When forums go bad

I spend a lot of time on the internet. And I've a few places I like to hang. Forums of one type or another.

One, that I've been at for years, seems to be rotting from the inside. The atmosphere is rapidly becoming venomous.

I'm not sure why. A lot of it, I think, is because is because of the U.S. election. We like to discuss politics there and, well, some people are really not nice about it. A semantic analysis of some of the posters comments would be, "McCain rules! Obama drools! Liberals must die! Die! DIE! DIE!"

There are a few people on the left side of the spectrum who are almost as bad. Their contempt for differences of opinion is high.

That contempt seems to be permeating every other thread as well. Because of it we've had two major blowups in the last month which has strained things horribly. Today one of the long time members, a person I really liked, has left forever. Deleted their account and they're gone. Sigh.

I hate when people let themselves fall prey to emotions like anger and hatred. It accomplishes so little and does so much damage.

Myself, I think every forum should have moderators. Like bouncers in a bar they can keep things from getting out of hand and ban those people who aren't willing to play nice. Some might argue that this is an interference of freedom of speech, but I don't see where this freedom allows a person to be a nasty asshole.

My $0.02.