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I've learned the incredible annoyance of what I call the "unwanted ally". On many occasions, I have been arguing a particular viewpoint only to be "helped" by someone who shares my viewpoint, but wants to advocate it by acting like a complete moron. It truly is worse to have rude and obnoxious friends than enemies.
Secondly, I've learned that I have a political pet peeve: I get really angry when someone detaches from the debate and studies what is happening in terms of the political debate in the country. An example that I made up:
"This thread is of little more than anthropological value. Note how the conservative lives in his own world in which all Republican leaders are a priori incapable of making errors."
If I had a dollar for every time I wrote an angry response to those people and deleted it without sending it...
...Which brings me to my last point. I have learned a great deal of self control in the face of completely unreasonable people. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to stop reading.
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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