Howdy Barry,
Well, personally, I think it is somewhat silly to ban something like this, it was not the "symbol" that was evil, it was the ideas behind the Nazi movement which were evil, the Swastika has been around more than 3,000 years, pre egyptian and even further back....."pre history".
Take a moment to look at the history of the swastika on any site on the web by doing a google search for "History of the swastika". One example of the history appears below from:
http://history1900s.about.com/cs/swa...ikahistory.htm
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The History of the Swastika
The swastika is an extremely powerful symbol. The Nazis used it to murder millions of people, but for centuries it had positive meanings. What is the history of the swastika? Does it now represent good or evil?
The Oldest Known Symbol The swastika is an ancient symbol that has been used for over 3,000 years. (That even predates the ancient Egyptian symbol, the Ankh! 
) Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.
During the following thousand years, the image of the swastika was used by many cultures around the world, including in China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. By the
Middle Ages, the swastika was a well known, if not commonly used, symbol but was called by many different names:
Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.
The Original Meaning
The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit
svastika - "su" meaning "good," "asti" meaning "to be," and "ka" as a suffix.
Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.
Even in the early twentieth century, the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. For instance, the swastika was a common decoration that often adorned cigarette cases,
postcards,
coins, and buildings. During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the
shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the
Finnish air force until after World War II.
A Change in Meaning
In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history.
By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts' League.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic periodical
Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.
Hitler and the Nazis
In 1920, Adolf Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag. For Hitler, the new flag had to be "a symbol of our own struggle" as well as "highly effective as a poster." (
Mein Kampf, pg. 495)
On August 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress, this flag became the official emblem of the Nazi Party.
In
Mein Kampf, Hitler described the Nazis' new flag: "In
red we see the social idea of the movement, in
white the nationalistic idea, in the
swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic." (pg. 496-497)
Because of the Nazis' flag, the swastika soon became a symbol of hate, antisemitism, violence, death, and murder.
What Does the Swastika Mean Now?
There is a great debate as to what the swastika means now.
For 3,000 years, the swastika meant life and good luck. But because of the Nazis, it has also taken on a meaning of death and hate.
These conflicting meanings are causing problems in today's society. For
Buddhists and
Hindus, the swastika is a very religious symbol that is commonly used. Chirag Badlani shares a
story about one time when he went to make some photocopies of some Hindu Gods for his temple. While standing in line to pay for the photocopies, some people behind him in line noticed that one of the pictures had a swastika. They called him a Nazi.
Unfortunately, the Nazis were so effective at their use of the swastika emblem, that many do not even know any other meaning for the swastika. Can there be two completely opposite meanings for one symbol?
In ancient times, the direction of the swastika was interchangeable as can be seen on an
ancient Chinese silk drawing.
Some cultures in the past had differentiated between the clockwise swastika and the counter-clockwise
sauvastika. In these cultures the swastika symbolized health and life while the sauvastika took on a mystical meaning of bad-luck or misfortune.
But since the Nazis use of the swastika, some people are trying to differentiate the two meanings of the swastika by varying its direction - trying to make the clockwise, Nazi version of the swastika mean hate and death while the counter-clockwise version would hold the ancient meaning of the symbol, life and good-luck.
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Remember "those who dont know history are destined to repeat it", censorship of the symbol does nothing, it is censored in an effort to help people "forget".
It was never the symbol that inspired hatred, it was the policies and beliefs behind the political movement which corrupted the symbol.......not the other way around.
I hope this helps someone understand the subject.
Have a good day,
Greg
EDIT/EDITORIAL: The reason the swastika has such a bad connotation now is not just becuase of the use of it by the nazi's, The various governments who now "declare it is illegal" have pushed it and its original use out of the public forum, thereby successfully causing people to forget its original use and/or, causing people to never learn its original usage.
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