"It would be nice if we could be a little less aggressive and a little more open-minded in our discussions here."

This is standard practice in the UK in parliament, discussions in the pub and around the Sunday dinner table and as I've said before on MudCat it is a cultural difference in debating some cannot seem to get their head around. What you see as aggressive we see as robust. What you see as attacking ideas we see as challenging each other to defend their arguments and convince us our own are wrong. There's nothing close-minded about this way of discussing a subject at all, I think most people are very open to reconsidering their own opinions after a lively debate if the arguments are persuasive and/or new facts come to light during the course of that discussion.

Attacking ideas and not people is the essence of good debate. Ideas should be interrogated closely, dissected and then vigorously and passionately debated. If you ever come to the UK and get caught in a pub discussion you'd better be ready to defend your ideas and point of view with a bit of backbone. It's OK though, because unless someone gets very personal there's unlikely to be trouble (caveat: choose your pub as you would anywhere) and even then no-one is ever going to pull a gun and pop a cap in yo ass; more likely they might even buy you pint and start talking about the football.