Politics is not a dirty word. To coin a phrase. I just wish that on a local level more people would go into it. We tend to have the same mouths out there for decades at a time, and given the corruptive effect that 'easy' money has on most people it is not surprising that politics has such a bad reputation.

I like to discuss politics, as long as the participants have a certain detachment. The problem is when a person has a strong opinion on a certain subject or a particular politician and gets into a discussion with someone else who has an equally strong but *opposite* opinion on the matter; an ugly meltdown is quite possible.

But I still cannot stand fear mongers, especially when they don't know what the double hell they're talking about.