What's Considered "Political"?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Since there's a rule against discussing politics, what is considered political? Almost anything can be political. We can have discussions on abortion, but discussions on portests aren't allowed? I'm just not understanding where the distinction is. What's more politically charged than abortion?

[billl]

I think that "political" means "tribal" maybe. If there's an abortion discussion, and it isn't going along reflexive political lines, and perhaps some nuance is being explored and debated, well, that's one thing. Good chance most abortion discussions wouldn't go like that, but if it happens...

But if what we're talking about is political personalities and/or soundbite-marching-orders, or the ridiculous notion that some political thinker or perspective or system can account for everything and is the last word (or ALWAYS completely wrong) in its universal applications, then it's probably best to stop things and end the usual circular but-but-but stuff, because smirking and tsk-tsking at online posts can keep people going at it for much longer than is really dignified for full-fledged human beings.

I'd trust them to stop things wisely, around here. It's an international forum, and I think the moderators have a lot of experience with what might or might not end up flying off track and getting stupid.

[MystyrMystyry]

There are political forums all over the net to discuss the day's events - and this is the age of twentyfour hour news on every radio and television (choose your station) you can even elect to have it fed to your mobile phone while you're on the crapper

Literature and movies and music - these are an entetainment-fantasy realm, which though able to contain political flapdoodle, are better suited to the human condition and experience (everyone has a favorite sad, rebel, satirical etc song, and yes maybe even political song - but that's blowin' in the wind) and if there's any poilitics involved it's usually one sided

Exceptions to this are David Williamson's play Don's Party and the Tom Clancy series of novels (though the latter use current politics as a backdrop rather than the main focus - you've got to love Tom Clancy and Team Rainbow!) which are of necessity wildly different, but both entertaining as full-of-muck

So if you've got a view on the current situation write it down, camouflage it behind a colourful title and perhaps it will become an obscure classic (Lord of the Rings? 1984? Gormenghast?)

There are also television dramas and political satires - not to mention the thousand or so political cartoons appearing daily, and here's one for your fridge:

http://i1134.photobucket.com/albums/m605/mystyrmystyry/Leunig_C.jpg

[Scheherazade]

I'd trust them to stop things wisely, around here. It's an international forum, and I think the moderators have a lot of experience with what might or might not end up flying off track and getting stupid.Thank you very much for the vote of confidence, Bill (I will take it that way even if it was not!)


I think when it comes to discussion of politics, the preceding adjective "current" is of uttermost importance and protests, in this case, are very current.

I would strongly urge everyone to trust our all-knowing and oh-so-friendly team of moderators as we all try our very best to be as fair and impartial as possible at all times.

Oh, and Mutatis, if it will assure you of our even-handedness, I have no scruples about closing abortion related discussion threads either.

[Emil Miller]

It is sometimes difficult to avoid overt references to political events when discussing social issues, but we have to leave the answer to the Original Post in the hands of the site moderators as it is beyond everyone's ability to agree an acceptable definition of the term 'political'.
To give an example, Paul Clem's championing of protests in the Middle East may offend any Litnet members living in those countries and who don't support the demonstrations.
Similarly, his assertion that Western countries are lucky in not having dictatorships, might offend Litnet members in China who are satisfied with what their government is doing.
In this respect, the BBC's reporter John Humphries speaking of his recent visit to China said:

They seemed genuinely baffled by my insistence that the ultimate freedom is the freedom to throw out the people in power if you don't like them.

"You do that in your country all the time," one of them pointed out to me, "and it doesn't seem, to make much difference. What we want is stability -and that's what we've got."

'Bingo!' would seem to be the most appropriate reply.