I don't read the Announcements thread, so the proposed changes of the political discussion were a big surprise to me. It's just that I only now have time to reply even here. I've been on a one-week spree in China doing business visits and sleeping very little, so this can be somewhat incoherent.
Yes, the political discussion part of the General Discussion was in the need of moderation. But changing it out to an invisible sub-forum would basically mean I'll omit the board entirely and visit HLP considerably less. Were this to go on, I'd probably omit General Discussion entirely, and would switch over to the Gaming and either writing playthroughs or following them.
I support MP-Ryan's view entirely. My personal thought of the issue in political discussion is that different cultures (and different ages) expect things to be told in a different way. I'm somewhat aware of the differences, but the interpretation requires some background knowledge which is typically not available in the internet discussions.
Plane to catch, gotta go once again