Peter - I think one thing you'll find around these parts is a relatively low asshole count. We've tried pretty hard to set a more congenial tone in this group, and we have a pretty tough "no politics" rule that we hold pretty seriously, in the interest of keeping things civil.
There are certainly places where trolls get away with tossing bombs just for the sake of tossing them, but we tend to self-moderate a lot of that behavior.
I think the tone of the community certainly matters, and whatever you let people get away with, there's always someone trying to push that boundary an extra 5% just to push it. Eventually, someone pushes back.
We try to keep things from pushing too much here, and keep focused more on the games (and let's face it, we talk a lot of music & movies, too) and try to keep the noise somewhere else. No one is saying you can't have an opinion, but like I said on the podcast, you should try to respect the rules of the house owner whose living room you're hanging out in, and keep your feet off the furniture, if that's the prevailing standard.