So, to summarize.
For the entirety of 2012, the spectacle of American politics was dutifully recorded by our very own American Election Megathread, which hit seven hundred pages before collapsing under its own weight just after New Year's.
To fill the gap, RedKing started a new politics megathread, intended to carry us over until we could legitimately start a new election thread sometime in late 2014 or 2015- which is a long time.
It lasted about a month and 67 pages before degenerating into a pile of flames and personal attacks. Largely this was the work of one member who has now fallen under the justice of Toad's mighty banhammer, although it does take two to flame, and a number of others helped it on its way.
I'mma put my foot down and make this clear: do not flame. Under any circumstances. Now I trust that y'all are adults enough to self-police most of the time and cool down when things look like they might get out of hand, but I won't hesitate to lock the thread for a day or two to let everybody simmer down. Do not make me lock the thread. I reserve the right to ban people from the thread if they start picking too many fights (although I don't actually know whether the Toad will back me up on the right to do so.)
Other ground rules:
-Everyone is welcome: conservatives, moderates, liberals, libertarians, socialists, communists, monarchists, fascists (er, do we have any of those?). We're generally a fairly liberal bunch here on Bay12, and I don't want to make everyone else feel unwelcome. Still, bigotry will not be tolerated, although I'll draw a line between actively acting bigoted and simply stating you don't support gay marriage.
-Do not pull a claim out of thin air without anything to support it. The old guard here is usually pretty good at doing this, but it's worth mentioning. If you make a random-ass claim without a citation, or a citation to Conservapedia or Time Cube, you should only expect that we'll ignore you.
-This is an
American politics thread.
Parallels and citations from abroad are of course permitted, but don't create a ten-page discussion on David Cameron's latest policy.
-And it is an American
politics thread. So keep meta-ing to a minimum. We also don't need ten-page discussions on the Randroid utopia. Or the Juche idea.
Ladies and gentlemen: Washington never sleeps, though it is often comatose, and here we are, Shinji Ikari-like, ogling the body politic.
1 Get to politickin'!
And to start us off:
Justice Scalia may be the greatest troll in the history of the Supreme Court.1. I am far prouder of this metaphor than I have any reason to be.