Since when are political comments like this one welcome on HN. I tend to share some of your views, but that's unimportant. HN can't be allowed to become a cesspool that the rest of the Web is.
I don't think the expression of a political perception is a thing that is problematic. What is problematic is when it becomes polemic. Anybody who knows the region an has been in Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Macedonia knows that there is a lot of conflict potential in that region which hardcore nationalists on all sides of geographic and language borders. All while they share a lot of common culture in terms of food, music (although every side claims they have been the ones inventing it).
My own perception as someone who has been in the region is that Turkish nationalism is indeed stronger and more visible than e.g. Greek or Bulgarian nationalism, but maybe I just have not been to the right regions in my 20+ trips to Greece.
For that matter I like Turkey as well. They have incredible subcultures, Istanbul is a great city, or the beautiful lake Adana with it's kind people.
I myself come from a region with strong tendecies of border disputes (Austrian-Slowenian-Italian border) and I am truly aware of how impossible and stupid it can be to draw a political border into an area where you have two or more minorities on each sides, because in daily lives and in lived culture those people are closer to each other than to the "great" nations that have an interest in marking these borders boldly.
Saying nothing in face of conflict can be just as political as saying something.
The issue here is that this is a fairly benign and interesting story, but this person has used it as an opportunity to air a grievance on something which, to be honest, doesn't seem related other than occurring in roughly the same area. Tangents are fine IMO if they're "if you liked that story, check this...", but if they're just trying to shoe-horn in a rant about some provocative issue that could be crossing the line
And it's a good thing I explicitly said political talk was fine, otherwise someone might think you were calling me an "idiot", right? :D
Heated comments aren't flagged and downvoted, but unpopular ones are. HN just has a very unique profile of what it considers unpopular opinions that aren't the same as American political issues. There are plenty of downvote squads who will mass-flag submissions they don't like. The comments on such submissions will often be even-headed discussions with a wide range of views represented, all the while the sub is going from flagged to vouched over and over.
It's jusy mob mentality of Marz=Communism=(evil or usefull idiot)
Very few people know that Marx himself was puzzled as to why his book became so popular in Russia, and how little his writing has in common with ideology thay followed