Agreed. It is always posts repeating left/center-left dogmas. Agree or disagree, fine. It is also fair to dismiss the entire exercise as meaningless bickering.

Agreed. It is always posts repeating left/center-left dogmas. Agree or disagree, fine. It is also fair to dismiss the entire exercise as meaningless bickering. However I find it hard to describe this as "intellectual curiosity", when the discussion is narrowly limited to specific brands of sloganeering. Entire books have been written on some of the common disputes arising on this site. There's rarely anything new added in the usual short comments here. Most commonly I read a pop culture interpretation/regurgitation of the same concepts. Perhaps it was something a talking head repeated somewhere? When I have made the mistake of engaging, I'll cite an author or perhaps link a short article by the same author summarizing some of the points. Inevitably, posters will smear the source for having, "an agenda". As if all of politics isn't framed from within "agendas". It is bad enough on explicitly partisan posts like this one, but I'm also noticing politics creeping into other benign areas. A discussion about Google's practices will always lead down the rabbit hole of "more regulation and government can solve that!". Observations around the business cycle, state managed economy and how these factors fuel monopolies are less welcome. Perhaps John Oliver didn't give those talking points.