No More Politics

[Mister]

Is there any way to keep the political commentary in the 'Anything Goes' section?
There have been two political rants in the last week, here http://www.jim-butcher.com/bb/index.php/topic,342.0.html and here http://www.jim-butcher.com/bb/index.php/topic,422.0.html

I have no idea what Jim's political beliefs are.
I like that. It would be good if we fans followed that same policy.


Gene

[Priscellie]

I'd hardly call my somewhat offhand statement a "rant," and I rather think the "Black Council" discussion you linked to is more of a morality dispute than a political one.  And even though morality arguments spiral out of control even faster than political ones, I think that historical analogies can be valuable when commenting on morality in the books.

I agree we should avoid getting overtly partisan and devolving into political arguments.  I've already apologized for the statement you linked to, as you and Belmonte were right when you said that such comments have no place on the book discussion boards.  However, as politics is playing an increasingly large role in both series, Dresden and Alera, I don't think we should ban political commentary altogether. 

[OnyxTheBlackFae]

What I saw in the discussion of the Black Council was nothing like devolving into a political argument. Banning us from drawing parallels between politics in the books and politics in our world, to me, is a terrible idea--especially in the forums that are designated for book discussion.

[ShadowInTheDarkness]

Well with discusions like the one about the Black Council I don't think you really can leave out politics.  They're a political group.  That'll eventually lead to political talk.  It's not much different than talking about religeon. I think people are trying to keep the political chatter to a minimum though.

[neminem]

Presumably it should be easy enough to differentiate between discussion of political philosophies, which should be allowed, because there's politics everywhere you look, and discussion of particular current political entities/actions ("this thing in Proven Guilty reminded me of how much George Bush is screwing over America"), which shouldn't be allowed, as it leads to off-topicness quite rapidly.

P.S. I don't really think the Black Council is much of a political group. The White Court, on the other hand...