I tried in my coffee shop to do this. I opened my shop for televised political debates. As people came in I would ask people to refrain from personal attacks and be pointed with examples and questions. Being a coffee house, 'a penny university' I expected it to be awesome. People would want to be enlightened, to learn, to understand.
The ratio of repulsicans to dumbocrats was 10/1 at best. I had to ask 2 people to leave during 1 debate, and turned the tv off on not her and warned people that we were a mixed audience and to be respectful of 'our fellow humans'. 'We are all people, we all want to be happy, and want others to be happy, we just have different routes'.
The people that caused the problems were dumbocrats. My initial thought was, typical, the elitist o it again. That is until the ones that remained came up and apologized for the others behavior and thanked me for the opportunity to come together as a neighborhood.
This created years of neighborhood debates of political and religious ideals. It was what I had dreamt about.
Sometimes people need this article to remind us that we are all brothers and sisters.
Thanks for the post and my rant.

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