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When I was growing up, my parent taught me that polite people don't discuss politics or religion in public. Once I grew up, I realized that those are the two most divisive issues for humanity (note how I lumped everyone on the planet in there?). There's a good reason for my parents' warning - discussing either is one of the fastest ways to start a fight among strangers.
I've been thinking a lot about this topic recently, and I've come to the conclusion that I generally only post in Politics as a way to organize my own thoughts and to get a sense of the talking points of the ends of the spectrum. No one here is ever going to convince me to change my vote by themselves, and I'm never going to convince anyone else to do the same. In the best of all possible worlds, we'd all realize that and take some of the venom out of our statements. But I'm not Dr. Pangloss and I realize that won't happen. Instead, I'm going to restate the most basic rule of Politics - debate the topic, not the individual.
I've already seen a couple glaring violations of that rule in this thread, and to be honest, I actually thought about abusing my newly granted mod powers to warn people or shut down the thread entirely. Then I had a sip of coffee and realized that was counterproductive. However, I am going to insist that the rule be followed in both letter and spirit. There's a line between attacking someone's politics and their character, and I expect that you all know it. If you don't, you're going to find out. If you're the victim, please feel free to let me know since I obviously can't be everywhere at once.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo
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