The reason folks bust out with all of the strong sentaments when their favorite topic is being talked about is because that person wants to have an honest conversation and have some apparent contradiction: "It is so obvious that we should do X and yet we are doing Y"

If enough people withdrawl because you don't have ugly conversations like that at garden parties, then I think that's a problem. I mean, I flat recitation of your thoughts on the matter are what are in order. Then go back to the cheese.

But instead we dance around direct disagreement and have an exchange of sarcasm "oy, yeah, PoliticianX is reeelly helping a lot there with LatestPolicyIdeaZ!" -- "I don't remember this kind of criticism coming from your lot when PoliticianY did that thing!!"

Do we "trigger" these conversations with our "polite" reactions? "Oh, I can tell by that look. Totally DemographicΩ!!"

Bad feedback? Probably. "Echo!"