I tend to have a great sense of apathy whenever I read the site as they talk about how we must stop this Obama nomination, or we must slow down this bill or whatever, I'm what do you expect to do with 42 seats in the Senate, a few Republicans in the house. It seems to me the Republicans in the house might as well stay home and watch TV. and the Senators can just stay on hold until there's something so bad that even the moderates will fillibuster.

Absolutely correct re: the Catch-22 of traffic (comment volume). I've made suggestions in the past for trying to break through that Catch-22, and I expect to discuss again either with the contributors or with the whole community (I'm awaiting word from Ender). In a nutshell, most such tactics involve bringing a substantial number of people to SC at the same point in time, as well as adding features to SC to promote greater comment volume and faster responses to comments.

As for those "radical" comments, I think the more radical, over-the-top (and often offensive) remarks come from a small (albeit very active) minority of SC participants.

As for the condescending tone regarding religous faith, I think your point is probably valid -- that many persons of faith are likely to be turned off by such a  tone. I consider the matter a dilemma, though. I know you won't accept this view, but some, like me, view religious faith as different from just some difference of opinion on some policy matter or even on some reasonable disagreement over some analytical or "factual" matter. Regarding the former, we have enough humility to realize that, generally, there is some significant chance that we could be partly or completely wrong, even if we consider it unlikely. But regarding religious faith, we see it as simply irrational -- arguably akin to some selective, compartmentalized insanity (if such a form of "insanity" exists). Most religious people would react the same way if I said that the Pepsi bottle in front of me created the universe, has a particular history, is omniscient and omnipotent, has commanded me to do some things and not do others, and will reward or punish me accordingly, including granting me eternal life (or not). They would call me insane, even though their own religious beliefs are no more rational or likely to be valid.

So how am I (or others with the same view) supposed to speak of religious faith when the subject arises as part of some discussion of policy or something else or as a subject in itself? I guess you could say we should have the same humility that I spoke of earlier -- assume there's a significant chance that we could be wrong, and that it actualy does make sense to believe all that stuff based on...well, whatever (a "feeling", scripture, etc.). But I don't think people should speak as if no belief is irrational, even if calling it irrational turns some people off.  If some unquestionably, severely insane inpatient at a mental institution logged onto SC and represented his obvious hallucinations as reality (say he claims to be surrounded by little green men from Mars), I wouldn't expect or want others on SC to treat those hallucinations as if they could very well be real (well, unless we didn't want to upset a sick person, but that's probably an extraneous aspect of the analogy), or as just some difference of opinion.

Yes, some people, hyperpartisans in particular, go way overboard, inappropriately treating differences of opinion or of accepted "facts" or of philosophy as manifestations of the other person's irrationality or stupidity or evilness, but that doesn't mean that it's always inappropriate to consider someone's views irrational and to label them as such.

under that name.

As for the religious issue, do you have any suggestions of how to avoid a hostile atmosphere?  I'm personally of the opinion that if you bring your faith into the matter then you are implicitly giving license to debate the matter. 

WRT radical opinion- well I think that's kind of the point of communicating.  I find the notion that we can torture, or even that free markets are remotely effective, to be radical.  Obviously radical is rather subjective.  It can be an effective way to shock one out of complacent thought patterns, and radical truths are still truths, even if we find them distasteful. 

I understand what you're saying, but I think communication is a two-way street, and both sides have an obligation to attempt to communicate clearly.   All of the things you mentioned (good faith engagement, listening to the other person, etc) cut both ways.   Enforcing some set of "quality control" standards can get very onerous, because one person's idea of quality does not always match another's.    And people come here to talk politics, not to be lectured on semantics and style. 

Ideology often imposes differences that play into that (for example, the "false consensus bias " that often leads to the assessment that "people tend to assume that those who don't agree with them have something wrong with them!"  which was blogged about here and is sometimes amply---and humorously---displayed on this site).  I think we all have to be careful about assuming that "I" know what a quality argument looks like and cut each other some slack on form if substance is what we're going after.   When responding to a post that one thinks is badly put, one has a choice to address the shortcomings in style or to try to further the actual exchange of ideas.

kidding