I think this same question has been addressed many times in the past four years and my answer has always been the same, however, I'll repeat it here again for folks that may be new, or have missed it. :)
When I was doing my officer training back on the 60's, we were told there were three things that shouldn't be discussed while drinking in the officer's mess. They were women, religion and politics .. :lol:
The reason was simple. Those discussions always lead to bitter disagreements and acrimony, even amongst friends. To validate this, all you have to do is see the vitriol spewed at and about people on Internet forums, that have a political or religious aspect to them. We even saw it here for a period of time when we temporarily provided a home for the broken Jouster forums. ;)
We're supposed to be sharing our forums to interact with a lot of like minded folks, who share a common love of old milsurps and the terrific collecting hobby surrounding them. Most of our 12,000+ registered members want to come here talk about Enfields, Mausers, M1 Carbines, 1903 Springfields, or whatever genre of collectible firearm they love to converse about.
We really don't want to see a lot of good "electronic" friends who may differ in political or religious views, destroy an otherwise enjoyable experience talking about old guns, by deliberately creating a posting environment which by its nature promotes divisiveness.
There's a huge number of political discourse sites (and forums) on the Internet already (some on gun sites), catering to both left and right wing viewpoints. If anyone really needs a "fix" of watching perfectly sane and normal people deteriorate into name calling and verbal assaults simply over their political views, we'd recommend they join one of those sites and have at it. ;)
Our site isn't the place for this kind of behaviour, or the content that causes it, plus we have no desire to have to install a "Romper Room" such as exists on the new Jouster Forums as a time-out area for mature adults, who when otherwise discussing just gun related material wouldn't even need it. :lol:
Our registration agreement that everyone clicked "yes" on to register here is quite clear ....
Quote:
Registration to Military Surplus Collectors Forums is free! This site is designed to encourage the open exchange of information amongst the general military surplus collector community, thereby helping all of our members to better enjoy their chosen hobby. It's not a venue for discussing the politics of firearms ownership or the practices and policies of various governments trying to control them. We do insist that you abide by the rules and policies detailed below. If you agree to the terms, please check the 'I agree' checkbox and press the 'Register' button below. If you would like to cancel the registration, click here to return to the forums index.
