This is an aviation forum. If people can't keep to aviation topics, they should leave. For myself, I don't want to see yet another forum ruined by political discussions.
It seems that the people most adamant about discussing politics have the least amount of knowledge about what is going on. They ruin every online forum they choose to patronize, then move on to the next new one to do the exact same thing.
Finally, formally condoning political discussion is nothing more than handing out licenses to troll. Just look at the public aviation mailing lists - Sky-L on Yahoo is a perfect example. There is hardly ever any aviation-related conversation anymore, due to the fact that several extremists hijack every single conversation in order to turn it into a political hate-fest.
Can we please JUST talk about PLANES?!? That would pretty much explain the name of this place - Pilots of America. PILOTS is the operative word there. I realize that pilots and politics happen to start with the same letter, but there are already more than enough places for people to vent about their views on politics. There are precious few good forums for discussing aviation.
Jamie