I have to agree and disagree with RiffRaff.
Out of all the members here RiffRaff holds the highest excellence in being fair, respectful, carefully worded responses, and police the forums with the only motive to make sure only facts are spoken.
What I disagree on is that political discussion shouldn't just be on the political sub forum. Politics are the soul reason why most things happen. So yes maybe a subject isn't political, but the subject or issue itself is usually caused by politics.
The only way to solve this is to create two dedicated threads for same issue/subject. One thread ONLY meant for reporting and another thread ONLY meant for discussions. IF this measure isn't taken on these forums no one can complain.
Thank you for that sentiment; I do the best I can to remain as non-partisan as possible. It helps that my personal political beliefs align with a third party, so it's a little easier for me to remain neutral towards supporters of the two major parties.
Let me clarify something. It's not that I don't think politics has any place in any thread other than the Politics forum. War is diplomacy by other means, so obviously politics are going to play into military issues.
What I don't care for are political statements such as, "President X from Party A was a traitor to America, while President Y from Party B was a true patriotic American." I don't care whose names you substitute for X and Y or which political parties you substitute for A and B, statements like that are not helpful to geopolitical analysis. Hyperbole doesn't help anyone. Facts supported by reliable sources do.
As an example, someone at one point said something along the lines of "President X gutted the US military leaving America weak while President Y was a friend to the military and supported a strong America."
(I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember the exact wording, but you get the idea.)
That is a singularly unhelpful statement to whatever military situation we're attempting to analyze. Attempting to place blame on how we arrived at a crisis situation is 100% irrelevant to the crisis, at least until the crisis is over. The fact is we have a crisis and our primary goal should be to attempt to figure out where it's going based on the best available information we have available to us. Our focus should be on the present and the future, not the past, except where analyzing historical behavior in similar crises might help us establish a pattern to predict future behavior in the current crisis. This should be done dispassionately, without emotion, and with supporting evidence.
I'm not asking anyone to keep their political opinions to themselves. I'm asking that hyperpartisan comments that are made with the sole intention of praising one party while denigrating the opposite party be relegated to the Politics forum, or at the very least be kept out of threads dedicated to monitoring one crisis or another.
This is political analysis: "President X reduced military spending by XX% between the years of XXXX and XXXX, which might have possibly emboldened Country Z to act the way they are right now."
This is hyperpartisan opinion: "President X does not support the American military and killed military funding because he wants to destroy America."
See the difference?
I don't want to stifle or censor political discourse. I fully support the open exchange of ideas. I just want political OPINIONS kept separate from military ANALYSIS as much as possible. That's all. And I honestly think it's a reasonable request. If anyone thinks I'm being unreasonable, please speak up. I will take honest criticism under advisement and if enough people are telling me the same thing, I'm not too proud to adjust my expectations accordingly.
Now, go be excellent to one another.