There are equally-egregious offenders on the other side.

But that's really neither here nor there, is it? Such is the nature of political "discussion" (to use the term loosely), 'net-wide. It takes both registration and a lot of hard moderation work to keep forums devoted to far less contentious subjects from descending into a long series of juvenile tantrums and flame wars. This forum started well and did better than most before its inevitable descent. As you say, time to pull the plug.

Cool subatomic physics posts, though. I'll respond over on R&E when I have a bit more time. The subject matter is something of a (layperson's) hobby of mine.