I believe that politics is connected to ego, that, having been put down as children, we have no real self respect and substitute for it by joining, by assuming the credit attributed to some external by the folk who raised us, that we conform and join teams in order to protect ourselves from ridicule, punishment, and blame, that in short, we are robots, asleep in an ideological confabulation composed of this and that, haphazardly and by accident of birth and culture. I believe that we live in terror of being exposed to the real truth that we feel, that we are worthless without our ego attachments, that we only exist as creatures of value because we belong to something worthy of praise, that what we believe are lies.
I believe, therefore, that only those who have deprogrammed, who have let go of the thousand pounds of cabbage they were sold as children can have any real idea of what is or isn't of value.
What we have in P & N is a battle ground in which folk defend their egos, try to feel they are better than the next deluded ideologue.
The point of P & N, therefore, at least to me, isn't which political ideas make good sense, but seeing that we have no capacity to determine that, that we are crazy and don't realize it. What we need isn't political wisdom, but self knowledge, without which we really can't function rationally.
In short, the situation is hopeless. We have those who are totally immune to reason arguing with folk who believe in it with all thinking this is rational.
Evolutionary speaking there is something to be said for the folk who know the truth in their guts, and those who find it by reason, or think they do. But it is hopeless for one mentality to debate the other. As LunarRay says, trying to teach pigs to fly frustrates the flight instructor as well as the pigs.
The only real question, then, to me, is what to do about ego, how to help folk face the truth about themselves when they feel they are hideous and that's where you're trying to take them.
I believe that a total ban on put downs creates a less defensive reaction that in turn makes rational thought, if any will occur, a bit easier. I believe also that reasoning is a skill that can be learned and that if all opinions here must also have accompanying reasons why one has whatever opinion it may be, the focus stays on the opinion and not the person who has it. I believe that illogical egotistical opinions are rooted in bigotry and prejudice, a defense mechanism, as I stated above, and that no real logic can be provided for them.
Thus if one has to supply a reason for something that isn't founded in reason but ego, others can demonstrate that. Now, bigots are blind and will not see the fallacy of their reasoning, but others may, and they may too, at some perhaps future point in time. At the least, those who can't provide logical reasons for their thinking, but do back again and again to the certainty they are right, regardless, can perhaps face banning. A bigot feels he is right and can't let go, but that doesn't mean he or she should have the floor to present an endless pile of crap.
For the above reasons I have a real problem with going off topic. The real topic, in my opinion, is never the topic at hand. The topic, in my opinion, is always something deeper. Almost none, for example, realize that our distortions are the result of self hate simply because it is the one thing we are all trying to avoid feeling. And those who do know, who have real self knowledge, can't hand that to folk who don't. What one person runs from in terror, not knowing that is what he's doing, will latch on quickly to the idea such notions are completely off topic. We are motivated to keep the one topic of how we feel about ourselves the one thing that is always off topic. The very thing we don't want to know is the only thing that can save us.
Further, I see no reason why we can't experiment. We could have some threads with different rules than others to see how people respond, rules the OP determines and states from the start.
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