Having foolishly done the above (mostly religion topics) for way too many years, I hereby confirm your assertion as being entirely accurate. I would have to agree such discussions often (usually) (um, ok, always) become quite unsightly at some point, but then that's because they interest us so much.
The thing is, while manners are quite appealing, they are also a form of lying. So when we stop lying, sometimes things get more interesting, and real. Real is good, it's just kinda ugly sometimes.
So one question could be whether we will use our Macs to skate out on the ice and explore those issues which most deeply impact us, or instead use them to play it safe and limit conversations to topics few are interested enough in to lose their cool over. To each their own seems a good answer here.
It is not emotional opinion, but cold hard documented fact, that we have decided to give a man who publicly brags about groping women the launch codes to our nuclear arsenal.
Normally politics wouldn't have much impact upon our Mac life, and thus would be reasonably seen to be off topic on a Mac forum. But once we start sending perverts to the White House it seems reasonable to wonder if that is still true.
But then, there's the upside too. Nuclear war would probably stop Apple from snooping around on my Mac.
