I voted to 'avoid' such topics, although IF they come up, I'll participate.

But let's face it, politics has NEVER polarised people as much as nowadays. As I see it, PP members handle themselves very nicely in all aspects of posting, but elsewhere I've seen forest fires raging on many non-political fora - and guess what? About politics. Seems that, wherever else on the web you go, start an innocent discussion anywhere on the web on any topic, and pretty soon you're going to be dragged in to a 'Bush or Kerry' debate.

Personally, I'm not in favour of comparmentalization - you should be able to say what you want, where you want. But nowadays Politics has a very, very nasty habit of twisting apolitical discussion towards itself. I post to several non-sexual fora, and I've seen some otherwise very inspired threads turn sour because of politics. I once asked in a fiction forum, in all innocence, whether people under 40 felt annoyed at being the first generation not to do so well, financially, as their parents, and for peoples personal stories about it, about what economic policies should be changed/kept etc. The very next 5 posts were attacks from people questioning my loyalty to Bush - ironic, as I'm not even American.

I think a good idea MIGHT - not saying it WILL be a good idea - be to install a separate forum, in which there should be no NON- political discussion. I think we'll all be grown up enough to discuss the meatier issues of our times there, and be content with merely brushing against politics elsewhere. For example, you might have a thread on 'Sex On The Porch - where should we allow it?'

I trust the good people here to handle that topic well, brushing only briefly on 'Mississippi is Bible-belt land, so no, it won't go down well there' before moving on, instead of dwelling upon "You damn people should move to f*cking San Francisco where you can be among your own kind!". So in short, let's not confine strictly politics to a subforum for politics, but rather allow the good people here to exercise common sense, of which they have plenty, and use a political forum for questions like "Would Kerry spend more on education?"

However, I don't envy the Moderator(s) on this one. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Perhaps a trial run?

Sorry if I'm posing more questions than I'm answering!


Jaybee.