That one should assess political stability and predict the actions of politicians is a very different claim than that one should discuss optimal policy, which is what most people mean by "discuss politics" and a good chunk of your activities on the education thread. I find that people's discussions of policy tend to reinforce their beliefs in the stability of the current regime. That is a very serious cost of discussing policy as if one could control it.
There is a tendency to downvote articles and commentaries with a political subtext with a remark on how politics is the mind-killer. I completely understand that nobody wants his mind to be killed, however, I disagree on the employed methods. I don't think anybody can really afford to ignore politics. It's a fact about any group of even a handful of people. Thus instead of shunning politics I think it's better to build one's rational defenses. Understanding that politics is a problem is only the first step. If you stop there, there will always be a big part of life where you are not rational. Therefore I suggest that, as long as it doesn't get out of hands, there should always be room for political discussions if not on the main site at least in the discussion section.