It's impossible for a large public forum to have nuanced, correct, cogent comments on any topic, let alone contentious ones. All internet dynamics point against that. We're just trying to muddle through and stave off death for a little longer (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). Even that modest, melancholy goal consumes all the time and energy we have, so the bar can't go much higher—at least not very quickly.

This isn't just a problem of other people being wrong and ignorant. It has to do with human nature, which applies to all of us. If you consider a little bit what led you to post a nationalistic swipe when you felt frustrated, that should be clear enough. We're all on the path of slowly learning not to react this way, but the solution needs also to be a self thing and not just an other thing.

By the way, it's not uncommon for people arguing about Canadian topics to both be Canadian and both be misinterpreting the other as a foreigner/outsider/other. (I say Canada because that was the topic here. It applies to other populations as well of course.) Such misunderstandings are excruciating and I sometimes wish I could step in and point this out, but we'd never out people like that. (Not a comment on the current thread; I didn't check.)