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Nah. I'm basing my observation on experience beyond TFP, both alternate discussion groups, blogs and face to face, so mean age has little to do with the matter.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen "err on the side of life" and "This is what Hitler did" in reference to the Schiavo situation, for example. And to a lessor degree, "no blood for oil", from the other side. And as soon as you run into any of these types of comments, I have found there is absolutely no value in any further discussion - you can't get past the one-liner response - if you try, you're just met with the same one-liner, or if you're lucky another one of about 5 total. It just keeps going round and round.
The machine increases the likelyhood that you will be faced with a one-liner as the entirety or near-entirety of the opposing argument. The more powerful right-wing machine has more powerful effects on right-wing discussion, as stands to reason.
Though I do agree that a disagreement on the terms of the debate is certainly another problem, but not the one I am describing.
As for compromise, I've already described my opinion on the matter, particularly as it pertains to discussions between non-decision makers (as a reminder: it's useless).
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