This is Hacker News. Maybe I am projecting something here, but I thought of us as explorers of ideas. Do we want to prevent, to silence, discussion?
The problem is that it would only take a few people who can't remain rational for a tipping point to be reached whereby the overall quality of debate badly degrades. (That's when some of the most valuable contributors start to disappear.)
>What will we do when an issue is both important and divisive
If such a political issue affected hackers directly then there'd be no way to avoid that discussion.
>Do we want to prevent, to silence, discussion?
Of course not. And that's precisely why politics in general should be avoided.
Aside from the eve psych, I'm with Eliezer Yudkowsky on this:
That's what downvotes are for. That's why we should refrain from downvoting for disagreement and keeping it for shorting out comments that are damaging to the discussion.