Those are good questions for sure and could lead to some interesting discussions, but (and maybe my generally left-leaning bias is showing by saying this) they're questions that are in many ways self-evident. For example, it's hard to argue that health care should only be affordable for the rich and that everyone else should just die in the streets.

There's other issues that are much less clear and, in my experience, more likely to shift from discussions and debates into strife and arguments:

- Should private citizens be allowed to own firearms? Should they be allowed to carry them on the streets?

- What do we do about meth and opiates on our streets? What do we do about the associated property and violent interpersonal crime?

- Should we start building more nuclear power plants to cut down on our greenhouse gas emissions?

And locally:

- The city is expanding to the west. What should this neighbourhood look like?

These, I believe, are squarely in the realm of "politics" and unless you're having the discussion in an ideological bubble are likely to be much hotter-button issues.