My vision of the future includes no politicians.  You may laugh, but I invite you to stop and think about the breath of fresh air that would bring.  That would result in anarchy you say?  Our politicians' "deliberations" are anarchy.

Seriously, I agree it is unfortunate that we can't discuss politics here.  Politics is important to us.

I have found that we can't even joke about politics because someone may be offended.  It's a bad day when politics keeps you from having a good laugh.  There is so much to laugh about.

Thanks, Adam.

To be honest, I LIKED the soapbox. When it was completely unmoderated.

Was it ugly? Yes. Was there regular massive arguments and did discussions regularly descend into all-out flamewars? Yes. Where there also some very interesting and completely calm discussions in that section? Also yes.

To be honest, I think the politics ban on this site is an utterly misguided attempt to make all of the members always happy all the time, and it is failing. The fact that this ban exists on a site which is political in its very nature is ridiculous.

The Unmoderated Soapbox was a wonderful thing, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the discussions got out of hand but...does it matter? The place had a warning saying it was unmoderated, so anybody who entered did so at their own risk, it didn't (or at least shouldn't have) taken up any of the moderators time and... to be honest... I think the forums are worse off for not having it.

I hope silly cat pictures are OK. That's all I got left.

good point well made As you say, pretty much everything does have a political dimension. And there's nothing wrong in that. Nothing at all.

The problem is not the politics, it's the Party Politics. The Party Line hijacks reasoned debate because - especially in the US it seems - so many people have chosen to align themselves with the spoutings of a particular political party. This is corrosive and throttles reasoned debate. A good example at the moment in the UK is the upcoming Scottish Independence vote *note to self: must do the update promised for Daddy * where a substantial core is irrevocably aligned to the Yes campaign based on emotion not reason.

I can see some merit in wishing GA to be a "nice" place, a refuge if you like, but it is ironic that a US site - the country where free speech seems to be part of its citizens' DNA and defended above all else - should have opted for this.

I too remember the soapbox and people did behave with contempt and became very inflammatory in their responses.  So while I can see why the pendulum has swung so far in the other direction as to avoid all politics, I also think it more than a bit unrealistic to mandate a complete avoidance of the subject.  

As a further note, the site did lose some very good authors because they were made to feel unwelcome and that is beyond sad.  Virulent attacks are not good anywhere and usually accomplish little.  I don't advocate any return to the non-moderated soapbox but Adam raises some very valid points.  

As an aside, political jokes have their place but repeatedly demeaning public figures and vilifying them has not helped public discourse.  In the process, the 'government' has become the source of all problems rather than a source for fixing problems beyond the scope of individuals or private companies. 

Finally, Zombie makes an interesting point as well.  People who identify strongly with a political party are more apt to spout the party line or "spin" as it is called.   Unfortunately, in the US, the two major political parties regard the other with so much contempt, that compromise has become a dirty word.  As a result we have gridlock.  

In my opinion, this site bent over backwards to the whims of a few people who got butt-hurt because someone challenged their opinions in taking the Soapbox down. Taking away the Soapbox took away a huge dimension of this site that many of GA's most active members participated in. Was it dirty, nasty, and bare-knuckled? Hell yes, and thats what made it fun. But it was also a place where many a intelligent discussion took place and valuable debate was had. Why they couldn't just leave it unmoderated like it was before it's death is beyond me, but again, someone has to keep a very small few from being butthurt at the expense of the many. 

I too was particularly disappointed when the Soapbox was taken down because there definitely were interesting, valuable, and informative discussions.

However, I completely support that decision. Some of the virulent, personal, diatribe which surfaced was not the challenging of opinion at all, and has no place in the welcoming, supportive community of GA which the administration works hard to nurture.

I don't think your point about free speech is quite right, Zombie. As I understand it, GA members can express themselves quite freely, as long as they do it in a blog and not an open forum.

I don't think your point about free speech is quite right, Zombie. As I understand it, GA members can express themselves quite freely, as long as they do it in a blog and not an open forum.

yes, you're quite right but the blogs are at best a backwater and quickly fade from view and memory unlike threads which remain prominent for as long as people want to keep a discussion going

I don't know if those posts got deleted, but I didn't even see the political posts in the future thread. Hmm. Oh, well.

There are ways around it, like if you're on a subforum dedicated to a story that has political overtones to it.

As a P.S. I'm adding my personal pet peevee: I still find it incredulous that you are not allowed to post erotic pictures in here, say a blog where they post cats and kittens in cute pictures on one side and men posing in similar positions like those cats in the other. There are no genitals (or I don't remember seeing any) but it was not allowed to be posted in here. Again, I point out, that the 12 and 13 year olds that come to this website can read all sorts of obscenities in the stories here (and let their imagination run wild) but got forbid they see a hot man in here.

that's a general USA cultural thing rather than GA specifically: erotic pics of the male body is plain wicked and corrupting, but anything else is just swell Seem to recall I did a blog on that a while back...

One of the problems with US politics is that it has become so polarized. If you are a democrat, that tells the other side that you hate God and want to kill babies. If you are a republican, then you must be a drooling religious fanatic that thinks the second coming is at hand and we can destroy the environment for a buck and have no compassion for anyone. Oh and BTW- they hate gays and want to see them all stoned.

There no room for a spectrum of beliefs, no room for the actual 10,000 shades of gray that actually define humanity.

There are a lot of reasons for it and it's NOT just at this site. The rancor is so angry and bitter that it is all over the US parts of the internet and points far beyond.

I blame the media and particularly the party mouthpiece whores like FOX and pmsNBC. They are practically the propaganda arms of the two parties. The other networks aren't much better. You would be surprised and disgusted if you knew how inbred the current administration and the media are. If you've any wits at all you have to know that there's very bad stuff the media is not talking about in deference to the administration.

It goes much further than that.

On the right you can't be a moderate and discuss common sense gun control reform. God knows I would LIKE to. If you do, then you are a sell out.

On the left if you are queasy about the all abortions all the time policy the Man Hating Lesbian wing of the party will burn you at the stake.

The problem is even INSIDE the parties.

I don't know what the answer could be. I've often wished for a 3rd party. I even voted for one last time out. However- you've got to win if you want to accomplish anything and unless there is a D or an R after your candidates name, it's not happening.

Yeah, I understand that. But that should not mean that GA will pretend politics - and gay politics - doesn't exist and we don't talk about it.