbol or a Nazi tattoo. To be so, it would have to be a symbol almost exclusively used by the Nazis, or of a form associated always universally with the Nazis. A swastika would be a Nazi symbol, as everyone knows that it's primarily a Nazi symbol, even though the swastika has roots preceding the Nazis. But the death's head? Before this, if you asked the average person what the symbol meant, very few people say it's an SS symbol. Some history buffs might. But in the eyes of the people, very few would call it a Nazi symbol.