Too few pant-hooting rationalist chimps had upvoted me for being an incremental and timid contributor.

Up and down votes here are (almost always) based on the quality of the thought process displayed in the post, and not the conclusion the post comes to. For example, I downvoted you for this. We humans must mentally use a connotation-free term for our interlocutors or we bias ourselves against them. The fact that you say such a thing out loud indicates that you probably do likewise mentally.

I would very much like to see some political discussions from LW people. I think the minimum karma to participate in them ought to be fairly high, perhaps 500 or 1000. I would even like to see what you have to say, if you can lose the "persuasive" mind-killing rhetoric.