cowgirltease & Mackenzie,
I trust you won’t take offense, but I disagree with you. I have learned quite a bit from the controversial discussions here at Pixies, and I feel I am the better for them. Further, political threads need not degenerate into ugliness. Permit me to provide two examples of what I suggest were “good” political threads. The first was
A Pride Regained started by lakritze on August 10 of last year, and the other was
Aussies join the lie fest started by Grumble on October 2.
In the “A Pride Regained” thread I learned quite a bit about the Australian government while researching my replies, that voting is compulsory in both Australia & Brazil (I think that PantyFanatic learned that then also), and a whole bunch about the American Electoral College. I also learned that there seems to be a bit of tension among the Australian electorate in re their relationship to the Queen.
Now I will grant you that not all the comments in that thread were called for, but there was no flaming or mud-slinging. The debate could reasonably be described as “spirited”, rather than “nasty”. Sharni & Irish agreed about something, and miracle of miracles, so did lakritze and I!
In the “Aussies join the lie fest” thread I (re)discovered the substantial ANZAC involvement in the Galipoli campaign while researching my replies, something of Australia’s involvement In World Wars I & II, and how close WWII is to some of the Pixies from Oz. Belial allowed as how he had changed his opinion.
I could only find one post in the entire thread which I would consider coarse or antagonistic.
cowgirltease, I admit that the quotes you posted are regrettably antagonistic and I too wish that people would hesitate before posting what may upset others. Still, I would rather not suppress open exchange of honest opinions – particularly as it can be done in a civilized manner.
I am sure that there are alternatives which do not require segregating political discourse into yet another sub-forum with the inevitable moving of threads out of their original forums because they became "too political" or "too controversial".