It could be, and it should be, but it is not.

Ideally, this forum should have served for intelligent discussion of the TSA which, because of the prominence that FlyerTalk has, might have brought about some needed changes in that organization.

Mindlessly repeated mantras like "Kip Hawley is an idiot", or overboard exaggerations such as "Commies", "perverts", "wand rape", etc, have cheapened the forum to the point where it is impossible to take seriously anything posted there.

Unlike the OP, I do not blame the TS&S mods for this. It is true that a while back they ignored attacks on TSA employees which were in violation of the TOS but I don't believe that they gave other mods any more leeway than they did to non-mods. More than that, they have since adopted a policy of enforcing the TOS prohibition on attacks made against groups of employees.

The kinds of posts which I referred to above are not TOS violations and the mods have no valid reason to remove them. That does not mean that those posts are not harmful to FT as a whole and to the TS&S Forum in particular.

They are.

It is -- at least to me -- sad to see that such an excellent opportunity to have helpful discussions about this government agency has been wasted. Frankly, at this point, I think it is far too late to do anything about it.