Discussing politics

I have had to delete some posts recently.

One was suggesting that the French police used too much ammunition in the recent anti terrorist operations. Another one suggested that in the USA you need to carry a gun when going to school.

While one person may find these funny, another one (particularly in France or the USA, respectively, in light of the recent shoot-outs in both places) might not.

While I know some people are not all that happy about what they call “censorship”, the reality is that almost nothing gets deleted here, plus you all know who the main mod is and where to find him Compare that with most other forums where

• moderation is done silently (posts just vanish), AND
• the mods are anonymous (and don’t communicate), AND
• anybody disagreeing with a mod gets instantly banned (and again no communication is entered into)

I personally know one European pilot who had a “little dispute” with the mods on a big and very polite US site, and he was ejected from there faster than the speed of light. We don’t want to go down that road. Almost nobody here has been banned (apart from spammers – did one of them just now).

Obviously it is fine to have discussions on how some European political development (e.g. the UK leaving the EU) might affect aviation, etc. But you all know where the civilised boundary lies. Would you say the above mentioned two statements aloud in a room full of French or American people? Obviously not So there is no place for them here.