Netgems wrote:
I'm not necessarily in favor of it but if a poster creates a blog here and fellow members want to discuss it intelligently without rancor, and diff opinions can be bantered about, why not?
The only sad results is when an angry bitter member comes out with a vicious attack such as "brainless right". That was the reason CRT generally doesn't want political discussions, because sooner or later the intelligent debate is spoiled by rude and classless name calling.

Netgems, your post is so on point in so many levels. Thank you for posting a thoughtful comment.
I believe there are many reasons why political discussions aren't really productive in a forum of this nature. You have people from all walks of life who are united solely by a common interest in mongering. That's the common ground. That's pretty much it.
Once you range beyond mongering, you
will encounter the complete gamut of life experiences and opinions. Politically they range from right wing, Randian-objectivist "survival of the fittest and phuck everyone else" extremists, to the utopian Communist idealists who think waving the magic wand of "socializing the means of production" will cure all societal ills.
There
IS no intelligent debate. You just have like minded mongers agreeing with your post because they think just like you. Or you get the angry fights.
As shown in this very thread, there's just an echo chamber of likeminded opinions (i.e. "Socialism is Bad! Look at Venezuela"), and name calling when someone disagrees ("Brainless Right!", "Brainless Left!", "If you don't agree with me, you're a stupid ass!").
What is happening today in Venezuela is a human tragedy of epic proportions, Maduro has to go, and Venezuela needs all the help they can get to restore a failed nation. Unfortunately, there is
simply no point in wasting time discussing these topics among people with fundamentally different baseline assumptions, so why even start?
People aren't looking for intelligent debate. They're looking for affirmation of what they already believe.
mh